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KidZone for learning and
fun: Younger
elementary school students will enjoy playing the
games and reading the entertaining information on the
KidZone area of the Imagining the Internet site. The
"Elon/Pew Publications" page has printable
PDFs of the KidZone. You can also go to the KidZone
pages and get PDF files to allow you to print
individual games and exercises to use as handouts.
You can assign your students to complete
specific learning exercises from this area of the
site, or, if you have enough computer workstations,
you can allow students to explore the site's
many elements and learn on their own:
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/kidzone/
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Invent your own game or
quiz: Older
elementary students can be assigned to look at all of
the material in KidZone and then invent their own new
quiz or game to help younger students master the
practical information found on the site. If a teacher
finds a student's work to be outstanding, it
should be submitted to Imagining the Internet (predictions@elon.edu)
for consideration for inclusion on the site. Be sure
to include teacher contact information, the
student's name, and school name, so the
contributor can be given credit for her/his
contribution.
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A Look
Back: Elementary
students of all ages will enjoy clicking on the
"Back 150 Years" timeline to learn about
how communications technologies progressed from the
telegraph to the radio, telephone and television.
They can read about the inventors and inventions that
preceded the internet. You can assign them to write a
summary of the key points of each era recorded on the
timeline.
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/150/
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A Look
Ahead: Students
will also enjoy clicking on the "Forward 150
Years" timeline to read how their future may
unfold. This section of the Imagining the Internet
site offers a selection of the predictions that
scientists and other experts are sharing now about
the decades ahead. You can assign them to write a
summary of the key expectations for the future and
what this might mean for them and for their
children.
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/150/
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History of the Internet
assignment: Using the database and any other
online sources you might assign, students put
together a timeline showing the development of
internet technology. This can be an individual
project or it can be a discussion-based assignment,
with students working in groups and then sharing with
the class. In order to help them retain the
information, encourage students to present a visual
form of internet history by drawing and illustrating
their own timelines. Background on internet history
can be found at:
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/150/1960.xhtml
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Ethics of Digital
Property: Talk
about copyright and fair use and show students some
quotes from the database on these topics. This will
lead to a good discussion about how we should
recognize the ownership of creative works such as
books, music, poetry and films. Now is the time these
young people should begin to understand the
importance of crediting others for their work. This
lesson can teach them about plagiarism and the
stealing of digital files that include music and
movies. Quotes from the early 1990s about copyright
and fair use can be found by using
"copyright" as a search term on the
Imagining the Internet page:
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/early90s/search.xhtml
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Ask the students to state
what they think about these predictions.
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Discuss the conflict between
sharing information freely and retaining the
rights to "intellectual property"
– the things we create. Talk about the
moral conflicts involved in downloading music and
films, etc., that are actually owned by someone
else.
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Discuss additional issues of
controversy on the internet. (privacy,
surveillance, anonymity, free speech, etc.).
These can easily be found by using the pull-down
menus under "Subtopic" under the
"Advanced Search" headline on the
predictions/advanced page.
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Visionary People
assignment: Have
the students get in pairs or teams and pick one
internet personality from the Imagining the Internet
website. Many brief descriptive biographies of
internet stakeholders and skeptics can be found at http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/early90s/briefbiographies.xhtml.
Using the Imagining the Internet
site and at least two other sources from the internet
at large, students can research what their assigned
person has said about the internet and come up with a
profile of the person that includes some quotes about
the future. The Early '90s section - http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/early90s/search.xhtml
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predictions – the students can simply type their
assigned internet personality's name into the
search box here to get predictions. Students can
assemble an oral presentation accompanied by posters,
or they can be asked to use a "presentation"
program such as PowerPoint or Keynote to display their
findings. Some internet personality examples:
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Vernor Vinge, scientist and
science-fiction author
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Gordon Bell, computing
pioneer and internet prognosticator
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R.U. Sirius (AKA Ken
Goffman), and editor of the magazine Mondo 2000
and a social technology critic
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Howard Rheingold, writer and
editor who looks at social impacts – the
originator of the idea of "Smart Mobs"
on the internet
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Esther Dyson, leading
technology consultant
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Tim Berners-Lee, developer
of the World Wide Web
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Marc Andreessen, creator of
Mosaic (known in versions that followed in later
years as Netscape and Firefox; allowed
images and text to be on same page as well as
hyperlinks)
Ask each group to include the
following elements in their presentation: A short
biography on the person selected (place and date of
birth, education, jobs held and/or the person's
area of expertise regarding technology/internet); a
section detailing what makes this person special and
important – what makes him or her an
"expert" or someone whose ideas we should
listen to; and a section with a list of three or more
predictions this person has made about the future of
technology and society.
Sample questions can also be
generated by teachers to make each assignment more
specific, or to use as general discussion questions for
students who will be completing the project in groups.
Examples:
For those assigned to
Berners-Lee: What is the WWW? What is HTML?
For those assigned to Andreessen:
What was Mosaic and why is it important?
Here are a few additional
interesting predictions you could use; there are MANY
more to choose from in the "Early '90s"
and the "Voices of the People" sections of
the Imagining the Internet site:
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I'm looking
forward to the day when my daughter finds a
rolled-up 1,000-pixel-by-1,000-pixel color screen
in her cereal packet, with a magnetic back so it
sticks to the fridge. –Tim Berners-Lee,
inventor of the World Wide Web
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People are skeptical about
nuclear power and genetic engineering and a lot
of other areas, but they blindly accept the
Internet. We techies should be more honest about
what computers can do and what they cannot do, or
else we are setting ourselves up for a big pie in
the face. – Clifford Stoll,
astrophysicist
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By 2090, the computer will
be twice as smart and twice as insightful as any
human being … By 2100, the gap will grow
to the point at which homo sapiens, relatively
speaking, might make a good pet. Then again, the
computers of 2088 might not give us a second
thought. – Greg Blonder,
writer
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I can imagine proposals that
every automobile, including yours and mine, be
outfitted with a recorder but also with a
transmitter that identifies the car and its
location – a future license plate …
(it) could record your speed and location, which
would allow for the perfect enforcement of
speeding laws. I would vote against that.
– Bill Gates, CEO of
Microsoft
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In the future, computers
will … fit onto your face, plug into your
ear. And after that – they'll simply
melt. They'll become fabric … Fabric
and air and electrons and light. Magic
handkerchiefs with instant global access.
You'll wear them around your neck. You'll
make tents from them if you want. They will be
everywhere, throwaway. Like denim. Like paper.
Like a child's kite. This is coming a lot
faster than anyone realizes. – William
Gibson, author
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I had (and still have) a
dream that the Web could be less of a television
channel and more of an interactive sea of shared
knowledge. I imagine it immersing us as a warm,
friendly environment made of the things we and
our friends have seen, heard, believe or have
figured out. – Tim Berners-Lee,
inventor of the World Wide Web
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I'm a future hacker;
I'm trying to get root access to the future.
I want to raid its system of thought. Grrr.
Machines disappoint me. I just can't love any
of these wares, hard or soft. I'm nostalgic
for the future. We need ultrahigh res! Give us
bandwidth or kill us! … I think tech will
solve all our problems, personal and scientific.
Girls need modems. – St. Jude (real
name, Judy Milhon, a co-editor of the magazine
Mondo 2000
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No matter what circumstances
we face or predilections we harbor, the business
of living is love. Getting love and keeping love.
Manufacturing love. Making love. Making love
stay. And no worldwide web of cool chips and hot
wires is going to change that. So just shut up
about your Brave New World, bub. –
Philip Mart, writer
Next, ask the students to come up
with their personal predictions about the distant
future of communications technologies like the internet
and cell phones. This is a great writing prompt for
practice sessions in preparation for the gateway
writing tests required in most schools.
As a reward for good work, you
could promise to help the students enter their best
predictions in the Voices of the People section -
http://www.elon.edu//predictions/ShareYourPrediction.aspx
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open to all public postings of interesting ideas about
the future of communications. Their comments will be
kept as a lasting document, added to hundreds from
other people of all ages from around the world. This
database will be retained for people in years to come
to study to see what people of our generation were
thinking about changes brought by technology.
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