Unit 1. Your Virtual World
Revision Date: Jul 10, 2015 (Version 1.2)Pre-lesson preparation
For better comprehension of the lesson, students should have ideally had experiences or have read about issues that have demonstrated how computing can be misused. This does not require assigned reading or review (just encourage them to watch the news and notice what is happening in the world), but you could have them bring in a current event article and summary of the event for homework as additional preparation.
Summary
Students will read about and discuss the issues that arise from the misuse of technology. Over the two sessions, these lessons will address social media, online retail and banking, cloud data storage, and government surveillance.
Outcomes
Overview
Session 1
Session 2
These materials may be useful if you want to spend some time with the entire group discussing a few key topics.
The purpose of this session is to make students think about the different ways in which they as individuals, and society as a whole, are more vulnerable because of new technologies.
Students should consider the following question and record their reflections in their journals:
For this activity, teachers will use "Jigsaw Groups":
The topics (and examples of positive (+) and negative (-) impacts) include:
For each of the above topics, there is a resource sheet in the lesson folder that can be provided to student groups. (Optionally, you may want to create additional resource sheets, or let students select other topics and find their own resources.)
As a class, review each of the larger topic areas and remind students that they will be sharing information in their original groups the next day. If students need too much additional time to research the topic, you may consider assigning them to complete the research independently for homework.
Students should take a few minutes to journal about the following prompt:
Topic Groups: Have students briefly assemble into topic groups to compare notes.
Each student should select a topic that they would like to explore further and write the topic in their journal. It might be a narrow subtopic from the broader topics that were explored within this lesson. They might also want to write down a few interesting innovations connected to a topic. They will refer back to this during the practice performance lesson later in the unit.