IST 402: Emerging Technologies

I had this as part of my previous post about HAX, but it was getting unruly, so I am exercising my rarely used editorial authority to make this its own post. In addition to all the HAX work, Bryan Ollendyke is also teaching a course this semester about Emerging Technologies (IST 402), you can see the syllabus and highlights using the previous link. For me the topics link breaks down the focus of this class nicely, which is to help students at Penn State’s Information School get a grounding in not only the web fundamentals like HTML/CSS, Git, and a variety of Content Management Systems, but also look at basic server infrastructure, front end and back development (there’s even OER) to get a solid footing in the developments in web publishing.

IST 402 Course Website

It is a wide-ranging overview that helps students dig in on some of these concepts to understand not only how these things work in theory, but by spinning up a server and making he abstract tangible through hands-on labs for each topic. When talking to Bryan about the course he noted the goal was not only for students to explore their online identity through the various technologies highlighted, but also as a way to prepare them to talk intelligently about everything from web components to databases to server stacks. It reminds me a bit of what Paul Bond and I were working towards with the Internet Course we taught at UMW in 2014, but Bryan’s approach provides a wider lens on what the technical underpinnings of current emerging web publishing technologies are well beyond cPanel. I love creative courses like this, and I can’t help but think Bryan’s actually teaching the work he is already doing with HAX will just make the whole thing that much more awesome. 

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