One minute, one current technology story, three questions: what is being claimed, what is actually known, and who benefits if you believe it? Technology news runs hot — every product is revolutionary, every risk is an apocalypse — and this routine is the thermostat. It also stocks the shelves for every discussion we hold, from Who Owns Your Data to Will AI Take the Jobs.
How to run it
- One student brings the story — headline and two sentences of summary, no more. Rotate the job daily.
- The room answers the three questions in order. Keep claimed and known strictly apart; that boundary is the whole skill.
- “Who benefits?” goes last: who is selling something, and who wrote the headline?
- Park anything juicy on the board for a future discussion.
One variation
Same story, two sources: read a company’s announcement beside a news report about it, and list what each one left out.
"We don't know yet" is a finding
The strongest thing said in this warm-up is often that the honest answer is not known. Practise saying it plainly — it is rarer in technology writing than it should be.
Curriculum connection
A2.1
investigate current social, cultural, economic, environmental, and ethical issues related to digital technology that have personal, local, and global impacts, taking various perspectives into account
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A3.1
investigate how digital technology and programming skills can be used within a variety of disciplines in real-world applications
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B4.3
investigate emerging innovations related to hardware and software and their possible benefits and limitations with reference to everyday life in the future
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