There are many reasons why it is important for students to think about the ethical implications of computer science and the technology that they use and create. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic all teachers faced the sudden transition to necessary remote learning. The fast pivot to online learning required changes to existing lessons, or even creating totally new ones. Shifting to lessons about ethics proved to be a valuable substitution for lesson plans (LP) that required access to resources no longer available to students from home. Presented here are a series of lessons that could be taught in any modality that were adapted for middle and high school learners during the spring of 2020 for their science and AP CS Principles courses. Although the activities and artifacts that are described for students were originally created for online synchronous sessions, they could easily be adapted for face-to-face, online or hybrid classrooms. The subjects of these lessons focused on the ethical impacts of computing by looking at past, present, and emerging technologies. Specifically, the lessons presented here look at the overall ethical ramifications of artificial intelligence (AI), the disruption experienced through peer-to-peer file sharing, and an overview of cybercrime.
These plans can be used by teachers as is, or can be easily modified. They can be used in any modality and customized for synchronous or asynchronous sessions.
Please read the main paper which includes links to web sites for materials in support of the topics and sample works.