Blog on ethical issues related to the use of technology

From now until the end of our regular classes, we will be working, in an attempt to revise and consolidate what we have learnt throughout the year, on creating your own ITGS blog, focused on the social impact of the use of technology.
Working in pairs, you will create a new blog in Blogspot. This blog will feature news articles, videos and any other resources that deal with the social and ethical impact of the use of technology. The theme of your blog will be the impact of technology on individuals and societies, and your target audience are web surfers who are interested in analyzing those implications and want to know more about the impact of technology.
You are expected to write a short commentary on the resources posted, and create a discussion thread for each article that you publish. You will be expected to respond to user comments on each of these threads.
You will be assessed on the quality of the posts, how they successfully cover the syllabus, and how you respond to user comments, thus encouraging a positive discussion on the topic.
Your blog must contain at least one post per topic posted on the ITGS Blog.
Individually, you are expected to post at least three comments per lesson on other people’s blogs, and send a copy of each comment to itgs.sass@gmail.com
By the end of the lesson today, you have to send an email that contains:
- Names of the students in the group and the URL of the newly created blog.
- User name or Google account which you will use to post comments.

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.