How the hardware is chasing Moore’s Law (LS-HR-550)

The teaching scenario elaborates and describes the differences between computers from past centuries and modern computers used today. The goal is to emphasize the fact of rapidly evolving technology. What do you use technology for? Do you think your computers are powerful enough to perform all the tasks you assign them? Were computers much slower in the past than they are today? And will they be faster in the future?

Students will be divided into three teams and will search for computers from the last century using the Europana portal to explore the specifications of those computers. Students will then search the internet (e.g. Wikipedia) to find the specifications of today’s computers. They will compare the specifications of then and today’s computers and conclude whether Moore’s law holds. Moore’s law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The observation is named after Gordon Moore, CEO of Intel. The trend begins with the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958. Using digital tools, each team will present their work to other teams, and each team will evaluate the success of presenting the work of other teams. The assessment method will be a Kahoot quiz, and feedback and discussion will be given using a Mentimeter.

Would you like to know more about this learning scenario? You can download it below:

Did you find this learning scenario interesting? You might also like:

• The digital Evolution, From Our Artisans to Today’s Digital Information
• Inventions and Discoveries
• The Antikythera Mechanism – The first computer in history

CC BY 4.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Tekniska museet.