Online courses directory (19947)

This course centers on the changing relationships between men, women, and technology in American history. Topics include theories of gender, technologies of production and consumption, the gendering of public and private space, men's and women's roles in science and technology, the effects of industrialization on sexual divisions of labor, gender and identity at home and at work.

What do technology and innovation mean from Africa? This is the central question of this course, which tackles a double absence: Of the meanings and role of technology in African history, on the one hand, and of Africa's place in the global history of technology, on the other. This course alternates between technologies from outside and technologies from within Africa and their itineraries in everyday life, and it is designed to provide students with grounded understandings of technology in Africa for intellectual and action-oriented purposes.

This course considers how the visual and material world of "nature" has been reshaped by industrial practices, ideologies, and institutions, particularly in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Topics include land-use patterns; the changing shape of cities and farms; the redesign of water systems; the construction of roads, dams, bridges, irrigation systems; the creation of national parks; ideas about wilderness; and the role of nature in an industrial world. From small farms to suburbia, Walden Pond to Yosemite, we will ask how technological and natural forces have interacted, and whether there is a place for nature in a technological world.

Acknowledgement

This class is based on one originally designed and taught by Prof. Deborah Fitzgerald. Her Fall 2004 version can be viewed by following the link under Archived Courses on the right side of this page.

This course focuses on the application of theoretical approaches to the strategic management of technology and innovation. Concepts, tools, and process will be explored through lectures, readings, team activities, and case study applications. Major topics include: The importance of technological innovation Dynamics of technological change Factors affecting technological innovation and adoption Organizational strategy and strategic management in the face of rapid technological change At the end of the course you will be able to: Identify how technological innovation impacts individuals, businesses, and society as a whole Explain how technology changes and evolves Identify the key factors affecting technological innovation and adoption Explain how organizations develop and manage strategies Explain the fundamental dynamics of technological innovation in an organizational setting Explain how to develop and implement organizational strategies for technological innovation

This seminar examines the global history of the last millennium, including technological change, commodity exchange, systems of production, and economic growth. Students engage with economic history, medieval and early modern origins of modern systems of production, consumption and global exchange. Topics include the long pre-history of modern economic development; medieval world systems; the age of discovery; the global crisis of the 17^th century; demographic systems; global population movements; the industrial revolution; the rise of the modern consumer; colonialism and empire building; patterns of inequality, within and across states; the curse of natural resources fate of Africa; and the threat of climate change to modern economic systems. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

Our linked subjects are (1) the historical process by which the meaning of technology has been constructed, and (2) the concurrent transformation of the environment. To explain the emergence of technology as a pivotal word (and concept) in contemporary public discourse, we will examine responses — chiefly political and literary — to the development of the mechanic arts, and to the linked social, cultural, and ecological transformation of 19th- and 20th-century American society, culture, and landscape.

Note: In the interests of freshness and topicality we regard the STS.464 syllabus as sufficiently flexible to permit some — mostly minor — variations from year to year. One example of a different STS.464 syllabus can be found in STS.464 Cultural History of Technology, Spring 2005.

Priceline co-founder Jesse Fink explains to entrepreneur Steve Blank how his early company was a technology-enhanced sol

New ideas based on high-technology research have a high failure rate because they hit the ground running with lopsided priorities and misalignments. Students complete this course with an Innovation Creed (“Why are you doing this?”) and a customized Idea Filter (“Are you working on the right priorities?”)—2 simple tools that steer concept-stage commercialization to success.

This course introduces the fundamentals of technology entrepreneurship, pioneered in Silicon Valley and now spreading across the world. You will learn the process technology entrepreneurs use to start companies. It involves taking a technology idea and finding a high-potential commercial...

By Chuck Eesley

​This course introduces the fundamentals of technology entrepreneurship, pioneered in Silicon Valley and now spreading across the world. You will learn the process technology entrepreneurs use to start companies. It involves taking a technology idea and finding a high-potential commercial...

By Chuck Eesley

This is the second part of a course that introduces the fundamentals of technology entrepreneurship, pioneered in Silicon Valley and now spreading across the world. You will learn the process technology entrepreneurs use to start companies, which involves taking a technology idea and finding a...

This is the second part of a course that introduces the fundamentals of technology entrepreneurship, pioneered in Silicon Valley and now spreading across the world. You will learn the process technology entrepreneurs use to start companies, which involves taking a technology idea and finding a...

When a person lives on less than $2 a day — as some 2.7 billion people around the world do — there isn’t room for a product like a solar lantern or a water filter to fail. Investment in failing products undermines future innovation by reducing confidence and depleting scarce resources.

It’s a challenge faced every day by development agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and consumers themselves. With so many products on the market, how do you choose the right one?

This course, developed by MIT’s Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE) will explore the fundamentals of technology evaluation for global development. It includes a deep dive into CITE’s 3S methodology, looking at products from three angles:

• Suitability—does a product perform its intended purpose?
• Scalability—can the supply chain effectively reach consumers?
• Sustainability—is it a product that can be used correctly, consistently, and continuously over time?

This course is designed for academics and global development practitioners; those interested in conducting their own technology evaluations to promote data-driven decisions through research or development practice. 

*Note - This is an Archived course*

As fossil-based fuels and raw materials contribute to climate change, the use of renewable materials and energy as an alternative is in full swing. This transition is not a luxury, it is has become a necessity. We can use the unique properties of microorganisms to convert organic waste streams into biomaterials, chemicals and biofuels. This course provides the insights and tools for biotechnological processes design in a sustainable way. Five experienced course leaders will teach you the basics of industrial biotechnology and how to apply these to the design of fermentation processes for the production of fuels, chemicals and foodstuffs. Throughout the course, you will be challenged to design your own biotechnological process and evaluate its performance and sustainability. The undergraduate course includes guest lectures from industry as well as from the University of Campinas in Brazil, with over 40 years  of experience in bio-ethanol production. The course is a joint initiative of TU Delft, the international BE-Basic consortium and University of Campinas.

LICENSE

The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Netherlands License.

This is a past/archived course. At this time, you can only explore this course in a self-paced fashion. Certain features of this course may not be active, but many people enjoy watching the videos and working with the materials. Make sure to check for reruns of this course.

Learn and create the future.

Aim is to analyze important current events for what they reveal about the nature and working of our technological world. Starting point is connection between technology and terrorism. Subject also explores how a human-built world can foster insecurity and danger, and how human beings respond. Many invited guests help develop a strong interdisciplinary approach (science, engineering, social science, humanities). Topics include technological risk and remediation, sociotechnical systems, imagination of disaster, technology and identity, technology and religion, technology and education, and technology and trust. Written and oral assignments and a final project required. Service-learning proposals and web-based presentations, in addition to written work, may be considered for the final project by the instructor.

As educators and learners of foreign language(s), we want our students to be proficient and competent in a target language. The way technology is used in a foreign language class has a significant impact and influence on the success of our students. If you are a foreign language educator passionate about learning how to use technology in your class, this course if for you! This three-week course will require a time commitment of approximately three to five hours each week (to earn the certificate of completion). The first two weeks will be dedicated to discussion and assignments and week three will be dedicated to a final project. This course will provide Web sites and programs that may be used in traditional and online foreign language classes. The focus is placed on all skills, especially speaking and listening.

This course will consider the ways in which technology, broadly defined, has contributed to the building of American society from colonial times to the present. This course has three primary goals: to train students to ask critical questions of both technology and the broader American culture of which it is a part; to provide an historical perspective with which to frame and address such questions; and to encourage students to be neither blind critics of new technologies, nor blind advocates for technologies in general, but thoughtful and educated participants in the democratic process.