Overview of NASA/STEP Curriculum Module-Summer 2001
I. Title of Module:
- Computers, Technology and Society: Where we’ve come from, where
we’re going
II. Author:
III. Grade Level:
IV. Students:
V. Purposes/Overview
- This 8-day class will explore the future of computers and technology and the impact
these changes may have on our lives. The course will begin with a brief history of
computers, the Internet and current technology (cell phones, PDA’s, etc. ) to insure
that the students are conversant in the language of technology and have a basic
perspective on where these innovations have come from. We will then use the New York Times
on-line and other technology news services to explore the changes themselves and on the
moral implications of these changes. For example, the questions of necessity and
"progress" will be discussed. The students will be responsible for reading and
summarizing two of these articles each day and reporting their findings to the class. We
will try to have each student, or each team if that is deemed more suitable to our
purpose, concentrate on one particular area.
At the end of the course, students will
write a short paper on their research, including personal predictions based on the
information garnered, on the future of technology and its potential impacts on our lives.
It is hoped that this experience will direct many of the students to think seriously about
careers in this field.
NASA/STEP Module - Web Page Design - Lesson 1/ Day 1
- Computer lab rules
- Introduction to Computers: Hardware, Software, Terms and Acronyms (e.g.
PARC, GUI, DOS, URL, Browser, ISP, Search Engine, Root server, DNS, Host, HTTP, HTML,Java,
etc. )
- Assessment of skills and computer knowledge
- History of the Internet and the World Wide Web-
- Its Structure and Conventions
- Sample Browsing and exploring different types of web pages
NASA/STEP Module - Web Page Design - Lesson 2-4/ Day 2-4
- Six lessons, two each day, selected from the list below to supply
background, the appropriate critical skills, and aid the students in thinking about their
own topics
NASA/STEP Module - Web Page Design - Lesson 5-8/ Day 5-8
- Students will select an area of concentration and begin their research,
as noted in the introduction above
Note: Lesson plans were selected from the following list, as seen on the New York Times
website, The
Learning Network
When you click on the title of the unit it takes you to the complete lesson plan, which
is what I used, and a link to the article that was read and discussed. The three lessons
we did were:
1: Wheeling and Dealing (Mobile Technology -- the students did the project of designing
a classroom of the future)
2: Home Smart Home (Technology to aid the elderly and disabled -- they designed the
home of the future)
3: Dream Machines (Robotics -- they designed a robot)
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Last Updated August 2, 2001 by Roz Krakowsky
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