What Is Human Technologies?
Time
60 mins
Difficulty
Beginner
Prerequisites
None
Departments
Human Technologies
Authors
Ross Parker
Groupings
Individual
Pairs
Pairs
Minimum Year Group
None
Blurb
HT is a subject specific to ICHK. But what is it, and why do we study it? In short, HT is all about understanding the nature of being human, and our complex yet vital relationship to technology. By learning what technology is, and how it effects us, we can learn to be better at being human.
License
This work is shared under the following license: Creative Commons BY-SA-NC
Outline
| Resources What is needed to run this unit?
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Cross-Curricular Links Do not try and force this. What areas of other subjects might this reflect and/discuss language. For IB, links with ToK.
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| Teacher Reflection What was successful? What needs changing? Alternative Assessments and Lesson Ideas? What other Differentiation Ideas/Plans could be used?
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| Credits Any CC attribution, thanks, credit, etc.
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5 mins
Why Study HT?
The Pitch
- HT is a subject invented at ICHK Secondary.
- But what is it, and why do we study it?
- In short, HT is all about understanding the nature of being human, and our complex yet vital relationship to technology.
- By learning what technology is, and how it effects us, we can learn to be better at being human.
15 mins
The Venn Diagram
Getting Started
- Often we think of "technology" as things like computers and cars...but really, technology is much broader.
- We can think of technology as anything that is made by humans.
- To really think broadly about technology, the HT Venn diagram shows us four overlapping categories of technology, contained within one over-arching category:
- As you can see, technology is very broad and includes material "stuff" as well as many non-material technologies (such as spoken language).
- The somatic category relates to those technologies that act in relation to our bodies (e.g. all technologies!)
10 mins
What Do We Want From You?
Learning
- HT focuses on the following unifying questions:
- What makes us human?
- What skills and thought patterns will make us the most effective we can be?
- How did the patterns of thought and organisation that characterise human language, culture and society develop and how do they work?
- These are really big questions, and can only be answered over a number of years of studying, reading, thinking and discussing.
- You can learn about what Human Technologies is on our website page.
- Remember that because HT is an ICHK-developed subject, Googling "human technologies" will yield a lot of unrelated and misleading information.
30 mins
Summing Up
Evidence
- As evidence of your learning in this very short unit:
- Write a short summary of what you think Human Technologies is
- Include or draw the HT Venn diagram, and annotate (label) each different section, with a technology that you think fits there. For example, we can say that spoken language is both a cognitive and social technology:
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- Add a list of what you consider to be the 5 most important technologies of all time.
- This should not be a huge piece of work, just a brief summary of a brief unit.
- You can do this by hand, or on your computer.
- Once you have completed the work, submit it as evidence of your learning.
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Matthew Shared on 24/08/2021 |
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Amelie Shared on 11/03/2021 |
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Daniel Shared on 28/08/2016 |
