In this lesson, students will engage in socio-political critique as they think through what might happen when people fail to successfully complete different parts of the problem-solving process. Students will engage in a case study of Summit Learning, a “personalized” learning platform that led to protests and walkouts. They will think through how the designers of Summit Learning failed to solve their problem, and then make a plan to solve a problem of their own using the problem-solving process.

This lesson plan explores Artificial Intelligence using Teachable Machine, a program that uses images and sounds to create machine models. 

This is a PowerPoint that was created to support the Computer Science standard 2.13 about the Impacts of Computing and how the student will compare and contrast examples of how computing technology has changed and improved the way people live, work, and interact.

An assessment is attached that covers the essential vocabulary and knowledge from the Computer Science standard, 7.11: The student will describe the development of new technologies in communication, entertainment, and business and their impact on American life. It can be printed or used for Google Classroom, etc.

These printable CS Discussion Cards use Essential Questions from the CS SOL Curriculum Framework.

This lesson has students recognize that computer science can help people in real life. First, students empathize with several fictional smartphone users in order to help them find the “right app” that addresses their needs. Then, students exercise empathy and creativity to sketch their own smartphone app that addresses the needs of one additional user.

In this lesson, students will learn about accessibility and the value of empathy through brainstorming and designing accessible solutions for hypothetical apps.

This resource an inforgraphic that talks about includes Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Grace Hopper, and Tim Berners-Lee. These are the significant historical figures listed in the Middle School Elective Curriculum Framework, MSCSE.6, context of the standard.

This worksheet reviews some of the significant events in computing history. Students will draw lines to connect the person/event to the time it occured.

In this extension, students will evaluate the role of data collection in their lives. They’ll identify some common data collection practices, evaluate the ethics of those practices, and develop a framework for thinking about when data collection is appropriate and when it is exploitative.

Vocabulary posters for the Impacts of Computing strand for Grade 5. Words included are from the 2017 Computer Science Curriculum Framework.

Vocabulary posters for the Impacts of Computing strand for Grade 7. Words included are from the 2017 Computer Science Curriculum Framework.

This cut-and-sort handout allows students to analyze items that are or are not examples of technology.
Technology is explained as anything made by people to help us.
Pictured items to sort include:
- scissors, pencil, glue, cell phone, laptop, desktop computer, people, tree, flower, vegetables, dog, sun

This lesson is best used with the slides found at https://goopenva.org/courses/what-is-technology.
The document provides an answer key and links to the slides, teacher lesson plan to accompany the slides, and additional resources. However, this handout can be used as a stand alone activity as well.

The student will identify computing technologies that have changed the world and express how those technologies influence, and are influenced by, cultural practices when communicating with others. The student will identify social and ethical issues that relate to computing devices and networks.

Students will identify how technology has evolved and the positive and negative impacts of technology on society.  Students will also think about a current technology and design a new computing technology. Please see the lesson plan and the additional resources for this lesson. 

    In this lesson students will be introduced to essential vocabulary surrounding digital citizenship and digital safety, they will learn what is appropriate for online behavior and what types of personal information is safe to share online. Next, students will create their own poster explaining what responsible online behavior looks like and what kinds of information is safe to share online, this product can be created both digitally and/or on paper. The idea is to do the rough draft on paper and then create their poster through a digital format, however, depending on teacher preference, it can be done paper and pencil only.

In this lesson students will think about the many uses of technology in their own daily lives. We will also discuss how technology has changed through the years. Next, we will discuss technology's purpose and how the goal of technology is to make our lives easier. A google slides presentation has been included to help explain these concepts. Activity: Students will get a chance to compare and contrast a task both using technology and doing the same task without technology. Students will compare the differences for sending a message using technology and sending that same message with pencil and paper.

The Josephus problem is based around Josephus Flavius; a Jewish soldier and historian who inspired an interesting set of mathematical problems. This resource is a PDF activity based on the Josephus problem.

This is a quick lesson/ discussion about the changes in computing over time. You will discuss how we use technology today vs. how computers were used years ago. The class will then watch a fun video about children reacting to an old computer. As a class, you will continue the comparison conversation and close with a recap of what the students saw.

The discussion and video will take approximately 20 minutes.

To add to the discussion, you can create an anchor chart of past and present pros and cons. Student's can then write a journal entry on what was discussed in class.

*** This lesson can be adapted to suit multiple grade levels.

Use pirate maps and treasure to explore basic map concepts – and responsible behaviors associated with using information and technology!