Impact of Computing Recurring Assignment

Summary

You will select the day that you do this activity with your students. Communicate the day to the class and incorporate it into the other activities for Unit 2.

Materials

• Impact of a Computing Innovation - Recurring Assignment (already handed out to students on Day 11 of Unit 1)

Instructional Activities and Classroom Assessments

• Impact of Computing Share (40 minutes)
• Voting (5 minutes)

Learning Objectives

• IOC-1.A Explain how an effect of a computing innovation can be both beneficial and harmful.
• IOC-1.B Explain how a computing innovation can have an impact beyond its intended purpose. Computational Thinking Practice 5.C Describe the impact of a computing innovation.

Essential Knowledge

• IOC-1.A.1 People create computing innovations.
• IOC-1.A.2 The way people complete tasks often changes to incorporate new computing innovations.
• IOC-1.A.3 Not every effect of a computing innovation is anticipated in advance.
• IOC-1.A.4 A single effect can be viewed as both beneficial and harmful by different people, or even by the same person.
• IOC-1.A.5 Advances in computing have generated and increased creativity in other fields, such as medicine, engineering, communications, and the arts.
• IOC-1.B.1 Computing innovations can be used in ways that their creators had not originally intended:
  • The World Wide Web was originally intended for rapid and easy exchange of information within the scientific community.
  • Targeted advertising is used to help businesses, but it can be misused at both individual and aggregate levels.
  • Machine learning and data mining have enabled innovation in medicine, business, and science, but information discovered in this way has also been used to discriminate against groups of individuals.
• IOC-1.B.2 Some of the ways computing innovations can be used may have a harmful impact on society, the economy, or culture.
• IOC-1.B.3 Responsible programmers try to consider the unintended ways their computing innovations can be used and the potential beneficial and harmful effects of these new uses.
• IOC-1.B.4 It is not possible for a programmer to consider all the ways a computing innovation can be used.
• IOC-1.B.5 Computing innovations have often had unintended beneficial effects by leading to advances in other fields.
• IOC-1.B.6 Rapid sharing of a program or running a program with a large number of users can result in significant impacts beyond the intended purpose or control of the programmer.

Details

1. Impact of Computing Share (40 minutes)

• Ask students to share the selection for this week and why they selected it.
• Students should share:
  • The computing innovation they have chosen.
  • The purpose/function of the computing innovation.
  • Its impact on the world.
  • The beneficial effects of the innovation.
  • The harmful effects of the innovation.
  • Their thoughts on whether the effects were intended or unintended consequences of the computing innovation.

2. Voting (5 minutes)

• When everyone is finished sharing their selection, ask the students to vote on which computing innovation is the most important or noteworthy.
• To collect votes, you can use a Microsoft Forms survey or other electronic polling program, or simply have students nominate innovations and vote by raising their hands.