Monitoring Students

Parents, teachers, and school administrators are increasingly monitoring students with the help of technology. A few examples include setting up online portals for parents to view student performance and attendance, reading student facebook and twitter posts, and tracking students with RFID chips in their school badges.

Some people say that we need to monitor students in new ways for their own safety. Others call it a slippery slope toward Orwellian surveillance.

How far should adults go to monitor students? Should adults monitor younger students differently than they do high school students?

To what degree should people continue to be monitored into adulthood and throughout their lives?

Learning and Technology

Students don't need to learn facts anymore; they have Google.

Students don't need to learn basic math; they have calculators.

Soon, students won't need to learn other languages; they will have an instant translation app on their smartphones.

What idea do all of these statements support?

Do you agree with this idea? Do you disagree with it? Do your thoughts fall somewhere in between agreement and disagreement?

Research, develop, and deliver a multimedia presentation that explores your ideas about the relationship between learning and technology.

Online Filter Bubbles

In the following video, Eli Pariser presents the concept of online filter bubbles and expresses his concerns about them.



What are online filter bubbles? What causes them?

What Internet sites do you personally use that filter the information you get? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such filtering?

How does Eli Pariser's philosophy of the Web relate to his concern about filter bubbles? Does your philosophy of the Web cause you to have similar concerns?

Evaluate Pariser's proposed solution for avoiding filter bubbles. Then present your own proposal for how we should personalize the Web.

Disruptive Technology

Technology is considered disruptive when it profoundly changes the way we do something. It often makes older technology obsolete.

Our history is filled with examples of disruptive technology. The personal computer deleted the typewriter industry. The vacuum cleaner sucked up much of the broom business. The zipper snagged a good portion of the button business. And just look at how technology has disrupted the music industry.

Identify and research another example of disruptive technology from the past.

• What older technology did it disrupt?
• Why did it disrupt this technology? (Was the disruptive technology cheaper, more convenient, faster, more powerful?)
• What effects did this disruption have on society?

Now find an example of an emerging technology that has the potential to be disruptive.

• What current technology will it disrupt?
• Why will it disrupt this technology?
• What effects will this disruption have on society?

Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine

Nanotechnology is technology that is small enough to be measured in nanometers.

Nanomedicine is medicine that uses nanotechnology. 

Research and present an example of how nanotechnology is currently being used in the medical field.

Some believe that future nanotechnology will allow people to live for hundreds of years, even forever, by continuously repairing our bodies at the cellular and subcellular level. What problems might come with such an advancement in medicine, and how might we be able to solve those problems?

Think Up an App

Think of a problem that exists in the world today. It can be any problem, big or small.

Now think of an app that could help solve that problem. Be sure to

• Create a name and design an icon for your app.
• Research other apps that help solve the problem you chose, and explain how your app helps solve the problem in a different way.
• Write a story or make a video that shows your app in action!

Here are two examples of apps that were developed to help homeless people. As you can see, they take very different approaches to the problem.

The Digital Divide

The digital divide is the divide between those who have access to digital technology and those who don’t.

Digital divides exist on local, national, and global levels.

Research a local, a national, and a global example of the digital divide.

For each of the three examples, investigate the causes of the divide, reflect on the consequences of having such a divide, and propose solutions to close the divide.

Decades of Technology

As a society, we sometimes define a time period by the technology that had the greatest impact on us during that time.

For example, the 1980s are often called the decade of the personal computer.

The 1990s are often called the decade of the internet.

Present a brief history of personal computers during the 1980s and of the internet during the 1990s. Explain why these technologies defined their decade.

What would you call 2000–2009 the decade of? In other words, what technology do you think had the greatest impact on society during the last ten years? Explain why you think so, and provide evidence to support   your answer.

Looking ahead in terms of future technology, what do you think people might call the coming decade, 2010–2019?

The Future of World Languages

There are approximately 7,000 languages spoken on Earth.

Most people speak only 83 of those 7,000 languages.

More than half of those 7,000 languages are likely to disappear by the year 2100.

A world language dies every couple of weeks.

What forces are causing languages to die off? 

Which languages of the world are most vulnerable to extinction? Why are these languages most endangered? 

Should we try to prevent languages from dying off? Explain why or why not.

The Uncanny Valley

As human beings, we generally react more positively to machines and robots that resemble us. That is, until a robot begins to resemble us too closely. Then we begin to react negatively. This is the theory that roboticist Masahiro Mori presented in 1970.
It is called the theory of the Uncanny Valley. 

Mori presented his theory with the graph below. Along the x axis, he plotted how human the machine or robot appeared; along the y axis, he plotted how positively or negatively people reacted to the machine or robot.

This video walks you through Mori’s theory.

Why do you think Mori’s theory is called the Uncanny Valley?

Find 5-7 examples of machines or robots and plot them along Mori’s graph.

Present your own theory that explains why the Uncanny Valley exists—why we feel creeped out by robots that resemble us too closely.

Do you think we will ever create robots that resemble us so closely that we will not be able to tell the difference between us? Explain why or why not.