Time-consuming materials design

I haven't written a post for a while - the longest I've ever gone without doing so. In fact, the third anniversary of this blog was 30 November but I was too busy preparing lessons and correcting assignments to even think about it, let alone be inspired to write something.

I spend a lot of my working time preparing material and lessons (especially the kind of material I've been uploading on this blog), which I'm sure is true of most - all? - other teachers of ESP. I love the work because it's creative (for me) and relevant (for students), so it combines what I think is valuable in teaching. But it is, of course, time-consuming.

I think this is an issue that all teachers of English for Specific Purposes deal with. "Relevent" is a key word for me when I'm preparing lessons, but unfortunately much of the published material - both textbooks and online lessons - are not directly related to my students' specific areas or needs. The "English for Engineers"-type textbooks, even when well-prepared and well-written, do not necessarily focus on the specific aspects of my students' fields or aren't suited to their various language levels.

It is, of course, the nature of published materials that they tend to a "one size fits most" approach - even when they seem to have been created for a specific field and level. This is the main reason that my university doesn't use textbooks for our courses.

Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters, in their text English for Specific Purposes: A learning-centred approach, focus on this in the chapter "Materials design." They write:

"Materials writing is one of the most characteristic features of ESP in pracice. In marked contrast to General English teaching, a large amount of the ESP teacher's time may well be taken up in writing materials."

Among the reasons they mention:

"A teacher or institution may wish to provide teaching materials that will fit the specific subject area of particular learners. Such materials may not be available commercially. In addition to the profusion of subject specialisms, there is also a wide range of course types."

In my institution there is certainly a wide range of "course types" - not only different areas of engineering, but different course designs and schedules that differ in number of hours devoted to English each semester.

So many - most? - ESP teachers end up creating their own material. That's why, in fact, I created this blog in the first place. As long as I'm already finding material to use with my students, then perhaps other teachers could use it as well. Or, if it doesn't suit their needs, they might still find the website, text, or visual useful - or might be inspired by the types of exercises or activities I use with the material.

Happy 3rd Anniversary!

In any case, I enjoy the work I do and enjoy the creativity of designing materials. So as I begin my fourth year writing this blog, I will continue to enjoy sharing my ideas and the variety of texts and visuals I find with other ESP teachers.

Hackathons

Image from Clarus Commerce website

In my last post I focused on an article about San Francisco becoming the first US city to have a dedicated IoT network. In the article it mentions that there will be a "hackathon" in San Francisco from 20-22 November. From the article:

"In November, SIGFOX and the City of San Francisco will jointly sponsor a hackathon, in order to allow developers and makers to use the technology and generate new ideas for how SIGFOX's network can be used to create innovative smart-city solutions."

I didn't know what a hackathon was (it's not for nothing that my email name for this blog is nontechieteacher!), but my students knew about it, and together they attempted to explain it to me. I say "attempted," not because they weren't able to explain it well, but because different students focused on different aspects of what a hackathon is, depending on their own point of view and on what they most associate it with. The different ideas contribued gave us a lot to talk about, and formed a very useful brainstorming explanations session.

The explanation on Wikipedia is:

"A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development and hardware development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects in competition with other teams."

The information on the website leads to Tickets for the Hackathon with further information for participants in the section "Why attend":
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/smart-city-iot-hackathon-connect-your-city-tickets-19092263474

The winning categories listed are:

• Best start up project - most promising project to start a successful business modernizing cities;
• Best civic innovation project - highest impact project that improves citizens' lives;
• Best technical project - most technically advanced and ambitious project.

Students can brainstorm ideas of what could be developed, or what they would want to develop themselves. Then they could discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each idea.

There's plenty of material here for all types of engineering students!

Another aspect of the hackathon information on the website given above is the suggestions listed under "Prototypes Ideas for a smarter City (sic). It says:

"Here are several examples of applications that might tickle your fancy for this hackathon. Feel free to suggest more and think outside the box!"

So if students need some inspiration for their brainstorming, this material can be presented. The first one listed is Air, Water quality, Noise control, Energy efficiency with the prompt:

"Setting up ubiquitous sensors will help refine our understanding of where pollution happens, and where to focus efforts to limit its effets for healthier living. Is air quality better in neighborhoods with different transportation mixes? How does the weather affect energy consumption in businesses? Can the City cuts its utility bills by smarter use of sensors?"

Each of the examples has a prompt like this, which could certainly generate ideas. The full list of examples of applications:

• Air, Water quality, Noise control, Energy efficiency
• Inventory/Fleet management/Sensors on City equipment
• Traffic, transportation, parking, potholes
• Security
• Kids, pets
• Seniors, autonomy
• Art, street art, performance, interactive performance
• Fire detection, Earthquake, Flood warning systems, Disaster relief
• Wild animal tracking
• Parks, urban farms, beekeeping

Photo of a hackathon from Wikimedia blog

For more general information about hackathons, this article from Wired magazine online, "The Hackathon is On: Pitching and Programming the Next Killer App," is very useful.



Link: http://www.wired.com/2012/02/ff_hackathons/all/1

Some interesting excerpts from the article:

• "Hackathons, with their come-one-come-all ethos, have emerged as the new forum for networking, learning, and beta-testing new apps and ventures."
• "Venture capitalists are looking to hackathons as a new way to spot fresh faces worth recruiting and good ideas worth finding."
• "The trend has already spread beyond the conventional tech world. There are women-only hackathons, hackathons for teens, hackathons for colleage students, hackathons to fight autism, hackathons to improve education, hackathons to help veterans, hackathons to build Occupy Wall Street protest tools, hackathons on clean energy, hackathons on grocery shopping in Vermont, and 14 hackathons to troubleshoot water pollution -- footage of which was streamed live from nine cities including Bangalore and Nairobi."

This certainly sounds as if hackathons are a part of my students' lives - now and in the future.

IoT network in San Francisco

The City of San Francisco

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network that connects physical objects and allows them to "communicate" with each other. The company SIGFOX has established IoT networks in a number of countries in Europe, and is working on creating more in Europe, as well as North America and Asia.

A recent news article from the website radio-electronics that I used with my Information Technology students reports that SIGFOX will deploy a dedicated IoT network in San Francisco, the first city in the United States with such a network.

The article: http://www.radio-electronics.com/news/wireless-technology/san-francisco-to-become-first-us-6516

SIGFOX describes itself as, "the first and only company providing global cellular connectivity for the Internet of Things, fully dedicated to low-throughput communications." A list of cities where such networks have already been established is on the company's website:

http://www.sigfox.com/en/#!/connected-world/sigfox-network-operator

The article provided material for an interesting discussion in class about the advantages of such a network, and the impacts so far in the cities where it has been established. In addition there were a number of language features that were useful for my students.

First, to make students aware of how the text focuses on audience - in this case readers who are not sure what the "internet of things" is - we looked at the way it is defined in the article.

• "A growing phenomenon in numerous cities across the world, the IoT connects physical objects and allows them to communicate, analyze, and share their data through sensors, network connectivity and cloud software."
• "The Internet of Things links physical objects embedded with sensors and actuators to the Internet. It allows the 'things' to exchange data and communicate with each other, allowing a smoke alarm to send a text when the alarm goes off or it has a low battery; a tracker to locate a stolen bicycle; a sensor placed on a fire hydrant to alert authorities when a leak is detected."

Not only do the two explanations give the same information in different ways, but the second one further gives specific examples to make the information clear. This is the kind of thing I encourage my students to do when they are planning a presentation or writing a technical process description.

Another useful language aspect of the article is the use of tenses to refer to the future. This is also related to the work I have done with future prediction (see my posts Back to the Future today, October 26 and Past predicitons of the future, October 20).

Some examples:

• ... they will partner to deploy a dedicated Internet of Things network that will provide ...
• SIGFOX hopes to enable the IoT industry to finally take off and connect ...
• The next wave in technology innovation in San Francisco will likely be the ...
• Creating a network of this kind, the City will be able to attract new startup comanies ...
• The pilot plan in San Francisco will be executed through collaboration between ...

And the use of the future could be contrasted with the other tenses used, in order to illustrate how the tenses are used in English:

• The City of San Francisco and SIGFOX has announced that they will partner to ...
• ... the IoT connects physical objects and allows them to ...
• SIGFOX, ..., is currently operating or being deployed in 10 European countries ...
• If the last 10 years of technology development were about making it easier for ...
• Mr. Gamino has expressed excitement for the development of the IoT ...
• The initiative to make San Francisco better connected started in 2013 ...

Finally, since the article reports what a good development this is, there are many advantages of IoT networks detailed that students could either brainstorm beforehand, or add to afterwards.

Some examples:

• ... Internet of Things network that will provide low-cost, energy-efficient and two-way connectivity for smart-city programs, as well as businesses in multiple verticals.
• By providing a disruptively cost-effective, energy-efficient and simple way to connect the physical world to the internet, ...
• ... reinforces San Francisco's commitment to attracting startups and established companies in the emerging IoT space. It also allows the City to offer residents innovative new services and ...
• The types of applications - ranging from agriculture, connected health, security or logistics - that can benefit from the IoT is limitless.
• --- the City will be able to attract new startup companies, strengthen existing businesses and provide more jobs, economic growth and continuing prosperity for our residents ...
• etc.

Of course, there are also many relevant business and technology vocabulary items and collocations for students to be aware of, since they could use this language for their own writing and presentations.

The article mentions that there is going to be a "hackathon" later this month jointly sponsored by SIGFOX and the City of San Francisco, "in order to allow developers and makers to use the technology and generate new ideas for how SIGFOX's network can be used to create innovative smart-city solutions."

I had never heard of a "hackathon" before, but my students seemed interested to know more about it. This also relates well to work we do with innovations, and generating innovative ideas in their area of engineering. In my next post I'll write about this event, and how it can relate to work teaching English to engineers and engineering students.

Back to the Future today

The hoverboard from the film

In my last post I wrote about using predictions of future technology in lessons. But this week, my students reminded me of "predictions" made in the 1989 film, Back to the Future II, in which time traveler Marty McFly travels from 1985 into the future, arriving on October 21, 2015.

Throughout the film he encounters changes of the 21st century - some, for example, were fairly accurate:

• self-tying shoelaces
• wearable technology
• video calls
• hands-free gaming
• tablet computers
• robot car fuelling
• fingerprint recognition

But some were not quite right:

• flying cars
• power clothing
• fax machines everywhere

See descriptions of these in an article from The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11699199/From-hoverboards-to-self-tying-shoes-6-predictions-that-Back-to-the-Future-II-got-right.html

But the innovation my students found most interesting was the hoverboard - a 21st century flying version of the skateboard.

My students discussed the feasability of such an innovation, and then we looked at various sources to see if such a device will be possible - and how soon.

It seems that Lexus has created a hoverboard  that uses magnetic levitation with liquid nitrogen-cooled superconductors and permanent magnets to give the hoverboard "frictionless movement."

The Lexus hoverboard

See an article at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11695267/Lexus-has-created-a-real-rideable-hoverboard.html




Then there is the Hendover Hoverboard, funded on Kickstarter, which has a disc-shaped hover engine. "These engines induce an opposing magnetic field in the surface substrate below that provides lift, levitating the board off the ground."

The Hendo hoverboard

Link: http://hendohover.com/

Then there is the "One-Wheeled Gyro Skate" which doesn't fly, but "uses gyroscopes like a Segway to help you balance with your feet on either side of one giant rollerblade-style wheel in the center."

The One-Wheeled Gyro Skate

Link: http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/01/hoverboard-technologies/





For further news on "how close we are to riding real hoverboards," also see the following article from USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2015/10/21/hoverboards-back-to-future/74318804/

My students discussed the pros and cons of each of these designs, and indicated which one they would most like to try out. Even more interesting, they gave their input on how they would design a hoverboard or change any of the designs we discussed.

There are many articles now on the internet about the innovations of this film, and how close the predictions made in the film are to the present day October 21, 2015.

Past predictions of the future

Page from the original Popular Science article

Making predictions about the future - what cities will look like, what technology will be available, how life will be different from now - seems to be a popular pastime among techies. I have often used articles with my students in which innovators predict which gadgets will be invented or which current innovations will change our lives.

For example, in my post of September 8, 2013 - The City of 2050 - I wrote about a BBC article that speculates what life might be like by that year.

I recently found an article from the fastcoexist website that referred to a 1925 article from Popular Science magazine in which then-president of the Architectural League of New York, Harvey W. Corbett, made some predictions about what future cities will be like, and even included some drawings of his ideas.

Link to article:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3049647/what-the-city-of-the-future-looked-like-in-1925

Link to original article in Popular Science archives:
http://www.popsci.com/archive-viewer?id=YScDAAAAMBAJ&pg=40

The fastcoexist article is impressed that so many of Corbett's predictions of which changes will have to be made relate so well to life in cities today. For example:

• cities would become increasingly crowded;
• something would have to be done to make transportation more efficient;
• new ways of transporting parcels and goods would become necessary;
• roads would have to be redesigned to handle increased traffic;
• city centers would have to become more people-friendly.

Students could read his ideas for dealing with the above changes, and view his drawings of what his ideas look like, and compare their effectiveness to solutions that have been developed. Or to discuss their viability in cases where solutions have not yet been developed.

As a follow-up activity, students could read about other predictions from the past, and see which ones were accurate - and which ones seem rather funny now.

Some websites for this:

http://www.tested.com/tech/concepts/460223-futurists-were-right-10-predictions-made-sci-fi-writers-came-true/
This article focuses on predictions made by science fiction writers in the past.

http://www.businessinsider.com/predictions-from-the-past-that-came-true-2013-9?op=1&IR=T
This is a wider range of predictions, not only from science fiction writers, but also some as old as 1600 from different sources.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16444966
This BBC article focuses on predictions made by the American engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900 in an article he wrote for Ladie's Home Journal, What May Happen in the Next 100 Years.

Another interesting activity is for students to read predictions for the future being made today. For example these 5 predictions from Mark Zuckerberg:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-mind-blowing-predictions-about-the-future-from-mark-zuckerberg-2015-07-01 

Students can discuss whether they agree with these predictions, or believe something else will happen. This in turn could be used as a basis for persuasive speeches.

Popular Science Invention Awards

It seemed a bit early, but in May of this year Popular Science magazine published its top 10 choices for the 2015 Invention Awards - a "celebration of independent inventors."

The winners are:

• A plane that folds into a car
• Needle-free vaccination
• A Braille printer born from LEGO
• Personal pollution monitor
• Hands-on virtual reality
• A self-balancing vehicle
• An artificial reef for any seafloor
• Medical lab in a music box
• A printer for circuit boards
• A frying pan that teaches you to cook

Each invention has a link to a page with a short article about the inventor(s), what the invention does and how it works.

Link to the awards: http://www.popsci.com/2015-invention-awards

The information for 4 of the inventions includes a bullet-point list of "How it Works," with a diagram of the invention. The 4 inventions are the plane that folds into a car, the self-balancing vehicle, the artificial reef for any seafloor, and the medical lab in a music box.

I thought the frying pan that teaches you to cook sounded pretty interesting, but my mechanical engineering students chose to read about the plane-car. The invention, which is called AeroMobil Car, was invented by Štefan Klein and Juraj Vaculik of the AeroMobil Company.

The AeroMobil Car from the company's website

The information under "How it Works" is a very useful example of a short, clear technical description. From the website:

1. The adjustable wing can optimize its angle of attack for taking off or cruising. This allows for reduced speed and distance during takeoff.
2. Light materials, including a carbon-composite body over a steel airframe and six-pound carbon wheels, keep weight low.
3. The prototype's 100-horsepower four-cylinder Rotax 912 engine runs on conventional gasoline, so drivers can fuel up at existing gas stations. (Production models may have a different engine.) 
4. A robust suspension will enhance on-road performance and enable takeoff and landing on relatively rough terrain.
5. Avionics from Garmin will include a two-axis autopilot to control pitch and roll. In case of emergency, the vehicle will have a ballistic parachute safety system.

There's more information about the AeroMobil Car on the company's website:
http://www.aeromobil.com/

Students could get more information from the website to report to the class. On the website there is also a video (3:52) showing how the car opens to a plane and then flies. There's no narration, just background music. It's actually quite lovely to watch.

Economics news & vocabulary

A Wordle I created from the text

As part of my university's business English curriculum, there is content related to economics and current economics news.

For a recent lesson with my robotics engineering students, I used a text from the opinion section of The New York Times, titled "China's Troubling Robot Revolution."

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/opinion/chinas-troubling-robot-revolution.html?_r=0

The text was not only useful for a discussion of the impact that robotic manufacturing is having on China's economy (in comparison to other countries), but also for the valuable vocabulary it had for business, describing statistics and numbers, and for presentations.

Here are the examples my students identified:

Vocabulary for describing statistics/numbers:

• accounted for about a quarter of ...
• a 54 percent increase over ...
• it will have more ... than ... by (date)
• replace 6,000 workers with ... by (time)
• about a fifth of the work force
• automate about 70 percent of ... within (time)
• at an even faster pace than ...
• has made up nearly half of ...
• represents only about a third of ...
• roughly have the level in (country)
• have too little income relative to the size of ...
• as much as 40 percent of ...
• Between 1995 and 2002 about 16 million factory jobs disappeared.
• roughly 15 percent of total ...
• only about half of ...
• while more than 20 percent of ...
• According to one analysis, fully 43 percent of ...

Business vocabulary (as chosen by students):

• low-wage workers
• work force
• automation
• a leading manufacturer
• domestic consumption
• economic growth
• fixed investment
• gross domestic product
• domestic consumer spending
• return on investments
• generating returns
• service sector
• wage increases
• capitalistic economy
• social safety net
• rebalance economic growth
• saving rate
• service economy
• generating jobs
• blue-collar workers
• white-collar jobs
• software automation
• artificial intelligence
• unemployment insurance

Useful vocabulary for presentations (my choices):

• But the reality is ... / The reality, however, is that ...
• X will have significant consequences for ...
• That may make it significantly more difficult to/for ...
• One problem is ... / Another problem is ...
• By some estimates ...
• The bottom line is ...
• The solution, then, would be to ...
• According to one analysis, ...
• However, it seems likely that ...

Those who have read my blog posts know that I particularly like calling students' attention to useful collocations. In the lists above, there are certainly collocations often used in writing and discussing business topics.

Since the article was from the opinion section of the newspaper, I had students identify those parts of the text that expressed opinion, and contrast those with information that was clearly factual. This, in turn, generated discussion about which aspects of the article students agreed and disagreed with, as well as ideas for further impact of increased robotic manufacturing on the global economy.

Solar-powered plane flight

The Solar Impulse 2

An interesting item of news related clean technologies and renewable resources (see my last few posts) is that of the plane Solar Impulse 2, which is powered by the sun.

Two Swiss pilots, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, are currently underway on a flight around the world using no fuel whatsoever. They started in March 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and plan to end the flight there before the end of 2016.

In June, they completed a record-breaking flight from Nagoya, Japan to Hawaii, USA in 4 days, 21 hours, and 52 minutes. The plane must now remain in Hawaii over the winter in order to repair the batteries, but the pilots hope to finish by summer 2016.

The Solar Impulse website: http://www.solarimpulse.com/

On the website, the progress of the flight is continually updated, and there are both news items and videos relating to various aspects of the flight and the plane itself. Students can not only find out the technological details of the plane, but can also keep track of the project's progress.

There are videos of each pilot relating information about the project. Both videos are less than 3 minutes and are narrated in English (with French accents).

Of particular interest to engineering students is the technical information about how the plane functions.

Diagram from solarimpulse.com

This information is useful for both presentations and written technical descriptions.

Since there are many news articles about the Solar Impulse Project, small groups of students could be assigned different articles to read, and then in class compare and consolidate the technical details, as well as chronological information about the flight path. This can be added to throughout the semester - until the end of the flight next year.

Some useful articles for this purpose:

Solar Impulse's Troubled Round-the-world Flight (from The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/27/solar-impulse-round-the-world-flight-raise-20-million-euros 

Meet the Men Flying a Solar-Powered Plane Around the World (from Time website):
http://time.com/4004573/solar-impulse-plane-no-fuel/?xid=newsletter-brief 

Everything You Need to Know About Solar Impulse (also from Time, before the flight started):
http://time.com/3903110/solar-impulse-plane 

Solar-Powered Plane Begins Its Journey Around the World (from Wired website)
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/solar-powered-plane-completes-first-leg-round-world-flight/

Solar roads

Artist's rendition of Solar Roadway from the website

In my last post (Electric highways) I focused on an article about a project in the U.K. to create roads that would charge electric vehicles. In the article, there is a reference to an idea that would include a "Solar Roadway."

From the article: "The system would use electric cables installed under roads to generate electromagnetic fields and sent power to a gadget under a car. While it could potentially run on renewable energy (and maybe even be combined with something like a Solar Roadway), the government is still working out the details."

Since I like my students to follow up references to related information in articles, I looked at the link to an article on the website fastcoexist titled, "These solar roads could power the entire country."

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3029874/fund-this/these-solar-roads-could-power-the-entire-country 

This innovation would also power roads so that electric vehicles could be charged while driving on them, but would use solar energy gathered on "custom, glass-covered solar panels that are strong enough to drive on while generating enough power to light the road, melt ice and snow, and send extra energy to cities." 

The article is short (537 words), but has useful language material as well as interesting information about a innovative topic.

The article gives short, clear technical descriptions of how parts of the innovation work, and includes ways of explaining these things to a non-technical audience. I always have my students notice this feature so that they can include these ideas in their own presentations and writing.

Some examples that focus on audience:

• There are nearly 18,000 square miles of roads in the U.S., an area that's bigger than the entire states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts combined.
• Glass, it turns out, is stronger than you might think. "You first mention glass, people think of your kitchen window," Brusaw says. "But think of bulletproof glass or bomb resistant glass..."
• The textured surface means it isn't slippery.
• It also powers small LED lights inside that can light up dividing lines and spell out warning messages - if motion sensors detect a deer crossing the road, the lights can automatically tell drivers to slow down.
• Since the whole road is wired, it's also easy to maintain: If one panel stops working, all of the other panels around it call a local repair shop with the exact location. "A guy can come out and repair it in five minutes," Brusaw says. "Compare that to pothole repair."

Since it highlights the advantages of this type of road, there are many features of contrast and comparison:

• bigger than
• as many as
• tough enough to (twice)
• is stronger than
• safer than
• strong enough to
• more power than

And there are many uses of adverbs - including collocations with both adjectives and verbs. For example:

• nearly 18,000 square miles
• eventually (twice)
• basically
• easily withstand
• fully loaded truck
• supposedly safer than
• automatically tells drivers
• charge the cars directly
• continuously report their location
• an insanely big challenge

When I combine a focus on language features with an article on a topic that my students find interesting, they are more motivated to do the language work.

There's more information about this project on the Solar Roadways project website:
http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml

Electric highways

Visual from Highways England (in article)

Sustainability is a concern of most of my engineering students, and in each engineering field there are different innovations being developed. Since I teach groups whose specific focus is on sustainable transportation, I am particularly interested in new developments in this area.

A recent article on the fastcoexist website presents information about electric highways being developed in the United Kingdom that would charge the electric cars that drive on them.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3049836/the-uk-is-testing-electric-highways-that-would-charge-your-ev-as-you-drive

The beginning of the article refers to the "charging problem that has been slowing electric car adoption for years" as a chicken-and-egg problem in this way:

"Some consumers don't want to buy an electric car without a full infrastructure for charging in place. But the business case for building that infrastructure is weak without more EV drivers on roads."

It would be interesting for students to brainstorm other types of "chicken-and-egg problems" in their area of technology and engineering. These problems often underlie the failure of a particular innovation to be fully developed or to be fully accepted by society.

The article has a sentence that explains how this technology would work, which would be useful for showing students how to explain something briefly:

"The system would use electric cables installed under roads to generate electromagnetic fields and send power to a gadget under a car."

The article is fairly short (463 words), and yet almost every sentence uses phrases indicating change (increase, expansion, etc.). Examples are:

• Brits are getting into electric cars more and more.
• Sales jumped up 366% in the first quarter of 2015.
• But the business case for building that infrastructure is weak without more EV drivers on roads.
•  The U.K. plans to add plug-in chargers ...
• But now they're testing out something new to make driving an EV even easier.
• If the tests go well, the new highways would add to the existing network of plug-in chargers, and make it even simpler to fuel up a Tesla ...
• "This has the benefit of saving time and improving the distance that electric vehicles can travel"
• ... could help to create a comprehensive ecosystem for electric vehicles.
• In a feasibility study, the government found that people would be more likely to drive ...
• ... especially if the charging networks spread off highways onto regular roads.
• "An important part of managing the road network over the next thirty years will be preparing the infrastructure for a shift to new types of vehicles and technology."
• "We need to plan intelligently for the future. Innovative technologies offer important opportunities to make the best use of road capacity and to improve the road user experience."
• "We're at a very early stage of researching and developing a system that could potentially transfer power to vehicles."
• After 18 months of testing, they'll decide whether to scale it up.

Students could identify this language, and then categorize them according to the type of language used (eg., comparatives, tenses, specific phrases, etc.). Then they could add to this by discussing other ways that this technology will cause changes.

The article mentions that this type of roadway "might even be combined with something like a Solar Roadway," and provides a link to an article on the same website about the Solar Roadway innovation. I will be writing about that topic, and comparing it to this one, in my next post.