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Challenges, Choice, & Change: Experiences and Reflections from the First Semester of a Technology and Human Futures Course

Author:

Briana BettinAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE 2023: Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

Pages 235 - 241

https://doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569872

Published: 03 March 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Society's rapidly increasing reliance on technology has created urgency for future leaders to understand these technologies' potential impacts. News of technical and algorithmic concerns in society are frequent, highlighting the real impacts to real people.

Learners may approach computing in order to feel prepared for careers and life in modern society. These learners benefit from understanding the many ways technology may be part of their future careers, their lives, and the lives of others. Beyond this, many wish to use computing to solve problems - but complex societal problems may feel too overwhelming to solve. Greater understanding of the technologies involved and the ways humans, society, and technology interact may help learners feel more confident in exploring and navigating these problem spaces for better tomorrows.

This experience report describes the first semester of a new course developed to explore the intersection of technology and human futures. This course centered cultural competency themes alongside technologies and sectors to better understand not only how technology is applied in society, but how these factors can have different results across distinct identity facets.

The perspectives shared in this report include the instructor (author) and students - gathered through a survey co-designed with the students. The experience was overall positive for both students and instructor. Learner sentiments suggest that more course offerings like this are valuable by providing new and engaging material as well as new tools and considerations for their future careers.

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Cited By

Carruthers S(2024)Indigenization and Decolonization of CS Education 2010-2023: A Bibliometric AnalysisProceedings of the 26th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/3660650.3660658(1-8)Online publication date: 2-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660650.3660658
Castro FHuff ESolomon ABettin BMonga MLonati VBarendsen ESheard JPaterson J(2024)Bringing Our Full Selves Into Computing: Designing, Building, and Fostering Equitable Computing Education CommunitiesProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3649217.3653550(136-142)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649217.3653550
Corbari Dos Santos GSilva DPeres LValentim N(2024)Case Study of a Model that evaluates the Learner Experience with DICTsExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3637138(1-9)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3637138

Index Terms

Challenges, Choice, & Change: Experiences and Reflections from the First Semester of a Technology and Human Futures Course
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE 2023: Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

March 2023

1481 pages

ISBN:9781450394314

DOI:10.1145/3545945

General Chairs:
Maureen Doyle
Northern Kentucky University, USA
,
Ben Stephenson
University of Calgary, Canada
,
Program Chairs:
Brian Dorn
University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA
,
Leen-Kiat Soh
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
,
Lina Battestilli
North Carolina State University, USA

Copyright © 2023 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

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Published: 03 March 2023

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SIGCSE 2023: The 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 15 - 18, 2023

Toronto ON, Canada

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

Carruthers S(2024)Indigenization and Decolonization of CS Education 2010-2023: A Bibliometric AnalysisProceedings of the 26th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/3660650.3660658(1-8)Online publication date: 2-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660650.3660658
Castro FHuff ESolomon ABettin BMonga MLonati VBarendsen ESheard JPaterson J(2024)Bringing Our Full Selves Into Computing: Designing, Building, and Fostering Equitable Computing Education CommunitiesProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3649217.3653550(136-142)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649217.3653550
Corbari Dos Santos GSilva DPeres LValentim N(2024)Case Study of a Model that evaluates the Learner Experience with DICTsExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3637138(1-9)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3637138

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