Global Tech: Utopia or Dystopia?

This was the big question that Year 9 were asked to consider for their Global Mindedness Week from Monday 14^th to Wednesday 16^th June.

They welcomed Erica Purvis from TechnicalNature to launch the programme, dedicated to exploring the impact of technology on our society, for better and for worse. Erica’s positive overview of the massive benefits to manufacturing processes, health, transport, the garment industry, ethical enterprise and fairtrade gave the groups plenty to think about as they started their projects.

Exploring the worldwide impact of artificial intelligence and robots, energy, the internet and social media, transportation and bio-technology, the groups were organised into ten teams, each one representing either the pros and the cons of one of the five categories. They created magazines and mood boards to support their stance and a video reflecting on the projects.  The culmination was a debate where the teams had to showcase their work to one another and to the staff who had overseen their activities.

Organiser and Head of English, Tom Rawlings, commented, “I have been astonished by the students’ maturity and the level of dialogue that has been happening. They met deadlines and produced work of great quality. The debate was an insanely high standard with some truly exceptional speakers.”

The students were equally enthusiastic with Ewan explaining, “We’ve been working on a project around the positive benefits of social media. These include keeping in touch with family and starting mass movements, like around climate change.”

“I’ve enjoyed the Global Mindedness project because we’ve worked in groups and learned about subjects we wouldn’t usually get to look at.” added Tiger.

“This project has really pushed us, as we’ve had to work towards targets. I feel like I’ve really learned about the value of group work as it just isn’t possible to do it all by yourself.” concluded Megan and George