Students should be provided with the pre-release document ahead of the May 2018 HL paper 3 examination, this can be found under the 'Your tests' tab > supplemental materials > May 2018 HL paper 3 pre-release document: Accessibility.

Improving the accessibility to the curriculum for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

Source 1: Tayton School

Tayton School is a primary school that teaches 500 children aged between 5 and 12. There are three classes in each year group, with a maximum of 24 students in each class. The school’s motto is “Education for Everyone”, and inclusion is at the heart of the school’s mission.

The school’s Inclusion Department consists of five full-time staff, led by Sandra, and 10 learning support assistants who are active in working with the children. Sandra has recently produced a report on the students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the school, in which she found that the increasing numbers of students, and the types of SEND, means that the schools needs to invest in expanding the amount of support for the students (see Table 1).

Table 1: SEND at Tayton School

Sandra’s report argues that, next year, the work of the Inclusion Department would be more effective if the school purchased educational digital technologies, such as social robots and assistive technologies.

Source 2: Social robots in education

Sandra researched social robots and came back to the department meeting with this information:

In 2020, a report on the use of social robots in education was published by a prestigious university professor, who concluded that social robots have the potential to be a key player in education in the way textbooks and whiteboards have been in the past. A social robot has the potential to support students in ways that could never have been envisaged 20 years ago. However, there are significant technical limitations, particularly linked to the social robot’s ability to interact with students, that will restrict their usability for the next few years

Source 3: Mary sees the positives

Mary, one of the learning assistants at Tayton School, says:

“As a parent of two school-age children, I think the potential introduction of social robots has both advantages and disadvantages. My children thought the idea of having a robot that sits with them very exciting, and I think they would do what the robot asks without questioning it. The robot will also be much more patient while they are learning their times tables!” (See Figure 1).

Figure 1: Students interacting with a social robot

[Source: pexels.com]

Source 4: James has doubts

James, another learning assistant at Tayton School, is wary of the overuse of digital technology in schools for children with special needs based on his experiences in other schools. He has found some research that supports his ideas.

[Source: pexels.com]

Cameras in school

The principal at Flynn School has received requests from parents saying that they would like to monitor their children’s performance in school more closely. He is considering extending the school’s IT system by installing cameras linked to facial recognition software that can record student behaviour in lessons.

The facial recognition software can determine a student’s attention level and behaviour, such as identifying if they are listening, answering questions, talking with other students, or sleeping. The software uses machine learning to analyse each student’s behaviour and gives them a weekly score that is automatically emailed to their parents.

The principal claims that monitoring students’ behaviour more closely will improve the teaching and learning that takes place.

Discuss whether Flynn School should introduce a facial recognition system that uses machine learning to analyse each student’s behaviour and give them a score that is automatically emailed to their parents.

Can digital technologies be used sustainably?

Many organizations claim that the most efficient use of information technology (IT) equipment, such as laptops and printers, is to replace them on a regular basis. For example, an organization’s strategy may be to do this every three years.

Other organizations purchase IT equipment that can easily be upgraded by increasing the storage and memory or upgrading the processing capabilities only when required. They claim they do not need to replace their IT equipment on such a regular basis and believe this is a more sustainable practice.

Evaluate the sustainability of these two strategies.

Using a Segway with machine learning capabilities?

The Segway Patroller is a two-wheeled, battery-powered electric vehicle. Recently, Segway Patrollers have been used for security purposes in cities as well as in public spaces such as concerts, railway stations and shopping malls.

The Segway Patroller can travel up to a speed of 20 kilometres per hour (about 12 miles per hour) and travel about 40 kilometres (25 miles) in distance before the battery needs to be recharged.

Figure 3: A Segway Patroller

[Copyright: Urban Mobility GmbH – fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Segway_Polizei_4.jpg]

Each Segway Patroller can be customized by adding the following features.

• A global positioning system (GPS)-based navigation system
• Machine learning capabilities that include speech, image and pattern recognition

The managers at Oliverstadt Station claim the introduction of upgraded Segways that have a GPS navigation system and machine learning capabilities would lead to improvements in the customer service provided.

Discuss whether the Segway Patrollers at Oliverstadt Station should be upgraded to include machine learning capabilities.

Fake news

We see and hear news every day and trust that the information provided is accurate. That belief may soon end.

Artificial intelligence (AI) software is now being developed that can produce fake video footage of public figures using recordings of their own voices. Using as little as one minute of user-generated content (data), it can reproduce a particular person’s voice. The developer of this software demonstrated the results by using the voices of Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama in a computer-generated conversation.

Once a person’s voice has been reproduced, a fake video can be created by processing hundreds of videos of the person’s face. Video footage of politicians are often used, as there is so much data available online.

Law professor John Silverman commented that, as humans we tend to believe what we see, and the increased number of tools to make fake media that is unrecognizable from real media is going to prove a major challenge in the future.

Discuss the claim that companies who develop software that can create fake videos of politicians should be accountable for the fake videos posted by users of their software on social media platforms.

Should we completely automate journalism?

Some of the news articles that you read are written by automated journalism software. This software uses algorithms and natural language generators to turn facts and trends into news stories.

Narrative Science, a company that produces automated journalism software, predicts that by 2026 up to 90 % of news articles could be generated by machine learning algorithms.

Discuss whether it is acceptable for news articles to be generated by automated journalism software.

Automated medical image analysis

EBBZS IT, based in Groningen, the Netherlands, intends to develop a system using artificial intelligence (AI) to help doctors at Joelstraat Hospital interpret medical images.

Due to the high resolution* of the digital images (see Figure 4), EBBZS IT claims the AI system will be able to learn from these images to assist doctors when diagnosing patients’ illnesses.

EBBZS IT also claims the AI system will be able to cope with the significant increase in the volume of patients and the increased complexity of their symptoms and conditions.

Figure 4: Examples of digital images used in the AI system

[National Institutes of Health: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:
Human_ brain_development_1wk-3mo-1yr-2yr-10yr-T1W-MRI.PNG]

* resolution: the detail an image holds. It can be measured in pixels per centimetre.

Discuss the claim by EBBZS IT that the diagnosis of patients’ illnesses should be based on the information provided by the AI system.

Policing as a human activity?

Toby Walsh, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales, Australia, notes that the use of police robots raises “many important questions that we, as a society, have to think about”.

Singapore has started testing patrol robots that survey pedestrian areas in the city-state. Xavier, the mall-cop robot, will be autonomously rolling through the Toa Payoh central district for three weeks scanning for “undesirable social behaviours”.

Figure 4 shows an example of a patrol robot.

Figure 4: An example of a patrol robot

[Image by Jdietsch. PatrolBot.jpg (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PatrolBot.jpg).
Under copyright and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 International License,
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en (image cropped)]

It has been claimed that the use of patrol robots will lead to more efficient policing.

Discuss the extent to which police departments should use patrol robots as a strategy to aidpolicing.

Selecting candidates for political parties

Political parties often have large numbers of applicants who wish to act as representatives in their various governing bodies. A senior party official must make the final decision about which applicants should be offered which roles. Many roles receive as many as 15 applications, and it is not possible to interview each applicant.

In an attempt to streamline the application process, a prospective representative will need to complete two tasks:

1. Completing an online questionnaire.
2. Submitting a video where they explain the reasons behind their application.

Neither task will involve the team in the political party.

The applicants will be directed to a link provided by the software developer where they can complete both tasks. The responses to the questionnaires and the videos will be analysed using artificial intelligence (AI).

The software will score the questionnaire and video for each applicant and send it to the senior party official’s team. The applicants with the highest scores will then be invited by the political party for an interview.

The software developers claim this will reduce the number of applications the senior party official needs to process and lead to the most appropriate applicants being selected for an interview.

Discuss whether the political party should introduce the digital system to assist the senior party official when deciding which applicants should be offered roles as representatives.

Students should be provided with the pre-release document ahead of the May 2018 HL paper 3 examination, this can be found under the 'Your tests' tab > supplemental materials > May 2018 HL paper 3 pre-release document: Accessibility.

Improving the accessibility to the curriculum for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

Source 1: Tayton School

Tayton School is a primary school that teaches 500 children aged between 5 and 12. There are three classes in each year group, with a maximum of 24 students in each class. The school’s motto is “Education for Everyone”, and inclusion is at the heart of the school’s mission.

The school’s Inclusion Department consists of five full-time staff, led by Sandra, and 10 learning support assistants who are active in working with the children. Sandra has recently produced a report on the students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the school, in which she found that the increasing numbers of students, and the types of SEND, means that the schools needs to invest in expanding the amount of support for the students (see Table 1).

Table 1: SEND at Tayton School

Sandra’s report argues that, next year, the work of the Inclusion Department would be more effective if the school purchased educational digital technologies, such as social robots and assistive technologies.

Source 2: Social robots in education

Sandra researched social robots and came back to the department meeting with this information:

In 2020, a report on the use of social robots in education was published by a prestigious university professor, who concluded that social robots have the potential to be a key player in education in the way textbooks and whiteboards have been in the past. A social robot has the potential to support students in ways that could never have been envisaged 20 years ago. However, there are significant technical limitations, particularly linked to the social robot’s ability to interact with students, that will restrict their usability for the next few years

Source 3: Mary sees the positives

Mary, one of the learning assistants at Tayton School, says:

“As a parent of two school-age children, I think the potential introduction of social robots has both advantages and disadvantages. My children thought the idea of having a robot that sits with them very exciting, and I think they would do what the robot asks without questioning it. The robot will also be much more patient while they are learning their times tables!” (See Figure 1).

Figure 1: Students interacting with a social robot

[Source: pexels.com]

Source 4: James has doubts

James, another learning assistant at Tayton School, is wary of the overuse of digital technology in schools for children with special needs based on his experiences in other schools. He has found some research that supports his ideas.

[Source: pexels.com]