Computing in the News
Tips and Options for Using Computing News in Class
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- Present a current news story about a computing innovation (including a video if there is one), then ask the students what they think about it, what computer science concepts are involved, and what the positive and negative implications are.
- Once you’ve modeled the process several times, you can ask students to bring stories to the group.
- Can be used as a five-minute bellringer every day, or save news for Fridays and give it more time.
- If the discussion is going well, let it continue!
- It can be easy — maybe a little too easy — to highlight the positive elements of a new innovation (especially when news stories are based on press releases!). So it’s important for students to see the negative (often unintended) implications as well — and to put some thought into how potential negative consequences could be prevented or mitigated.
Why Use News?
Highlights from the news make a great attention-grabber at the beginning of class, and provide handy concrete examples for thinking about the global impacts of computing. (In fact, there’s a move to use news in all undergrad CS classes at UC Berkeley!)
Three Ways to Find Computing News
News Stories Curated for CSP by TGI (this page)
2016-17 news highlights that demonstrate computing impacts. Each one lists relevant CSP learning objectives and essential knowledge, along with suggested discussion questions. Scroll article snippets or search by CSP framework tag.
Ongoing TGI “Computing in The News” Forum
Uncurated news spotted by our site users, and comments on our curated news articles. Peruse, or join in and share a story! (Forum RSS feed)
Current Uncurated News from Other Sources
Some of our favorite live news feeds: ACM Tech News, MIT News, Science Daily.
News Stories Curated for CSP by TGI
2016-17 Highlights
(Team TGI: Anna Clark, Tyler Daniell, Michael Morguarge, Nnamdi Onwumere, and Jonathan Corley at University of West Georgia and Julia Bernd at ICSI)
Search our 2016-17 Curated News Stories by CSP Framework Tag
Ongoing TGI “Computing in The News” Forum
Uncurated news spotted by our site users, community contributions, and comments on our curated news articles. Peruse or join in and share a story!
Current Uncurated News from Other Sources
Some of our favorite sources for computing news!
From ACM Tech News
- World's Most Popular Online Computer Class Turns to AI for HelpBloombergHarvard University's David J. Malan said the school's CS50 introductory computer science (CS) class will utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to mark assignments, teach programming, and personalize learning tips for students. Malan is credited with turning CS50 into the world's most popular online learning course; he said tailoring support to students' questions at scale has been […]
- Robot 'Chef' Learns to Recreate Recipes from Watching VideosUniversity of Cambridge (U.K.)Scientists at the U.K.'s University of Cambridge programmed a robotic "chef" to make eight salad recipes, teaching it to identify recipes and to add to its repertoire by having it watch food videos. The researchers trained the robot chef using a publicly available neural network programmed to identify various objects, including salad […]
- Black Men Were Likely Underdiagnosed with Lung Problems Due to Bias in SoftwareAssociated PressA study published last week suggests built-in software bias may be responsible for the underdiagnosis of lung problems among Black men. The researchers analyzed the medical histories of more than 2,700 Black men and 5,700 white men evaluated by University of Pennsylvania Health System doctors between 2010 and 2020. They focused on spirometry and […]
From MIT News
- Scaling audio-visual learning without labels June 5, 2023A new multimodal technique blends major self-supervised learning methods to learn more similarly to humans.Lauren Hinkel | MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab
- A more effective way to train machines for uncertain, real-world situations May 31, 2023Researchers develop an algorithm that decides when a “student” machine should follow its teacher, and when it should learn on its own.Adam Zewe | MIT News Office
- New tool helps people choose the right method for evaluating AI models May 31, 2023Selecting the right method gives users a more accurate picture of how their model is behaving, so they are better equipped to correctly interpret its predictions.Adam Zewe | MIT News Office
- Celebrating the impact of IDSS May 26, 2023A two-day conference at MIT reflected on the impact of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society since its launch, as founding Director Munther Dahleh prepares to step down.Kaitlin Provencher | Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
From Science Daily
- Robot 'chef' learns to recreate recipes from watching food videos June 5, 2023Researchers have trained a robotic 'chef' to watch and learn from cooking videos, and recreate the dish itself.
- Researchers demonstrate secure information transfer using spatial correlations in quantum entangled beams of light June 5, 2023Researchers have demonstrated the principle of using spatial correlations in quantum entangled beams of light to encode information and enable its secure transmission.
- Unveiling the nanoscale frontier: innovating with nanoporous model electrodes June 2, 2023Researchers have introduced a next-generation model membrane electrode that promises to revolutionize fundamental electrochemical research.