1.

5 The impact of emerging technologies

This session identifies some of the technology that is starting to, or soon will, impact
on our everyday lives. As time and technology move forward, new breakthroughs start
to capture the imagination, and soon ideas become reality.

Learning aims
 Describe how a range of emerging technologies are being introduced into our everyday life, and the
impact this is having.
 Consideration of technologies that are breaking through and how they could be employed in our lives.

Differentiated learning outcomes Resources

• All students must be able to identify new technology  Student’s Book: pages 20−22
and describe where it is being used.
• Most students should be able to identify where new
technology has been introduced, assessing its
usefulness; identify and consider the newly emerging
technologies.
• Some students could discuss the application of new
technologies in our everyday lives; identify and
discus the impact the newly emerging technologies
could have on our lives.

Starter suggestions
Begin with a discussion about artificial intelligence and robotics.
• Do students know what these are?
• What kind of a future developments might there be in these fields?
Lead a discussion about new technology including new hardware ‘techniques’ as well
as new software for new applications.

Main lesson activities

This session is heavy on internet research and vocabulary. It might be useful for
students to have looked at sections of Session 1.8 (Internet research) beforehand.
Read through the section headed Security.
Discussion: have students seen any application of artificial intelligence biometrics?
Airport security is increasingly becoming reliant on this technology, with iris scanning
becoming more widely used. Some cars already have fingerprint recognition in the
door handles. Which?
Activities 1 and 2 can be done.
For Activity 2, depending on the student group, you might want to have a class
discussion focussing on one area, or let students work in pairs on an area. Student
pairs could then produce a report on that area to feed back to the class.
Teacher task: Text translation may be of particular interest in international school
settings, so before this session it might be useful to investigate how your school
manages the translation task of, for example the prospectus, or website content. Do
not be disappointed to find that it is done completely manually. Instead, you could use
this as an opportunity to explore the translation possibilities for your school.

Cambridge IGCSE™ ICT Teacher’s Guide © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022

 Teacher task: prepare a small paragraph of text to be submitted to an online
translation tool, or smartphone application.
Discussion: How is a school prospectus or website content translated? What might
need to be done if the text to translate is particularly long? Have students got a grasp
of how computer–assisted translation is done? Also show examples of websites where
the language shown is automatically translated. Show www.apple.com for example,
the language can be changed at the bottom of the home page.
Students can complete Activities 3 and 4, feeding back to the class.

Give extra support by getting students into small groups and then brainstorming
search terms to use in Activities 1 and 2. From search results work first on creating
a definition and then listing examples of where these technologies can be found.
Give extra challenge by asking students to work in pairs to produce a poster
advertising a car with the latest emerging technology features. Place suitable
textboxes alongside parts of the car where the technology is located explaining the
advantages of that technology.

Plenary suggestions
This session has been about exploration and discovery as much as anything else.
There have been a number of feedback opportunities in this session, so try and draw
out any conclusions or summarise what has been researched and discovered.

Cambridge IGCSE™ ICT Teacher’s Guide © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022