DIGITAL LITERACY
COMMUNICATIONS 009 Syllabus (Fall, 2006)
Instructor:
Professor Rob Frieden
102 Carnegie Building
863-7996; E-mail: rmf5@psu.edu
Class Hours: Tues.
Office Hours: Monday
GENERAL PERSPECTIVE
Digital literacy refers to the skills, insights and savvy needed for one to exploit fully the benefits accruing from the convergence of telecommunications and information processing technologies and markets. Put another way, digital literacy helps you "pass the Best Buy" test making it possible to avoid expensive surprises and disappointments. Much of the traditional ways we thinking about information, communications and entertainment (“ICE”) need updating in terms of how to become sophisticated consumers and citizens. Additionally, successfully managing an ICE career requires interdisciplinary skills including the ability to understand how technologies make businesses profitable and how technological innovations can destroy existing business plans. While you do not need a degree in information technology, law, economics, business or computer science you must have the ability to:
* make the Internet serve real time research and data acquisition needs in addition to leisure time surfing and entertainment;
* work with block diagrams;
* understand countless acronyms;
* accept complexity, uncertainty, change and the need for self-direction; and
* integrate other skills with the technologies used to manufacture a product, or deliver a service.
I have designed this course to
introduce the technologies in telecommunications and information processing,
with an eye toward giving you the necessary perspective on how old, “legacy”
technologies work and how new technologies will come to market. We will
investigate old, new and prospective technologies primarily through an
interactive class room analysis, including a look at incumbent or emerging
companies bringing products and services to market.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly and creative
activity in an open, honest and responsible manner, free from fraud and
deception, and is an educational objective of the
NOTE TO STUDENTS WITH
DISABILITIES
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
The course will enhance
your digital literacy and help you pass the Best Buy test. We will
examine a number of technologies used by the mass media, telephone companies,
wireless carriers, satellite operators, information service providers,
electronics manufacturers and consumers.
You must prepare for each class by reading the assigned materials and generally taking responsibility to understand the technology, or to ask questions. Additionally, I assume that you have an interest in the subject matter and do not consider it a chore to "keep up with the technology." You do not meet this obligation by referring to the basic tutorials available from Howstuffworks.com, but this site offers an appropriate starting point.
All reading
assignments have a free World Wide Web link, or have been placed on electronic
reserve. I expect you to take advantage
of the free access to The New York Times
and USA Today.
GRADING
The course will have three quizzes, each representing one-third of your grade. The course also requires interaction between instructor and student. I place a premium on class participation and dialog.
I do not offer extra credit opportunities. Additionally any student receiving a D or lower on any test must schedule an appointment with me.
After the completion of the course I will determine whether a curve should apply. Absent a curve the following scale shall apply:
93 to 100 percent = A
90 to 92 percent = A-
87 to 89 percent = B+
83 to 86 percent = B
80 to 82 percent = B-
77 to 79 percent = C+
70 to 76 percent = C
60 to 69 percent = D
Below 59 percent = F
Week One: Introduction to Digital Literacy
Assignments:
In class technology savvy assessment.
Tim Kelly, Tomorrow’s Network Today (
Lara Srivastava, The Internet of Things, Press Briefing (
ICE Cultures (handout)
ICE Trends (handout)
This
week we will get acquainted with each other, the course and the concept of
digital literacy. We also will begin to consider how markets and
technologies are merging, becoming less significant or becoming more important.
Additionally we also will lay the foundation for exploring what new
technologies will reach critical mass, particularly ones using the Internet and
radio spectrum.
This exercise requires you
to acquire a new list of buzz words and acronyms, including convergence,
multimedia, compression, broadband, bandwidth, throughput, digital, packet
switching, etc. Additionally we will begin considering how the technologies
addressed in class will constitute a part of the information super highway.
Will it be a telephone company delivered, switched medium that builds up, over
time, from the twisted wire pair to include coaxial and fiber optic cable? Will
wireless and cable television operators play a role? What will become the
“killer applications”?
Week Two: Being Digital
Assignment:
Dale Hatfield, Trends in Technological Development, available at http://www.pff.org/irle/2004presentations/hatfield.pdf (slides 1-14)
Internet Society, Barry M. Leiner et al, A Brief History of the Internet; available at: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
Packet Switching demo; available at: http://www.pbs.org/opb/nerds2.0.1/geek_glossary/packet_switching_flash.html
This week we will get a better
understanding of analog and digital technologies. Because humans see and
hear in an analog manner, digital technologies typically require a
conversion. Additionally we briefly will review the Internet's history
and its configuration as a “network of networks.”
Week Three: What the Frequency Kenneth?: Managing the Spectrum Ether
Karl Manheim, Technology Primer: Electromagnetic Wave Propagation & Other Simple Principles (2002); available at: http://classes.lls.edu/spring2002/telecom-manheim/materials/spectrum3.html
New
This week we will learn about the
physical and economic characteristics of radio spectrum, a resource having the
potential for both scarcity and plentiful capacity. Because most ICE
devices use spectrum, we need to understand how this resource works and how to
manage it. Additionally we will get acquainted with the different
propagational characteristics of various frequency bands and what services best
fit which frequency band.
Week Four: First Quiz and Review
Week Five: Digital Television--Where "HD Ready" Isn't
Assignments:
Timefordvd.com, Digital TV & HDTV Tutorial, available at: http://www.timefordvd.com/tutorial/DigitalTVTutorial.shtml
Timefordvd.com, High Definition: The Future of DVD, available at: http://www.timefordvd.com/tutorial/pf/HDDVDTutorial.shtml
Samsung Corporation, Understanding TV Basics, interactive
guide available at: http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/campaign/dtvguide/module_3_1.jsp
Samsung Corporation, What is HDTV, interactive guide
available at: http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/campaign/dtvguide/module_2.jsp
Samsung Corporation, Types of Digital TVs , interactive guide
available at: http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/campaign/dtvguide/module_4.jsp
This week we we will examine the
migration from a 525 line, analog (NTSC) broadcast television system to a
higher resolution, digital system. While our examination will concentrate on
digital television, we cannot ignore the spectrum allocation, regulatory,
standard setting and business aspects. In particular we will assess the ongoing
battle between broadcasters and television manufacturers, who want cheap,
interlaced sets, and computer manufacturers and Internet ventures, who want
more expensive, non-interlaced sets. In conjunction with this assessment we
will consider where consumers will install their DTV sets: in the family room
as a television, or elsewhere as part of an information appliance. We also will
find out why "HD Ready" means that the set cannot receive an HDTV signal.
Week Six: Cable Television--How Can the Signal Get So Bad So Fast?
Assignments:
Dr. Walter Ciciora, An Introduction to Basic CATV; available at: http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~jones/cscie129/nu_lectures/lecture13/CATV/CATV.html
Review Fiber-to-the-Home Council, Fiber-to-the-Home Overview and Technical Tutorial, available at: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/tutorial/FTTH_Tutorial-8-7-03.ppt#1
Cable modem technology has begun
to change substantially how consumers access the Internet. Cable modems will
replace existing set top converters and provide an “always on” high-speed
(possibly multi megabits per second) data connection, albeit on a downstream
basis. Upstream transmission rates will be slower and more troublesome.
We will examine the three phases of cable television development: 1)
community antenna television that imported broadcast television signals; 2)
cable television that added non-broadcast programming and began to develop
narrowband upstream signal processing; and 3) two-way interactive, broadband
telecommunications via cable television.
Week Seven: Satellite Technology--How Can a Signal Travel 44,600 Miles and Can Provide a Nice Picture to a Pizza Sized Dish?
Assignments:
Boeing, Corp. What Is A Satellite? available at http://www.sia.org/papers/sat101.pdf
Satellite Industry Association, Satellite Industry Overview (2004); available at: http://www.sia.org/industry_overview/sat101.ppt
Terrestrial, wireline
telecommunication media like fiber optic cables appear as the preferred media
for transmitting content. However, satellites excel in
point-to-multipoint applications and can provide a "gap filling"
service in areas where a business case does not support ubiquitous wireline
service. We will examine the basic components in satellite telecommunications
used to provide video programming, voice and data services.
Week Eight: Second Quiz and Review
Week Nine: Basic Telephony
Assignments:
Dale Hatfield, Trends in Technological Development, available at http://www.pff.org/irle/2004presentations/hatfield.pdf (slides 14-27)
Cisco, Understanding Telephony Basics, available at: http://cisco-elearning-sjdc.digisle.net/cmn/pec/cim/voip_v2r4/content/module1/mod1_tech2.htm
This week we will walk through a
number of block diagrams that graphically show how a telephone call travels
from Point A to Point B. Understanding how the conventional telecommunication
infrastructure provides transport functions will enable us to explore whether
and how other enterprises can compete in markets heretofore considered a natural
monopoly and "bottleneck." By understanding how the telephone company
provides services, we can begin to see how a cable television or wireless local
loop carrier might provide a competing service.
Week Ten: Next Generation Broadband Wireline Technologies
Assignments:
Jaroslaw K. Ponder, Next Generation
Networks: Challenges for Future Regulatory Policy and Performance of
Telecommunications Sector (
Mark Francisco, Different Rooms
Different Views—The Evolving Home Networking Landscape, ITU-T Workshop
Opportunities and Challenges in Home Networking (
Current Communications Group, BPL Communications, presentation to the
This week we will begin to examine how technological innovations have
caused previously discrete and stand alone markets to become integrated and
competitive. Telephony used to be considered a relatively narrowband,
voice-dominated two-way, switched service while cable television used to be
considered a wideband, video-dominated one-way service. Now, innovations in
compression, digitization, computerization, switching, etc. make it possible
for the telephone network to become broadband and for the cable television plant
to become two-way.
Week Eleven: "Can You Hear Me Now?”--Terrestrial Wireless Technologies
Assignments:
Lara Srivastava, The Mobility and Ubiquity of ICTs (
International Engineering Consortium, Cellular Communications, available at: http://www.eng.iastate.edu/ee423/EE421/Lecture/cellcommtutorial.pdf
Didier Lebrat, Applications and Integrated Services for End Users, Tomorrow's Network Today Workshop (
Mobile wireless technologies have
penetrated telecommunications markets with unprecedented success. Cellular
radio ramped up from 0 subscribers in the early 1980s to over 150 million now
in the U.S. Deep pocketed players have bid billions of dollars for the
privilege to use spectrum for Personal Communication Services that shrink the
size of the transmission cell to serve people at lower prices via handsets with
longer battery lives, and also for so-called Third Generation services. We will
examine cellular radio, personal communication services, specialized mobile
radio and other wireless technologies.
Week Twelve: Voice Over the Internet Protocol
Assignment:
International Engineering Consortium, Voice over Internet Protocol; available at: http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/int_tele/
Intel, IP Telephony Basics, available at: http://www.intel.com/network/csp/resources/white_papers/4070web.htm
Dr. Tim Kelly, The Rise of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (
This week we will learn how the Internet can serve as a somewhat awkward vehicle for "free" telephone calling worldwide. Our analysis should show the increasingly versatile nature of the Internet and its how it may financially threaten incumbent service providers and the current pricing regime.
Week
Thirteen: Third Quiz and Review