Designing Interactions that Combine Pen, Paper, and PC

October 5, 2007 lecture by Ron Yeh for the Stanford University Human-Computer Interaction Seminar. Pen and paper are powerful tools for visualizing designs, penning music, and communicating through art and written language. This pairing provides many benefits -it is mobile, flexible, and robust. Ron discusses the impact that this will have on end users and the software developers who will have to create these applications.

Tangible Media for Design and Inspiration

May 30, 2008 lecture by Hiroshi Ishii for the Stanford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar (CS547). Tangible Bits seeks to realize seamless interfaces between humans, digital information, and the physical environment by giving physical form to digital information, making bits directly manipulable and perceptible. Their goal is to invent new design media for artistic expression as well as for scientific analysis, taking advantage of the richness of human senses and skills - as developed through our lifetime of interaction with the physical world - as well as the computational reflection enabled by real-time sensing and digital feedback.… Continue

Automating & Customizing the Web With Keyword Programming

May 16, 2008 lecture by Rob Miller for the Stanford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar (CS547). Rob Miller discusses some of the explorations into keyword programming in the web automation domain, and also in other domains such as Java development. One surprising result is that programming language syntax often has relatively little information content, and can be inferred automatically from only a handful of keywords — allowing us to design programming systems that reduce the learning and complexity burdens on their users.… Continue

MySong: Automatic Accompaniment for Vocal Melodies

May 9, 2008 lecture by Dan Morris for the Stanford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar (CS547). MySong is a system that automatically chooses chords to accompany a vocal melody. A user with no musical experience can create a song with instrumental accompaniment just by singing into a microphone, and can experiment with different styles and chord patterns using interactions designed to be intuitive to non-musicians. Dan Morris describes how MySong works, discusses results from a recent usability study, and shows lots of audio examples to demonstrate that non-musicians are in fact able to use this system as a powerful creative tool.… Continue

Data Modeling and Conceptual Sketching in the Design Process

November 9, 2007 lecture by Monty Hamontree for the Stanford University Human-Computer Interaction Seminar. This talk delves into 5 interrelated keys that Microsoft teams focus on to elevate the impact of "design research". Namely how to: team insightfully as project teams; observe our users holistically; broker user and design patterns proudly; distill fresh insights collectively; and envision design essence vividly. A model of various design research modeling approaches is used to spur discussion around the strengths and weakness of each approach.

Designing for Cuba: Necessary In(ter)vention

April 11, 2008 lecture by Gwendolyn Floyd and Joshua Kauffman for the Stanford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar (CS547). This lecture shares REGIONAL’s recent in-field Cuban research that spans the socio-technological, the political, and the top-secret. It reveals how their research led to the design of a simple and affordable digital device that would potentially accelerate Cuban social change. It also discusses how an understanding of Cuba's development in a technologically walled garden offers us the chance to consider this closed-system metaphor for how the world is increasingly accepting itself to be.… Continue

Automatically Generating Personalized Adaptive User Interfaces

May 2, 2008 lecture by Krzysztof Gajos for the Stanford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar (CS547). User Interfaces delivered with today’s software are usually created in a one-size-fits-all manner, making implicit assumptions about the needs, abilities, and preferences of the "average user" and the characteristics of the "average device." Krzysztof Gajos argues that personalized user interfaces, which are adapted to a persons devices, tasks, preferences, and abilities, can improve user satisfaction and performance.… Continue

Toward Adaptive Services for Personal Archiving

November 2, 2007 lecture by Cathy Marshall for the Stanford University Human-Computer Interaction Seminar. Most of us engage in magical thinking when it comes to the long term fate of our digital stuff. At this point, a strategy that hinges on benign neglect and lots of copies seems to be the best we can hope for. Cathy discusses four central themes of personal digital archiving and some additional challenges introduced by home computing environments. She also talks about how these themes relate to emerging institutional archiving technologies, best practices, and information policies.

Technologies for Collaborative Democracy

April 4, 2008 lecture by Beth Noveck for the Stanford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar (CS547). In this lecture, Beth Noveck discusses why current political institutions have changed little in response to Web 2.0. She explores the role of visual and social interfaces in producing better democracy and talk about the progress of the Peer-to-Patent project. Overall, the talk focuses on how both law and technology might be better deployed together to bring about not only deliberation but collective action and a new kind of collaborative democracy that connects institutions to networks.… Continue

ChucK: A Computer Music Programming Language

November 16, 2007 lecture by Ge Wang for the Stanford University Human-Computer Interaction Seminar. In the first part of this talk, Ge presents the design, philosophy, and development of ChucK, a computer music programming language intending to provide a different approach, expressiveness, and thinking with respect to time and parallelism in audio programming - as well as a platform for precise and rapid experimentation. In the second part of this presentation, Ge describes his adventures with the "laptop orchestra": a new type of large-scale, computer-mediated music ensemble.

Milton

A study of Milton's poetry, with some attention to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry.

Introduction to New Testament History and Literature

This course provides a historical study of the origins of Christianity by analyzing the literature of the earliest Christian movements in historical context, concentrating on the New Testament. Although theological themes will occupy much of our attention, the course does not attempt a theological appropriation of the New Testament as scripture. Rather, the importance of the New Testament and other early Christian documents as ancient literature and as sources for historical study will be emphasized. A central organizing theme of the course will focus on the differences within early Christianity (-ies)

Introduction to Psychology

What do your dreams mean? Do men and women differ in the nature and intensity of their sexual desires? Can apes learn sign language? Why can't we tickle ourselves? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behavior. It explores topics such as perception, communication, learning, memory, decision-making, religion, persuasion, love, lust, hunger, art, fiction, and dreams. We will look at how these aspects of the mind develop in children, how they differ across people, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to illness and injury.

Fundamentals of Physics

This course provides a thorough introduction to the principles and methods of physics for students who have good preparation in physics and mathematics. Emphasis is placed on problem solving and quantitative reasoning. This course covers Newtonian mechanics, special relativity, gravitation, thermodynamics, and waves.

Global Problems of Population Growth

This survey course introduces students to the important and basic material on human fertility, population growth, the demographic transition and population policy. Topics include: the human and environmental dimensions of population pressure, demographic history; economic and cultural causes of demographic change, environmental carrying capacity and sustainability. Political, religious and ethical issues surrounding fertility: infanticide, abortion, contraception, son preference, government coercion, migration and the status of women. The lectures and readings attempt to balance theoretical and demographic scale analyses with studies of individual humans and communities. The perspective is global with both developed and developing countries included. Controversies on the causes, cures and effects of rapid population growth are also addressed.

Dante in Translation

The course is an introduction to Dante and his cultural milieu through a critical reading of The Divine Comedy and selected minor works (Vita nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Epistle to Cangrande). An analysis of Dante's autobiography, the Vita nuova, establishes the poetic and political circumstances of the Comedy's composition. Readings of Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso seek to situate Dante's work within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, with special attention paid to political, philosophical and theological concerns. Topics in The Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.

Roman Architecture

This course is an introduction to the great buildings and engineering marvels of Rome and its empire, with an emphasis on urban planning and individual monuments and their decoration, including mural painting. While architectural developments in Rome, Pompeii, and Central Italy are highlighted, the course also provides a survey of sites and structures in what are now North Italy, Sicily, France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, and North Africa. The lectures are illustrated with over 1,000 images, the majority from Professor Kleiner's personal collection.

Introduction to Theory of Literature

This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose?

Principles of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior

This course presents the principles of evolution, ecology, and behavior for students beginning their study of biology and of the environment. It discusses major ideas and results in a manner accessible to all Yale College undergraduates. Recent advances have energized these fields with results that have implications well beyond their boundaries: ideas, mechanisms, and processes that should form part of the toolkit of all biologists and educated citizens.

Frontiers of Biomedical Engineering

The course covers basic concepts of biomedical engineering and their connection with the spectrum of human activity. It serves as an introduction to the fundamental science and engineering on which biomedical engineering is based. Case studies of drugs and medical products illustrate the product development-product testing cycle, patent protection, and FDA approval. It is designed for science and non-science majors.

Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics

This course focuses on three particularly interesting areas of astronomy that are advancing very rapidly: Extra-Solar Planets, Black Holes, and Dark Energy. Particular attention is paid to current projects that promise to improve our understanding significantly over the next few years. The course explores not just what is known, but what is currently not known, and how astronomers are going about trying to find out.

The Psychology, Biology and Politics of Food

This course encompasses the study of eating as it affects the health and well-being of every human. Topics include taste preferences, food aversions, the regulation of hunger and satiety, food as comfort and friendship, eating as social ritual, and social norms of blame for food problems. The politics of food discusses issues such as sustainable agriculture, organic farming, genetically modified foods, nutrition policy, and the influence of food and agriculture industries. Also examined are problems such as malnutrition, eating disorders, and the global obesity epidemic; the impact of food advertising aimed at children; poverty and food; and how each individual's eating is affected by the modern environment.

Introduction to Ancient Greek History

Freshman Organic Chemistry

This is the first semester in a two-semester introductory course focused on current theories of structure and mechanism in organic chemistry, their historical development, and their basis in experimental observation. The course is open to freshmen with excellent preparation in chemistry and physics, and it aims to develop both taste for original science and intellectual skills necessary for creative research.

Listening to Music

This course fosters the development of aural skills that lead to an understanding of Western music. The musical novice is introduced to the ways in which music is put together and is taught how to listen to a wide variety of musical styles, from Bach and Mozart, to Gregorian chant, to the blues.

European Civilization, 1648-1945

This course offers a broad survey of modern European history, from the end of the Thirty Years' War to the aftermath of World War II. Along with the consideration of major events and figures such as the French Revolution and Napoleon, attention will be paid to the experience of ordinary people in times of upheaval and transition. The period will thus be viewed neither in terms of historical inevitability nor as a procession of great men, but rather through the lens of the complex interrelations between demographic change, political revolution, and cultural development. Textbook accounts will be accompanied by the study of exemplary works of art, literature, and cinema.

France Since 1871

This course covers the emergence of modern France. Topics include the social, economic, and political transformation of France; the impact of France's revolutionary heritage, of industrialization, and of the dislocation wrought by two world wars; and the political response of the Left and the Right to changing French society.

Modern Poetry

This course covers the body of modern poetry, its characteristic techniques, concerns, and major practitioners. The authors discussed range from Yeats, Eliot, and Pound, to Stevens, Moore, Bishop, and Frost with additional lectures on the poetry of World War One, Imagism, and the Harlem Renaissance. Diverse methods of literary criticism are employed, such as historical, biographical, and gender criticism.

Introduction to the Old Testament

This course examines the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) as an expression of the religious life and thought of ancient Israel, and a foundational document of Western civilization. A wide range of methodologies, including source criticism and the historical-critical school, tradition criticism, redaction criticism, and literary and canonical approaches are applied to the study and interpretation of the Bible. Special emphasis is placed on the Bible against the backdrop of its historical and cultural setting in the ancient Near East.

Introduction to Political Philosophy

This course is intended as an introduction to political philosophy as seen through an examination of some of the major texts and thinkers of the Western political tradition. Three broad themes that are central to understanding political life are focused upon: the polis experience (Plato, Aristotle), the sovereign state (Machiavelli, Hobbes), constitutional government (Locke), and democracy (Rousseau, Tocqueville). The way in which different political philosophies have given expression to various forms of political institutions and our ways of life are examined throughout the course.