As you welcome students to your classroom, ask them to help you brainstorm a list of technology they or their family members use regularly. Keep track of this list on the whiteboard or screenshared document. Help them brainstorm as many as possible. Ideas could include cellphones, tablets, laptops, Siri™/Alexa™, Amazon Echo™, cars, traffic lights, Roombas, etc. When everyone is settled, read your list together.
We interact with technology in so many ways, and in the last two years, technology has been more important to our daily lives than ever before. When the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many things that were once in-person events (like school, church, and work) became virtual.
Although mindlessly playing video games or scrolling social media for hours on end isn’t the best use of it, technology has improved many people’s daily lives in big ways!
Medical devices using state of the art technology can improve people’s lives. Take, for example, this child who was able to hear his parents’ voices for the first time due to cochlear implants.
Share this video with your students [1:06]:
Deaf kid hears for the first time.
This device is just one of many ways that technology can make a big, positive impact in the lives of real people.
- Do you know of anyone who has benefited from technology in big or small ways? (Accept all reasonable answers. If students have trouble thinking of answers, suggest some of the following: video calls with grandparents can brighten their days, robotic prosthetic limbs improve the lives of people who have lost a limb, Roomba vacuums simplify people’s lives, cell phones make it easier to stay connected with others or call for help if needed, etc.)
- What tasks can you think of that technology could help humans with? (Encourage creative answers and discussion.)
- How has technology helped you? (Answers will vary.)
- What are some things that technology can’t help humans with? (Answers may include: relationship issues, love, family problems, etc.)
Technology is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our lives. It can help with all sorts of tasks and change our lives in good ways. There are some things, though, that technology can’t help with, and those things are some of most difficult parts of life—such as what to say in difficult situations. But as Christians, we have the promise of a Helper that is better than any robot or human-created assistant. Let’s learn more.
