Optional Topics

The ITGS syllabus allows students to choose one other topic for further study and development.

The following is a list of topics, including the issues that the syllabus highlights as essential within each unit:

3.3 Health
• Telemedicine: service delivery to isolated and remote areas
• Electronic health records: privacy, data analysis, public health
• Diagnostic and therapeutic tools: robotic surgery, prosthetic devices, diagnostic software, drug
development and marketing
• Medical advice on the Internet or a CD-ROM
• Monitoring patients
• IT solutions for disabled people

3.4 Arts, entertainment and leisure
• Digital art: electronic music, interactive visual art, desktop publishing
• Film: digital actor simulations, characters and animation
• Live arts: digital effects, choreography, lighting, marketing
• New media: DVD, CD, VR, stereolithography
• Broadcast media: digital radio and television, electronic news, magazines and books
• Toys and games: CD or online games, online gambling

3.5 Science and the environment
• Modelling and simulation: digital experimentation, demographic and environmental simulation
• Visualization: mapping
• Data search, collection, processing and analysis
• Forecasting
• Data logging

3.6 Politics and government
• Political process: voting and elections, lobbying, open government and free movement of information
• Government administration: record keeping, tax collection, policy implementation
• Legislation: policy development, enactment, enforcement and analysis
• Police: DNA data collection, video surveillance
• Military: cyberwarfare, smart weapons development, espionage
• Rebel and terrorist use of IT

Working in pairs, you will select one of these topics and start creating your digital log of resources to help you achieve the learning objectives. Please remember that the focus of the subject is to acquire mastery of the topics outline but, more importantly, to analyze ethical and social implications of these topics on individuals and society.

Specifically, your initial assignment involves:

1) Choose one of the topics listed above.
2) Without exploring any web sites write one paragraph summarizing your current knowledge of the unit, including one sentence explanations of the sub topics listed if you know what they refer to.
3) Write a second paragraph with a preliminary analysis of the general social and ethical implications of the topics included within the unit.
4) Write at least five questions related to what else you expect to learn about the topics listed and their social and ethical implications.

You are expected to complete this assignment before the end of the lesson, and to submit it to itgs.sass@gmail.com

Tutorials and Wizards assignment

Based on an idea submitted by Cristian Bazarian, you will work on the following assignment.

- Choose any of the topics that have been covered within our syllabus and develop a step-by-step tutorial using Powerpoint that would allow a learner to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to fully develop the topic.
- Answer the following questions:
o How do you compare learning the conventional way with the tutorial experience? Summarize advantages and disadvantages.
o Are tutorials adequate for all topics or are they more apt for certain types of topics or skills? Give specific examples.
o Based on what you were able to research on the Internet, do you see tutorials and wizards gaining way into formal education and job training?
o What would you say are the essential characteristics of a good and effective tutorial?

You will be working in pairs on this asignment during today's and Friday's lessons. This assignment must be submitted to itgs.sass@gmail.com before the end of our class on Friday.

Area of impact: Education

One of the areas of impact that we will be studying within the syllabus is Education. The day of the power cut we introduced the topic and briefly discussed some of the social implications of the technological advances in Education.
The following is the list of topics for the unit as stated by IB:
• Telelearning: isolated and remote areas; use in hospitals, prisons, retirement homes
• Modification of hardware and software for special needs: voice recognition software, text-to-speech, special input and output devices, Internet resources
• Software in the classroom: science experiments, social studies modelling and simulation, instructional tools and media, computer-aided instruction, computer-aided learning
• School library systems: catalogues, security systems, online research
• Hardware in the classroom: laptops, notebooks, teleconferencing
• Software in school administration: record keeping, scheduling, Intranets, public information
• Training, tutorials, simulators

Your assignment this time will consist in the production of a short video based freely on one of these topics. The video should be entirely based on evidence gathered at the school, interviews and/or other filming done at school and should address the implications of the chosen topic based on research to be performed at school.
Steps:
- Supporting web based research, sequence and overall plan for the video (to be submitted at the end of today’s lesson)
- Script and plan of interviews (to be submitted by the end of Friday)
- Video in digital format (to be submitted by Friday, September 19th)