Finding games for the classroom

After studying about the application of technology to education in general, and to our school in particular, you may have reflected on the possibilities that, amongst other technologies, video games have to offer.

Your assignment today will be, working in pairs, to identify a video game available online that can be used for learning purposes in any of the subjects that you have studied for the last two years.

The games must fulfill the following conditions:

• Be downloadable online
• Free or low cost (under u$s 50)

Your assignment consists in identifying the game, and including in your report:

• URL of the downloadable game.
• Subject for which it can be applied.
• Brief description of the game and why you think it can be applied.
• Ideas on how the teacher would be able to assess student learning after playing the game.

Please submit your assignment to itgs.sass@gmail.com before the end of the lesson.

Evolution of technology / Singularity

We will be analyzing two videos that refer to the evolution of technology.

The first one refers to a new development on what is known as Sixth Sense:

The second video is from well-known futurist Ray Kurzweil on his concept of the Singularity:

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 Wednesday.

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.
- Create 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

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.

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 topic 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.