The Internet - Lesson 7: Internet Dilemmas Part 1
Overview
Students begin working on a two-day project exploring a dilemma at the intersection of the Internet and society.
Goals
Students will be able to:
- Identify how an internet dilemma has the potential to benefit and harm different stakeholders
- Identify the ways the technical structure and design of the Internet contributes to a social dilemma
Purpose
In this project, students explore a relevant Internet dilemma: Net Neutrality, Internet Censorship, or the Digital Divide. Students apply their knowledge of how the Internet works to address the core question related to their chosen dilemma. This project addresses the "so what" question - why is it important to learn about how the Internet works?
Resources
Getting Started (5 minutes)
Remarks
- We started this unit by writing down our thoughts on the Internet and how it works. Let's review a few of your questions on these sticky notes, and see if we know the answers now.
Discuss
Select a few sticky notes and read them to the class. Address any misconceptions.
Teaching Tip
Keep track of time! Students need the majority of class to work on their projects. The goal here isn't for every outstanding question to be answered, but instead to remind students how much they have learned and point out how they can continue learning.
Remarks
- Look how much we've learned! We may still have a few unanswered questions, and that's ok. It's good to always want to know more - and thankfully we have the Internet available to help us answer those questions!
- Or at least, that's what we might think, but access to the Internet is not always guaranteed. Today we are going to start a project where you will consider a dilemma related to Internet access.
Activity (35 minutes)
Remarks
- Today, you are going to pretend that you are the Chief Technology Advisor for a candidate running for elected office. Your candidate is relying on you to help inform her about important technological dilemmas and come up with good policy ideas to address them. For this project you'll investigate a social dilemma related to the Internet and prepare a report summarizing your findings and making a policy recommendation for your candidate.
- Let's take a look at three of the different dilemmas: Net Neutrality, Internet Censorship, and the Digital Divide.
Distribute: Give students copies of Internet Dilemmas - Project Guide
Teaching Tip
The project guide includes links to three different sources for each of the internet dilemmas that students can tackle. If you're physically printing and handing out the guide, make sure you give students links or some other way to access the online sources!
| Protocol/Layesr | Networks | Packets and Routing | World Wide Web | Internet Principles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physical internet, IP, TCP, UDP, HTTP, DNS. | Fiber optic cable, copper wire, wifi, router, path, direct connection, bandwidth. | Packet metadata, IP addresses, dynamic routing. | Web pages, browsers, servers, domain, world wide web. | Redundancy, fault tolerance, scalability, open protocols. |
Do This: Read out loud the Background & Core Question for each dilemma.
- Step 1 - Choose (3 mins): Students read over the first page of the Project Guide and pick their Dilemma. At the end of this time, take a quick poll on who is doing what dilemma. You will want to ensure that the dilemmas are evenly covered by the class.
- Step 2 - Review the One-Pager and Rubric (5 mins): Students review the one pager template and rubric to make sure they understand what they'll be responsible for creating for this project and how it'll be evaluated.
- Step 3 - Review the Concept Bank (3 mins): This concept bank includes the key terms and concepts covered in this unit. Students should quickly review them before reading their articles so that they'll be ready to identify them in their articles. They can also refer to these as they complete their one-pager.
- Step 4 - Review Your Sources (20 mins): Students review the three sources provided or additional ones they find online. For each source they take notes on instances when their impacted groups are mentioned or technical details that are explained.
Wrap up (5 Minutes)
Remarks
- Next time you'll have most of the class to work on your one-pagers and we'll take time at the end to share what you've learned.
Journal
Students add to their journal the definition for digital divide.
Teaching Tip
Why is Digital Divide the only vocabulary word? Digital Divide is a term covered in the AP CSP Conceptual Framework. We want to make sure all students - even those who don't choose it as a Digital Dilemma understand the meaning of the phrase.
Standards Alignment
- CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017): 3A-IC-24, 3A-IC-28, 3A-IC-30, 3B-IC-26, 3B-IC-28
- CSP2021: IOC-1.C.1, IOC-1.C.2, IOC-1.C.3, IOC-1.C.4, IOC-1.C.5, IOC-1.F.10
Next Tutorial
In the next tutorial, we will discuss CSP The Internet Lesson 8, which describes Finishing a two-day project exploring internet dilemmas..