Understanding Technology and Organizations

Ten percent of the grade for this class will come from a report that displays your understanding of the role of technology and the organization

Task

impact of technology on organizations and information

We have wandered around the topic of the impact of technology and information, but haven't settled on any particular understanding. Let's use this final report to do just that.

You all have lots of experience with new technologies and some experience working within organizations. Using the blog posting Schumpeter: Techno wars as a starting point, argue either that pessimism is overblown, or that optimism is mistaken. Use your own experiences using and incorporating technology into your lives and work to inform your discussion.

Condition

This task should be done by your group and your group should turn in a single product that reflects the agreed position of your group as an introduction,
but, importantly, each group members voice must be heard in the posting, so write the posting as a series of paragraphs in which the author of the paragraph is identified.

Include your answer in a class blog posting roughly equivalent to a 2-5 page paper.

You may go beyond the blog if you wish to accomplish this task (a document; a PowerPoint presentation; a Prezi presentation; anything)

If you choose not to do it as a blog posting, do be sure to use the blog to point the instructor to the where the deliverable may be found (if appropriate, place the deliverable in your Sakai dropbox and tell the instructor when it may be retrieved from the dropbox)

Grade	What it means	What I will be looking for
A	Mastery in understanding the interplay between technologies and organizations at the highest level of attainment that can reasonably be expected	Well written with no grammatical errors, well-articulated discussion of the topic; it shows evidence of your having absorbed all of the key points of the technology and organizations module, and that you described them in such quality that one could expect you to teach the module
A-	A totally acceptable performance demonstrating an adequate level of understanding the interplay between technologies and organizations	An insightful discussion of the topic, with no grammatical errors. It is extremely good, but leaves the reader feeling that your understanding of the issues is perhaps a bit less than professionally sophisticated, in terms of depth of analysis.
B+		Really good, but perhaps a bit shallower in terms of your understanding one or more of the contexts; you may have a few grammatical issues in your writing; you may not have used relevant examples to explain your points; you may not have fully addressed all the elements requested
B		Good, but perhaps a bit shallower in terms of your understanding several variants of the contexts; you may have several grammatical issues in your writing; you may not have used relevant examples to explain your points; you may not have fully addressed all the elements requested; you did not use terminology that we discussed in the module sessions
B-		Good, but not as good as it could have been; you may not have fully addressed all the elements requested
C+	A marginal performance.	OK, in terms of grasping the essentials, but not good in terms of articulating your understanding in a manner that is easy to read and appreciate
C		You seem to understand the essential points of the module, but you did not articulate your understanding well enough to do more than the minimum
C-		It's time to start wondering if you missed something important, if you misunderstood the task, if you did not understand the key elements
D+		This is a warning that you are not currently on the right path; you might need to have a discussion with the instructor about this performance
D		There are indications that you were present and that you sort of grasped what we had discussed, but missed the key points to such a degree that you really need to re-group and catch up
F	For whatever reasons, an unacceptable performance	If it's unacceptable, it is unacceptable; it should be as obvious to you as it is to the instructor