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)
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
- Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Discovered in WordPressTechRadarResearchers at Web application security testing firm RIPS Technologies have discovered a serious remote code execution flaw in WordPress that has been accessible to attackers for six years. A low-privileged hacker with an account level of "author" or higher can exploit the flaw using a combination of both the path Traversal and Local File Inclusion […]
- A Crucial Step for Averting AI DisastersThe Wall Street JournalData from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that, although technology companies have increased efforts to recruit women and minorities, computer and software professionals who write artificial intelligence (AI) programs remain largely white and male. A byproduct of this lack of diversity is that datasets often lack adequate representation of women […]
- The Secret History of Women in CodingThe New York Times MagazineWomen were among the earliest pioneers of coding. In the early days of computing, hardware innovation was typically handled by men, while software became the province of women due to its secondary status, and its reliance on heavy calculation. Thanks to women's contributions to programming of prototype systems like the Electronic […]
From Science Daily
- Researchers engineer a tougher fiber February 22, 2019Researchers have developed a fiber that combines the elasticity of rubber with the strength of a metal, resulting in a tougher material that could be incorporated into soft robotics, packaging materials or next-generation textiles.
- Captured carbon dioxide converts into oxalic acid to process rare earth elements February 22, 2019Removing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions is a good idea to start with -- and it may have an extra economic benefit. Engineers are presenting results on turning carbon dioxide into oxalic acid, which is used to process rare earth elements for electronic devices.
- Freezing upon heating: Formation of dynamical glass February 22, 2019Scientists have modeled the energy behavior of chaotic networks of superconducting elements (grains), separated by non-superconducting junctions, and found out some unexpected statistical properties at long (but still finite) time-scales.