Statistics: The probability lecture/readings usually fall on the week of Halloween. I bring in bags of candy for everyone, and students do probability problems to determine the likely composition of the bag. The stats students find the probability problems comically easy. Everyone else learns some basic probability.

Debate Day! To wrap up the semiotics section, I have students formally debate each other about what particular phrases or ideas mean. This clarifies how different ideas / signs / signifiers make sense in different ways to different people.

The Internet: A Play: At the beginning of the computation section, I have students perform a “play” representing different communication technologies: mail / the telephone system / the internet. Having an understanding of how the internet functions is useful for troubleshooting in general, and helps in discussions of net neutrality.

Compression: Discussions about the relative merits of different compression algorithms can get esoteric if you don’t have an understanding of what compression really means. This activity is very useful in helping to explain that.

Intro to computation – We have a reading on Boolean searching. Again, it’s very esoteric for the average 20-year-old. I relate Boolean searching to job searching and automated resume systems.

Dream Job: Students identify their “dream job,” or at least the reason they decided to come to a professional school, and conduct research (primary and secondary) on the realities of that kind of job. They develop a strategic plan for the remainder of their time at SILS. I bring in speakers - former SILS students - who discuss their career trajectory and what they wish they knew when they were in school.

Semiotics & Memes: In my experience, it’s difficult for students to understand why knowing anything about semiotics is important. I try to make it relevant in different ways. Sometimes I have debate day (described above). Sometimes I have them describe memes, because memes only make sense if the viewer understands the complexities of both the signifier and signified. Explaining that understanding, is, itself, a semiotic exercise.

Famous Birthdays: Towards the end of class, we talk about the ways algorithms organize the world. It’s useful to have an example of algorithmic ranking that’s less complicated and more transparent than Google or Amazon. So, we explore the Famous Birthdays website and compare our understanding of “famous,” with that of the website; and try to determine its ranking algorithm.

Little Danny’s Records: A former student from Texas has an Instagram called Little Danny’s Records, in which he posts pictures and audio of his vinyl singles collection. I use this collection for multiple in-class activities.

• Create metadata: Dan posts pictures of the singles’ label, which includes a lot of bibliographic information about the object. I ask students to create Dublin Core metadata from the information on the labels (and caption, if necessary). We then compare metadata to see if it’s as intuitive as it seems. (Spoiler alert: it’s not)

• Create a controlled vocabulary: Dan uses hashtags to describe the songs’ genre. I ask students to use those hashtags to create a controlled vocabulary for the records in the collection. We then compare controlled vocabularies to see if they match, or how we might make an improved vocabulary together.

• Create an ER diagram: Little Danny’s Records is not a database. But what if it were? In this hypothetical situation, I ask students to create an ER diagram for a database that Dan will use to keep track of his records.

Book making: When we were meeting in person, I had students journal at the beginning of class (to lessen anxiety) and we also made our own journals. This helped students bond as a community, and was a good gauge on which students worked well together.

Needs Analysis among classmates. The design thinking process is user-centric and involves lots of conversations with prospective users. I get students started with this process by allowing them to interview each other, and me (as the manager in charge of the project).

Game Play: Students have very little experience playing games for the purpose of formal criticism. At the beginning of every class for the first 6 weeks, we play games and take notes on what gameplay is like, what is enjoyable about the game, whether it meets the needs of the class or fulfills promises from the company, what it looks like, what’s fun and not fun about it. When we were meeting in person, we actually went to Bull City Escapes in Durham to get a feel for escape rooms, then came back and broke down the process from a systems analysis standpoint.

Prototype creation and testing: in this class, the game is the outcome of the design thinking process. The process is the product we’re focused on. With that attitude, we take the last (or last two) classes to play our games as a prototype test. Students give feedback on gameplay, and the design team answers that feedback in their final documentation packet.