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ICT & Computing in Education

Articles on education technology and related topics
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dystopian visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian Visions: A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury (updated)

December 6, 2024

One of my favourite stories, this one by Ray Bradbury looks at the possible consequences of making a small, apparently insignificant, change in the past.

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In Dystopian Visions, Discussion topic Tags Dystopian visions, Bradbury

Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian Visions: The Machine That Won the War (Revisited)

December 5, 2024

What really happens when a computer is invented that can make every decision in a war?

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Asimov, machine that won the war, Dystopian visions

Dystopian Visions: Flowers for Algernon Revisited

December 5, 2024

One of the well-known tropes in science fiction — especially the sort of sci-fi you see in comics and superhero films — is the mad scientist.

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In Dystopian Visions, Discussion topic Tags Flowers for Algernon, Dystopian visions
Dystopian Visions

Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian visions: The Cold Equations Revisited

November 14, 2024

The potentially devastating consequences of a drive for efficiency to the nth degree are shown in this science fiction story.

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Tom Godwin, Cold Equations, Dystopian visions

Dystopian visions: Disappearing Act Revisited

November 7, 2024

I especially worry about the displacement of subjects like art, drama, music, history and geography, all of which are vitally important but which seem to be treated as the poor cousins in the curriculum. Yes, STEAM is better than STEM, but it’s not enough.

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In Dystopian Visions, Discussion topic Tags science fiction, Alfred Bester, Disappearing Act, Dystopian visions

Dystopian visions: My Object All Sublime revisited

October 25, 2024

What if an amazing technology like time travel were used purely and simply as a form of punishment?

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Dystopian visions, Poul Anderson, time travel

Dystopian visions: Computers don't argue (Updated with reference to AI)

October 16, 2024

The writer does an excellent job of both reflecting the annoyance of dealing with a computer program that has no flexibility as well as no intelligence, and highlighting the need for programs to invite human input when the consequences of not doing so can be catastrophic.

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions, AI Tags Dystopian visions, computers don't argue, automated communications, AI

Dystopian visions: a partial index (Updated again)

November 3, 2022

I’ve added another article in this series. Hence this update.

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags science fiction, Dystopian visions

dystopian visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian Visions: A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury

November 3, 2022

One of my favourite stories, this one by Ray Bradbury looks at the possible consequences of making a small, apparently insignificant, change in the past.

Read More
In Dystopian Visions, Discussion topic Tags Dystopian visions, Bradbury

Dystopian visions: a partial index (Updated)

October 19, 2022

Yesterday when I wrote this article I inadvertently left out one of the stories I covered. Hence this update.

Read More
In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags science fiction, Dystopian visions

Dystopian visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian visions: a partial index

October 18, 2022

Being a great fan of the kind of science fiction that extrapolates what is (sort of) possible now into what will probably be possible in the future, I’ve been writing a series of articles called Dystopian Visions.

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags science fiction, Dystopian visions

Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian Visions: The Machine That Won the War

April 26, 2022

What really happens when a computer is invented that can make every decision in a war?

Read More
In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Asimov, machine that won the war, Dystopian visions
Dystopian Visions

Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian visions: The Cold Equations

April 25, 2022

The potentially devastating consequences of a drive for efficiency to the nth degree are shown in this science fiction story.

Read More
In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Tom Godwin, Cold Equations, Dystopian visions

Dystopian visions: Computers don't argue

October 25, 2021

The writer does an excellent job of both reflecting the annoyance of dealing with a computer program that has no flexibility as well as no intelligence, and highlighting the need for programs to invite human input when the consequences of not doing so can be catastrophic.

Read More
In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Dystopian visions, computers don't argue, automated communications

Dystopian Visions: Flowers for Algernon

May 17, 2021

One of the well-known tropes in science fiction — especially the sort of sci-fi you see in comics and superhero films — is the mad scientist.

Read More
In Dystopian Visions, Discussion topic Tags Flowers for Algernon, Dystopian visions
dystopian visions.png

Dystopian visions: The Snowball Effect

May 2, 2021

In The Snowball Effect, by Katherine Maclean, the focus is on mathematics, or an innovation called “social mathematics” to be accurate. This probably sounds rather dry, but it was really quite prescient.

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Katherine Maclean, Snowball Effect, Dystopian visions

Dystopian visions: My Object All Sublime

April 9, 2021

What if an amazing technology like time travel were used purely and simply as a form of punishment?

Read More
In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Dystopian visions, Poul Anderson, time travel

Dystopian visions: Disappearing Act (Updated)

March 20, 2021

<UPDATED> I especially worry about the displacement of subjects like art, drama, music, history and geography, all of which are vitally important but which seem to be treated as the poor cousins in the curriculum. Yes, STEAM is better than STEM, but it’s not enough.

Read More
In Dystopian Visions, Discussion topic Tags science fiction, Alfred Bester, Disappearing Act, Dystopian visions
Background image by mollyroselee from Pixabay

Dystopian visions

March 16, 2021

Coming soon…

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In Discussion topic Tags Dystopian visions, science fiction
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