Week 1 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the
week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
Lynda Shaffer’s article is a ‘revisionist’ work. Having read
this work, define revisionism. Provide examples from
“Southernization” to show how her work challenged your view (or the
dominant view as you understand it) of human history.
Is the History of Technology addressed thoroughly enough in
teaching history as a whole? Is it addressed incorrectly? For example, should
technology be seen as something that determines the course of a particular
society, or is the development of a civilization and its values more complex
than this?
Drawing on this week’s readings, explain this quote,
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
(L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between 1953, 17)
The underlying assumption for many modern people is that
technology = progress. Is this true? What does progress mean? What are some of
the many ways people define progress?
This class in entitled “Technological Transformations,”
and the focus is on progress as a product of technology. Drawing on this week’s readings as an
introduction to the topic, discuss what you expect to learn in this class. What is the importance of Aristotle,
Archimedes, and the concept of southernization to the big picture?
Week 2 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the
week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
Homework help – Discuss the impact of technology on Medieval society and
culture and the impact of society and culture on the development of Medieval
technology.
The concept of the Middle Ages or the medieval period comes
from the Renaissance. The Renaissance saw a reaching back to the classical past
of Greece and Rome, a rebirth of classical ideals. The Middle Ages were seen as
dark and sterile, an age of ignorance and superstition when little to nothing
new or of value was produced. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?
Homework help – Discuss the nature of the Medieval university and the ways in
which its structure influenced the reception of Aristotelianism in the Latin
West.
The intellectual history of the later Middle Ages has
traditionally been described as decadent, autumnal, waning. Yet recently a few
scholars have asserted that the period between 1250-1450 was one of innovation,
change, possibility. Which view is more accurate and why? Medievalists tend to
dismiss this argument out of hand. Take a fresh look at this argument and
consider the extent to which the Middle Ages was an sterile age, merely passing
on diluted versions of the heritage of antiquity, and the extent to which it
contributed new and vital elements to the European tradition.
Week 3 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the
week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
How did the printing press transform human knowledge? How do
you see the necessary simplicity of oral communication affecting the depth of
understanding that people had about the news, so to speak? How would the fact
that most information about the world, most news, came from the pulpit affect
the transmission of this information to villagers and townspeople? How did the
printing press change this?
Compare the map of 1374 with Ptolemy’s map. What does
Ptolemy’s map allow that the 1374 map does not? Why was the discovery of
Ptolemy’s map so important? How did it change the way people saw the universe?
Likewise, compare memory and print in terms of how they changed the meaning of
knowledge and how people saw their universe.
How do the following quotations illustrate the tension
between science and religion in the Renaissance? How did new cosmological
discoveries contribute to the establishment of the Church?
“The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way
the heavens go.” – Galileo Galilei
“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand
is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” – Galileo
Galilei
Homework help – Discuss the concept of the Renaissance Artist-Scientist.
Write my Essay Online Writing Service with Professional Essay Writers – Explain the several Renaissance concepts of perspective. What are these
artist-scientists attempting to accomplish? Homework help – Discuss the works of Masaccio and
Leonardo da Vinci among others.
Week 4 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the
week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
The progress of logic and knowledge of the physical world
during the Scientific Revolution was constantly at odds with the oppositional
force of religion and mysticism. How were average Europeans, and the scientists
themselves, affected by the dilemma created by these forces?
What were the conditions necessary to advance astronomical
knowledge from Copernicus to Newton? How did they develop during the
seventeenth century?
One of our themes this semester is that before several
transformations, people looked to the past in order to make sense of their
universe; people lived in a world with little change; people were not
particularly optimistic. All of this changed, however, over the course of
several centuries. In the readings so far this semester, where do you see
people beginning to look to other sources than an authority from the past; beginning
to experience and expect more and more change in their lives; and beginning to
expect the future to be better than the present? This question will appear
again in Week 8.
Drawing on the readings, describe a day in the life of one
of the following 16th-19th century people. You may use your historical
imagination to prepare your post, but make sure you use the readings to provide
evidence for the details you include in your account. You may cite from
credible outside sources in addition to the required readings.
Ruler
Church Authority – Protestant or Catholic – This can include
a monk or nun, for anyone in the Church was seen as an authority by many in
society.
Intellectual – Scientist, Philosopher, Scholar, Writer,
Musician, etc.
Merchant
Peasant / Farmer (The transition occurs in this period for
most.)
Week 5 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week
on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
How did the Industrial Revolution transform people’s daily
lives? Be sure to include sanitation and labor.
How do Burke and Hare illustrate the changes brought about
by the Industrial Revolution?
The following quote from Jaques Barzun’s From Dawn to
Decadence addresses the railroad. Homework help – Discuss the impact of the railroad on daily
lives or on the Industrial Revolution. In what ways did locomotion create a
technological transformation for humanity as a whole – at least in the areas
where it existed?
“At first, machinery affected only those who organized
its use and the men and women who worked in factories. But by 1830 a different
type of machine came into being that changed the life and the minds of all
peoples. The memory of it is nearly gone, but it was the completest change in
human experience since the nomadic tribes became rooted in one spot to grow
grain and raise cattle; it was in effect a reversal of that settling down.
Locomotion by the force of steam, the railroad, uprooted mankind and made of it
individual nomads again.” (Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to
the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (New York: HarperCollins,
2000), 539)
Week 6 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
In addition to your regular discussion this week, post
another thread with your Multimedia Presentation in it for the class to view.
Then, respond to at least one of your peers’ presentations with additional
thoughts or questions.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the
week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
How does the attempt to control and codify plants and
animals lead to eugenics? How are both of these views optimistic? Pessimistic?
How does the attempt to control and codify plants and
animals lead to Spencer’s extreme model of total non-interference? As with the
above question, both are optimistic views but seem so very different. In what
ways are they related?
Historians and scientists alike are admonished not to set
out in their research to prove something. Rather they should set out to answer
questions. How do the Holocaust and compulsory sterilization in the U.S. serve
as a warning to researchers to follow this advice?
Choose one of the following. Assuming that all things except
worldview are equal (scientific know-how, medical ability, economic structure),
explain why one of the following would or would not have been possible in the
year 1200. In other words how do these ideas fit or not fit with the worldview
of the period?
The codification of plants and animals (including any or all
of the researchers from the beginning of the chapter)
Spencer’s philosophy
Week 7 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the
week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
Who was the better inventor, Edison or Tesla, and why?
How might one relate Einstein’s theory of relativity to
mathematical perspective in art?
Select one invention or innovation from the period under
discussion this week. How did it transform the daily lives and the worldview of
lower class, middle class, and upper class people, if at all?
Week 8 discussion
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions
should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use
concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication,
with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste
information into discussionsâwrite posts in your own words and cite all sources
of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.
Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of
the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other
students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but
the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.
To access the rubric for discussions, click on the
discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
discussion instructions.
Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET
and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the
week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.
One of our themes this semester is that before several
transformations, people looked to the past in order to make sense of their
universe; people lived in a world with little change; people were not
particularly optimistic. All of this changed, however, over the course of
several centuries. In the readings this semester, where do you see people
beginning to look to other sources than an authority from the past; beginning
to experience and expect more and more change in their lives; and beginning to
expect the future to be better than the present? This question appeared in Week
4. You may gain insight by looking at your own or your classmates’ responses
there.
Compare the strengths and weaknesses of these two
worldviews:
Western, experimental, scientific
Religious, mythical, or magical
While most historians believe that neither futurecasting
(predicting what will happen, based on what happened in the past) nor writing
“what if?” histories are appropriate approaches to professional
historical research, these activities can be useful thought exercises that help
us analyze the past from a different perspective and thus help us understand
what happened and why in a new way. How do you predict that technology will
transform human lives and worldview and over the next century?
If there is some area of the text that you have been burning
to discuss all semester and have not had the chance, here is your opportunity.
You may address any area of Burke that struck you as particularly important or
with which you disagreed. Support your assertion of importance or disagreement
with evidence.
Assignment 1
Submission Folder
Thesis Statement and Annotated Bibliography
Instructions
The thesis statement should be one or two sentences that
summarize the key argument of the research paper. In other words, the thesis
statement is the main idea of the entire paper. Students should also submit an
annotated bibliography of at least five (5) scholarly sources that will provide
support for the thesis of the paper. Research for sources should be done
through the UMUC Library. Sources should be peer-reviewed and academically
credible. Wikipedia, Answers.com, Yahoo Answers, About.com, Infoplease, and other
non-scholarly websites and blogs are not acceptable. The annotated bibliography
should list the proper citation for the source and include the annotated
paragraph beneath it. For more information on writing thesis statements and
annotated bibliographies, students should visit the websites below. A list of
approved topics is found in the Syllabus.
Thesis Statements
Annotated Bibliographies
To access the rubric for assignments, click on the
assignment link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
assignment instructions.
Due: Sunday by 11:30PM ET in Week 3
Assignment 2
Submission Folder
Multimedia Presentation
Instructions
The multimedia presentation should be a PowerPoint, YouTube,
Google Slides, Prezi, or similar presentation of the studentâs research that
will be turned in for grading and shared with classmates online. The
presentation should give an overview of the studentâs research in an engaging
way. This part of the project allows students to share key points of the
research with peers in a way that is fun and stimulates interest in the
material. While students are encouraged to approach this part of the project in
a less formal manner, information should still be paraphrased into the
studentâs own words and all sources should be properly cited, including
graphics, videos, music, etc.
To access the rubric for assignments, click on the
assignment link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the
assignment instructions.
Assignment 3
Submission Folder
Research Paper
Instructions
The research paper should demonstrate the studentâs ability
to write a developed and coherent argument about the assigned topic. The paper
should introduce the topic to the reader and include a strong thesis statement.
The body of the paper should include more detailed research that supports the
overall thesis of the paper, and the end of the paper should summarize the
studentâs conclusion(s). Papers should be approximately 1500â2000 words in
length, 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and one-inch margins on
all sides. Papers should include a title page and a references page. For more
help on writing research papers, students should visit the UMUC Writing Center
or visit the websites below.
Research Papers
Historical Research
Papers should contain a minimum of five (5) scholarly
sources. Wikipedia, Answers.com, Yahoo Answers, About.com, Infoplease, New
World Encyclopedia, History Channel, and other non-scholarly websites and blogs
are not acceptable for college-level papers. Students should be able to
demonstrate that they can read, understand, and synthesize academic material
that may apply to their research. Information should be paraphrased into the
studentâs own words, and all sources must be properly cited with both in-text
citations and full references listed at the end of the paper. Direct quotations
should be quoted properly and used at an absolute minimum, with no more than
10% of the final paper containing directly quoted material. All student papers
will be checked for originality using plagiarism software. Students should
refer to the UMUC Academic Integrity policy or visit the websites below for
more help on citing sources and avoiding plagiarism.
Citing Sources
Academic Integrity
To access the rubric for assignments, click on the assignment
link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the assignment
instructions.
