@ astine:

Nice! I like this one. I’m getting all kinds of good suggestions here. In the past I had a group of students do a presentation on video editing. They were all communication majors so it was sort of their thing. It was fairly interesting. I should make this a suggestion.

@ Alphast:

Good point, but I doubt any of these would have any takers. In fact, I’m surprised how many students in my class have never actually worked in an office environment. Perhaps I’m biased because I always avoided retail and food industries when I was younger. Most of my part time jobs were office gigs where I did data entry, filing and other intern-level bullshit. Most of my students on the other hand never have used Outlook, and things like network shares and printers are like arcane magic to them.

@ Travis McCrea:

Wow, I didn’t think about that. That is a really good idea. Multi-tier topics, some of which might be more difficult and therefore more valuable. I will need to ponder on this.

Have you considered offering extra credit for “difficult” topics? Or use weighted grading for them?

I would just tell them “hey, if you take piracy… a topic that no student takes, I am going to be much more understanding if your information isn’t as complete as someone who takes a non-controversial topic, because I recognize that getting straight answers about piracy is difficult.” (as an example).

Also just read this article, thought I would share: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columms/why_you_should_join_diaspo ra_now_your_freedom_depends_it#

I don’t know how many of your students later end up with office jobs. But I suspect, statistics being what they are, that it is at least 50%. And most companies nowadays use ERP, CRM and/or Financial software suites (that is a strict minimum). These are pieces of software often royally ignored by student before they leave college. Nevertheless, nearly all of them will be forced to work daily on at least one of these in their professional lives. Maybe that’s a good topic to investigate for them…

One more suggestion that you might not have considered: What about the impact of technology on music and the visual arts? I suspect that your students, if they don’t care about technology, at least care about music or movies, (Surely at least one of them plays the guitar?) Have them research autotuning, the impact of digital post-production, CGI, photoshopping, the benefits of different audio formats (lossy vs non-lossy) etc. Have them talk about both the practical consequences for individual artists (or studios) as well as their effects on the industries as a whole. There’s a lot of controversy at least among musicians about this so you might get a bite.

@ astine:

Nope, no one wants to write about open source. I tried, but my students just don’t care. They don’t see anything even remotely fascinating about the entire movement. I suspect it might be because most of them grew up in a world where digital data is free by default. I mean, Hollywood movies are free on the internet, so is proprietary software. 80% of software they use is already freeware or open source (unbeknownst to them) so it is not something on their radar.

@ Travis McCrea:

What, you have never heard about the iStudents? I just messed up the capitalization.

Also, fixed.

@ StDoodle:

That’s actually a good suggestion. Thanks!

@ Morghan:

Apple has the best track record in this department. They still fully support iPhone 3GS. You can still upgrade your 3GS to iOS5 and from what I heard, the new OS actually makes the old phone much snappier.

Android phones on the other hand are a complete crap shoot because the individual manufacturers just don’t give a fuck after a while. It’s kinda sad that the combination of an open OS and a competitive multi-vendor hardware ecosystem actually results in worse support, than a monolithic, one-company environment.

I wonder about the mobile wars and how orphaned devices may eventually affect the overall status of a platform.

BlackBerry was the master of letting their customers down by not updating the software on that really expensive phone, but it seems Android is taking their crown with manufacturers and carriers dropping devices for the next big thing seemingly at random. I’d be interested in how people see that compared to the planned end of other devices like the iPhone.

We know that iPhone will be obsolete in a year or two, but an Android device is more of a crap-shoot,. It could be stuck behind the lead in a few months, or it could be updated for years, there’s really no way of knowing what manufacturers/carriers will continue to support their phones and tablets and which will never push an update even in the case of a serious flaw being found.

Though it may not be newsworthy for long, the impact (both for good and ill) of technology on recent revolutions seems like a good topic.

Type-O:
In the class I teach, I the students have to do

I *have* the students do
or…
the I students have to do…

:) Just saying

Careful with that suggestion Luke. You’re going to get a presentation about how ice crystals in cloud formations are being used a replacement for silicon because of it’s superior conductivity. (There’s more than one irony there :))

I don’t suppose a topic about open source (or even just crowd sourcing) would attract any interest? I bet it’s on your list already.

@ Victoria:

Good point. I don’t think I have cloud computing on the list. It shall be added. :)