Section 0.1

Learning Goals

• Students will identify common tasks completed with digital devices.

• Students will determine how those same tasks can be completed without a digital device.

• Students will analyze the pros and cons of completing a task digitally and not digitally.

• Students will identify a economic, societal or cultural category that encompasses the selected task.

Objectives and General Description

The first day of class can be a chaotic event.  We want to establish from the first time the students walk into our classrooms that this computer science class is going to be fun, engaging, supportive and challenging.  Keep in mind that the small, routine tasks are going to take longer (attendance, seating, etc.) Greeting the students and smiling is very important and will help set the tone for the classroom.

The objective of this activity is to have students think critically about common, everyday activities that they complete using a digital device, like their cell phone.  We want to introduce them to analyzing innovations for beneficial and harmful effects as well as studying their impact on society, economy and/or culture.  Students will be asked to identify an activity or task that they have completed using their phone/device within the past 24 hours.  We then ask them to determine how they would complete the task if they didn't have a digital device.  Finally, students will be asked to discuss the benefits and harms to using the digital device for this task.

Activities

Activity 0.0  (5 - 10 minutes at the beginning of each class period for the first two weeks)

Getting to Know you ideas:

• Taking attendance usually takes a bit longer during the first few weeks. Have a printout of your roster and make notes about the pronunciation of each name.  This will help you get through attendance quicker as the week progresses but most importantly, will minimize embarrassment for the student and will let them know that you care about getting their name correct.

• Have a topic for each day’s attendance.  Start with something easy, like “favorite food”.  When you call a student’s name, they need to tell you this item.  It makes taking attendance take a little longer but it also spurs interesting conversations.  Ideas:

  • Favorite food, favorite TV show, hobby, number of siblings, favorite app, number/type of pets, what would you do with $1000, pet peeve, etc.

• Try to choose icebreaker activities that are not intimidating such as “blobs or lines” or “this or that”.  Both games can be found here: Icebreaker Activities

Activity 0.1 (budget 45 minutes)

Impact of Computing 

• Give each student three sticky notes, preferably three different colors.  

  • Sticky note #1:  Students write one thing that they used their cell phone for in the past 24 hours.  

  • Sticky note #2:  How would you accomplish the same task without your cell phone or a computer of any kind? 

  • Sticky note #3:  Ask students to think about the category that their task falls in (ie. communication, entertainment, productivity, etc.)  Then have students draw a line dividing the sticky note in half. On the top half, students should write one beneficial effect that a cell phone has made in this category. On the bottom half of the sticky note, students should write about one negative effect that a cell phone has made in this category.

• If possible, have students take a picture of the three sticky notes, side by side, with their cell phone.  They should upload this picture to a class Padlet page. 

• Then students will bring their sticky notes and add them to class posters (one poster for each type of sticky notes).  Students should take a few minutes to read each other’s notes.

• Class discussion:

  • Encourage a few students to share the content of their notes.  (All students should be logged into Padlet so that they can look at responses).

  • Select a few responses and guide the conversation to discuss the impact of computing on education, communication, entertainment, etc.

  • Then ask students:  Which method of sharing was better, Padlet or sticky notes & poster?  Why? What are pros/cons of each? Possible topic outcomes include environmental impact, speed of communication, privacy issues online, etc.

• Reflection:  Conclude by explaining how this course is more than just programming.  It covers the entire computing industry. Then explicitly link the  Big Ideas of Computing to portions of this activity.

  • Creativity:  We collaborated in the creation of a computational artifact.

  • Abstraction:  Did I have to tell you how to hold a pencil and write a letter?  No, all I had to do was say “write down something you used your phone for.”  An abstraction is tucking away the minute details and just invoking a general instruction.  The details are there, but we don’t have to list them every time.

  • Data and Information:  We collected data responses from each student.

  • Algorithm:  Set of instructions to solve a problem.  I gave you instructions for getting your image on to Padlet.  What other instructions did you use?

  • Programming:  We used programs that someone else has written (camera in phone, “uploading” protocol, Padlet website.

  • Internet:  Our pictures had to be broken into data packets and sent through a network on to the internet to get to the Padlet server and then sent back to our network and rendered on the screen.

  • Global impact:  We analyzed the beneficial and negative effects of an innovation and took it a step further by looking at the impact on a large group.

Resources

• 0.0: Icebreaker Activities (teacher resource)

• 0.1: Padlet Website (student resource)