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“Tech: Past, Present & Future”

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History of Technology for JQES Students

By Andrea Blake - JQES Technology Teacher

We will learn about

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• History of Technology and Inventions
• History of Computer Science
• Important Innovations and People in Computer Science
• The Future of Tech

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Agenda

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Technology is the use of knowledge to invent new devices or tools. Throughout history, technology has made people’s lives easier.

Introduction

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Ancient Technology

• Stone Age:
• Humans learned to control fire (a long time ago*)
• Used stones as weapons or tools (2 million years ago)
• People of Anatolia (now Turkey) made copper tools (6500 BCE)
• Made Pottery from Clay. Started using a stone wheel.
• Sumerians started writing on Clay Tablets with Styluses (3400 BCE)
• Bronze Age: started by the discovery that mixing copper and tin produces a stronger metal, bronze (3000 BCE).
• Invented the wooden wheel (2000 BCE)
• Iron Age: iron is even stronger than bronze (1000 BCE)

Show: Mankind The Story of All of Us: Fire | History.com

Guess What?!

use the SEE-THINK-WONDER protocol to help you look closely at the image to make observations, inferences, and generate questions

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• What do you see?
• What do you think about that?
• What does it make you wonder?

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Invention of Writing- “Cuneiform”

• “Writing is a technology.” -Walter J. Ong
• “Stylus” small wooden tools (similar to chopstick, not the Apple Version ) used to write on soft clay tablets freely available in Tigris and Euphrates River.. (Easy to edit symbols too, when wet-just add water and rub)
• In the beginning, invented mosty for keeping track of grain and for recording inventories. - Count Grain
• “Birth of Standardized Computation and Numerical Data”- Keeping track of numbers and symbols representing numbers

Activity: Draw a Timeline of Ancient Technology

Based on the Britannica Kids article “Technology and Innovation” , draw a timeline of ancient technology on a piece of paper

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Draw examples of technology (or glue pictures on the timeline if Ms. Blake printed some for you) and add approximate dates

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Put your name and room# on the paper. Your paper will be graded.

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Tip: See the examples of Ancient Technology on slide 5

Stone age

Bronze age

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6000 BCE

Technology in The Middle Ages (500 CE to 1500)

Many discoveries and inventions all over the world

• Math: Abacus
• Using new sources of power: Horse, Wind, Water.
• Printing books: John Guttenberg invented the printing press. This led to mass producing writings and books and many people learning how to read. Reading led to more learning.

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Agenda

Computer Science is Changing Everything

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Industrial Revolution (18th and 19th century)

• Iron, coal and steam (1700s)
• Machines and Factories
• Transportation
• Electricity and Oil (1800s)
• Telephone (1876)

Modern Technology (1900s)

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• Mass production
• Airplanes and rocketships
• Engineering to make things easier in our everyday lives*
• Energy: Solar, Nuclear
• Electronics: Radio, TV
• Computers
• Technology and Medicine: hearing aids, pacemakers …

Activity: Research and Write - Inventions that made everyday life easier in the 19th & 20th century

• Write a report* about an invention that made everyday life easier.
• Some ideas: electricity, telephone, washing machine, car, windshield wiper, traffic light, radio, (or find your own).
• Some people to look up: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Josephine Cochrane, Garrett Morgan, Nikola Tesla
• “Who, What, When, Where” - What was the invention, who invented it and when, what problem did it solve?
• Include citation: where did your information come from?
• Share your report with Ms. Blake: Click Share in the upper right corner of the document, type ablake@bostonpublicschools.org, click Send.

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See next slide for resources…

*write a google document, or slides, or create a Scratch animation on Scratch.mit.edu

Resources for your Research

• Slides 13, 14
• Reread the Britannica Kids article “Technology and Innovation” , focus on the Industrial Revolution and the Modern Technology sections
• Use BPS Clever to access PebbleGo, Epic, BrainPOP or BrainPOP Jr to look up biographies of Scientists or Inventors
• Watch episodes in the Technology section of BrainPOP or BrainPOP Jr
• https://www.dkfindout.com/ by DK publish
• Who really invented the radio? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71pAgRgNhd8
• https://www.ducksters.com/history/us_1800s/industrial_revolution.php

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Agenda

Activity: Finish your Report - Inventions that made everyday life easier in the 19th & 20th century

• Write a report* about an invention that made everyday life easier.
• Some ideas: electricity, telephone, washing machine, car, windshield wiper, traffic light, radio, (or find your own).
• Some people to look up: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Josephine Cochrane, Garrett Morgan, Nikola Tesla
• “Who, What, When, Where” - What was the invention, who invented it and when, what problem did it solve?
• Include citation: where did your information come from?
• Share your report with Ms. Blake: Click Share in the upper right corner of the document, type ablake@bostonpublicschools.org, click Send.

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*write a google document, or slides, or create a Scratch animation on Scratch.mit.edu

Agenda

Computers

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• Read: “Computer” on Britannica for Kids (skip the last section History)
• Discuss:
• What is a computer?
• How do people use computers?
• Types of computers
• Computer hardware and software
• How computers work
• How is data stored on computers?

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Go to https://www.binarytranslator.com/

• Enter the binary below into the translator
• 01000001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101110 01101110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01110011 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00101110

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Fun with Binary

• How do you say hi in binary? 01101000 01101001
• What did you do this summer?
• Use the binary translator and post in Google Classroom.

Agenda

Computer History

• Read the last section “History” of the printout: “Computer” on Britannica for Kids
• Show: Computer History on BrainPOP
• Discuss:
• What was the first computer like?
• What is a transistor?
• How did transistors and microprocessors make personal computers possible?

Activity: NOT SO Hidden Figures

Group discussion on the life and work of a selected Figure. Each table is a group. Each group researches and presents one of:

Alan Turing, Grace Hopper, Katherine Johnson, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage

Prompt: What was this scientist famous for? What else should we know about them?

Resources: Use PebbleGo, BrainPOP, or any other reliable source to look up the person assigned to your group.

20 Minutes

Agenda

What is the Internet? A world wide network of computers

The Internet: What do we use it for?

Phone versus Internet - Who invented the internet and WHY?

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Which one is more vulnerable in case of a military attack or natural disaster?

• Phone: a centralized communication model
• Internet: a distributed communication model

First

Phone system

Later

The Internet

How does the Internet Work?

On a very basic level, the internet is a bunch of servers and clients and wires that transfer data

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Computation happens here

Computation happens here

Encrypted data travels through here

Computer 1

Computer 2

wire

The Future of Technology

• AI: the good and the bad
• Watch: “Quick, Draw” An AI experiment. You draw and the computer guesses what you draw, using machine learning
• Try it: https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/
• What else can you do with AI?
• Ethics
• ChatGPT - CommonSense Media advice on how to use it ethically
• Activity: Play AI for Oceans on code.org

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Defining AI

Examples

Available Tools in BPS

Try It Out: ChatGPT

Defining AI and Generative AI

Artificial intelligence (AI): a computer program or app that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence

Generative AI: a type of AI that is designed to create content, like pictures or writing

What are some examples of AI?

Recommended use of AI tools for BPS students

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• Read&Write & OrbitNote: available for all BPS staff and students
• Canva: available in Clever for all BPS staff and students; text to image feature is available as part of the app
• Google: email, voice typing features are part of Google accounts

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ChatGPT Only use it alongside a trusted adult!

ChatGPT by OpenAI is an example of Generative AI, a type of AI that is designed to create content, like pictures or writing.

It uses a Large Language Model (LLM), where it learns from huge volumes of data; these massive amounts of text are fed into the AI algorithm so that it can apply its knowledge to predict and generate content.

Humans type in a prompt and it responds using text or code.

Warning: only people 18 years or older can sign up for an account. This technology is new. If kids are interested in using ChatGPT, the best option is to use it alongside an adult. Kids could use ChatGPT with a parent or caregiver or teacher to get ideas about things they're interested in, like writing code or music. Families can explore the tool together and try prompts that are fun, inspiring, or helpful.

Read CommonSense Media’s Guide to ChatGPT for Families

As of this writing, ChatGPT 3 pulls data prior to September 2021.

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Resources

Resources

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Extra: How Women’s Role Changed in History