The 21st Century Business

Like no other area, technology has impacted businesses very significantly, and resulted in increased productivity. However, there are issues associated with the generalized use of technology in the workplace that have affected both positively and negatively individuals and society.

We will analyze the influence of technology in business and how it can affect jobs. You are a consultant and you have been hired by a client to develop the technological support for his new firm. This is a 2000-employee retail store that sells goods direct to the general public, and will have branches at various shopping centers within Buenos Aires. Your client is set on incorporating the latest available technology to his firm and as such, it is your job to provide him with the latest advances in the following areas:

- Transportation and logistics: storage and transport of goods, inventory control, purchase processing.
- Employment: electronic employee monitoring, payroll processing, ergonomics and health, job obsolescence and retraining, online job search, employee surveillance.
- Banking and finance: ATMs, Internet banking and brokerage, electronic cash, insurance.
- E-commerce: teleshopping, online marketing, data mining,
- Retailing: advertising, media.

For each of these areas, you must find at least one application that will position his firm on the cutting edge. By creating a Power Point presentation, you will highlight for each of these applications:
- Characteristics and main functions.
- How it can help boost productivity and gain efficiency.
- Eventual ethical or social issues associated with their use, concerns that employees might have.

You can work in pairs, and the assignment must be submitted to itgs.sass@gmail.com by the end of our lesson next Friday.

Computers in Education

Based on what we have discussed in class on 2 occasions (the day of the power cut and this past Friday), discuss the following statement:

• "Computers will revolutionize education for the last 25 years"
• "Technology in Education: Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?"
• "A paper written back in 1993 by University Professor Larry Cuban was entitled: The Computer meets the Classroom, and the classroom wins. What did he mean and do you agree?"

Choose only one of the above statements and, working in pairs, discuss their validity by writing a personal reflection on the topic. You should complete it within the periods today and submit it via a Word file to itgs.sass@blogspot.com

Creating an assessment instrument

After designing a plan to learn about the optional topic, our next stage involves creating an assessment instrument that will target on how to effectively demonstrate the acquisition of the knowledge and skills required.

Our assignment for the day consists of:
- Create an assignment that will cover the range of topics and skills needed and that takes into account the nature of the course, incorporating into analysis, critical thinking, and specifically the evaluation of the social and ethical implications of the topic chosen.
- The assignment must involve the use of technology and/or software in some form.
- Crete a detailed rubric that will serve as a reference criteria for awarding grades to the project.

Compile all of the above into a single Word document and submit before the end of the lesson to itgs.sass@gmail.com

Creating the log

The next step in planning the learning of the topic involves doing research and finding relevant web sites that relate to the topics chosen.

Your assignment today will entail:
- Finding at least 6 web sites that can be used as reference for the topics chosen.
- At least 2 of these sites should include videos o some other sort of multimedia elements.
- Before the end of this lesson you are expected to produce a document that contains:
o URL of each web site.
o Validation of the authors / contents.
o An annotated commentary or brief reference of what the web site or resource contains.
o Enumeration of the topics from the IB list that are covered by that web site.

The assignment should be submitted to itgs.sass@blogspot.com before the end of the lesson.