So I’m teaching a senior-level, writing intensive course on Emerging Technologies in Scientific and Technical Communication in the Spring. Registration opened last week, and it looks like it’s nearly made. And there are master's students from our MS program in it! (Masters students are allowed to take 4-credit 4000 level courses for 3 hours of grad credit. Of course, they do an extra project on top of the standard undergrad syllabus.) This should be even more fun than I had expected.

I had already expected it to be a pretty interesting time. Here’s the course blurb:

This 4-credit, writing intensive survey course explores the impact of Web 2.0 applications in scientific and technical communication. In this web-based class, we’ll work together to create an extensive informational site on scientific, technical, and social aspects of the 35W bridge collapse. Our project will use wikis, podcasts, tagging, Google Docs, Flickr, Picasa, Moodle, Basecamp and other content generation and management applications. We’ll also use blogs, IM, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Jaiku during the collaborative process.

Participants will gain a broad vocabulary and understanding of relevant theories as well as a sense of how different workplace environments are coping with the challenges of sci/tech communication in a period of complex factors, multiple audiences, geographical distances, and fast-changing tools.

I’m still sending the flyer around, though, since things will work out even better if the course picks up a few Econ, Civil Engineering, and Environmental Science majors. (Click to download PDF.)

The image is a minor remix of this HDR photo of 35W by gbenz, who runs the local photoblog View From the Tundra. Thanks for being so awesome about the CC licenses, man. The flyer is licensed in kind.