iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg gave a presentation entitled “Play Well with Others in a Creative Era.” The talk discussed the need for, obstacles to, and innovations required for interdisciplinarity in the 21st century.  The iFoundry initiative was used as an example of a dot connector employing pairwork to cross disciplinary boundaries for an important purpose.  A blogpost at MNNblog is available here.

What does it mean to be a woman in science, engineering or a related field?  This is the central question the course will address.  Students will read across multiple disciplines and engage contemporary media to understand the evolving place of women within science and technology.

This course has been approved for College of Engineering Liberal Education credit for the spring 2010 semester.   Other course offering information may be found here.

Students in human resources in the School of Labor and Employment Relations can now take a course on Understanding Engineers to help them better recruit and develop engineering talent.  The powerpoint from the first week is below:

The powerpoint from the second week on “Engineering, Education & Modeling” may be viewed below:

Related presentations are available here.

Design Matters3 is hosting Doris Wells-Papanek, design research consultant and learning coach at 5:30pm on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 in the Krannert Art Museum Auditorium, Room 62, 500 East Peabody Drive, Champaign.  This event is free!

Wells-Papanek will share her latest study on creating change that matters and human-centered design in the 21st century.   More information on DesignMatters3 and Wells-Papanek may be found here.

The University of Illinois Department of English is offering English 582: Technologies and Words this upcoming spring semester. Students will examine reading, writing, literacy and technology from a historical point of view, from the dawn of writing to the age of the computer, exploring the different theories of orality and literacy, and looking at the spread of the written word through various communities. Students will examine earlier communication technologies (the manuscript, clay tablet, print, typing, and the telephone) as well as the ways in which present-day reading and writing practices are affected by the computer revolution and new technologies. Seminar students will produce a semester project and be responsible for a presentation.

To learn about new courses that iFoundry and the College of Engineering are offering, visit here.

On 14 November, six iFoundry students and one iFoundry student adviser will attend the NextGen Conference at Stanford University. Cory Levy, and 18-year-old entrepreneur who visited the Illinois campus on 16 October and presented to a group of engineering students, has paired up with Daniel Brusilovsky at Teens and Tech, in order to create this one day event. Participants will hear panel discussions and lectures from seasoned entrepreneurs and have the opportunity to network with experienced innovators.

To find out more about the upcoming  NextGen conference, visit here.

To view pictures from Cory’s presentation at the Illinois campus, visit here.

On 12 November 2009 (Thursday) on the campus of University Ramon Llull in Barcelona, noted engineering educator (see here) Lueny Morrell and iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg will keynote a one-day Workshop on Designing the Engineer of the Future (EF2009).  The event includes two keynote talks, two panel discussions, and breaks (program here).  Ms. Morrell will speak on How Can Engineering Education Address the Challenges of the 21st Century and Professor Goldberg will speak on The Missing Basics: What Engineers Don’t Know and Why They Don’t Know Them. More information is available here.

Human resources MS students in LER (Labor and Employment Relations) 590 UE – Understanding Engineers are blogging about engineers and engineering.  Their blogs are aggregated on Friendfeed (here).

The course introduces soon-to-be HR professionals to engineers and engineering through a variety of perspectives, historical, philosophical, and technical.  The course texts include two classics The Revolt of the Engineers and Engineering and the Mind’s Eye, and the students complete two SEEs or simulated engineering experiences as part of the course.

The course syllabus is available here.  The course is taught by iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg, and more information about it may be obtained by contacting him directly (deg@illinois.edu).

The iFoundry community is looking ahead and planning for next month’s iExpo, in which iFoundry students will display their final team projects. iExpo will be held on 2 December 2009 at the iHotel (1900 S. First St.) in Champaign from 5-7pm.  All iFoundry community members are welcome. iTeams will present their accomplishments in the world of work, service, academics and identity.

To view initial videos from the iTeam presentations shown at iFoundry’s midterm checkpoint (iCheckpoint) on 14 October 2009, visit here.

The iFoundry-sponsored 2010 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering & Technology (fPET-2010) is now accepting submissions on its website (here) or directly at the secure submissions site (here).

iFoundry believes that the concern for mathematical and scientific rigor that has arisen in engineering and engineering education since the cold war needs to be matched by a concern for conceptual rigor, and philosophy as the formal discipline that deals most directly with matters of conceptual rigor is critical to that change.

Read more about the 2010 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology at www.philengtech.org.