Skip to content
PlayOwl

Computers & Digital Literacy · Grade 8

Digital Citizenship and Computing Impact Capstone

In this capstone, learners analyse ValleyConnect, Cedar Valley's fictional plan to move bus passes, library cards and permits into one app. They classify its impacts as beneficial or harmful and intended or unintended, map the people it affects, examine who is left behind by the digital divide and what it costs the environment, and weigh community norms, free expression and the gap between legal and ethical. They finish by writing an evidence-based impact analysis of a school tablet program with recommendations.

  • 5 lessons
  • About 120 minutes
  • Computing impact capstone: 10 questions
  • Ways to answer: fill in the blanks, choose an answer, highlight a text, match pairs, type a number and put in order
See plans Included with Family, Teacher and School plans. Open in PlayOwl

What learners will discover

  • Classify the impacts of a computing innovation as beneficial or harmful and as intended or unintended.
  • Map the stakeholders of an innovation, including indirect and easily overlooked ones, and describe their interests.
  • Explain the digital divide (access, devices, skills, connectivity) and the environmental impacts (energy, e-waste) of a computing innovation.
  • Reason about community norms and free expression online, and explain why something legal is not automatically ethical.
  • Write an evidence-based impact analysis of an innovation that ends with specific recommendations.

Lessons

  1. Intended, unintended, beneficial, harmful 5 steps3 practiceabout 22 min
  2. Mapping stakeholders 5 steps3 practiceabout 22 min
  3. Who is left behind, and what it costs the planet 6 steps4 practiceabout 26 min
  4. Norms, free expression, and legal versus ethical 6 steps4 practiceabout 24 min
  5. Writing an impact analysis 6 steps3 practiceabout 26 min
  6. Computing impact capstone 10 questions at the end

Keep exploring

More 8th grade computer skills

Guide for grown-ups