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

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.

In each article I reference a science fiction short story and invite teachers to discuss it with their students, especially in the fields of Computing and ethics.

Here’s an index to the articles completed so far. The next one will appear first in my newsletter, Digital Education.

The machine that won the war

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

The cold equations

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

Computers don’t argue

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.

Flowers for Algernon

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.

The snowball effect

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.

My object all sublime

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

Disappearing Act

I 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.

A Sound of Thunder

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.