Having taught the "Technology and Society" course at the University of Victoria and Malaspina University College, and having taught the course in a participatory way, it has become clear that students sometimes personalize the message and assume that what I am arguing is my own personal belief.
For example, while I have specific beliefs related to privacy, I do not indicate those beliefs to my students. In my classes I have argued in one class that there really does not need to be any "right" to privacy since if you are not doing anything wrong, it should not matter who knows about it, and I have then argued in a different class that the invasion of privacy can have negative effects on people's ability to choose their friends or express their religious beliefs. The arguments that I make in the class differ depending on what ideas the students come up with. Unfortunately, the students sometimes assume that what I am arguing are always my own personal beliefs. I have found that it is useful to continually remind the students that "views expressed in this class are not necessarily my own".
The one other thing that disturbs students is grading. Last year I had several students suggest that the course be pass/fail. I argue against having the course become pass/fail for two reasons. The first is the same as the argument for having a dedicated course; if the GPA is affected, the motivation will be higher. The second, and more important, reason is that as computing moves toward a professional status, there must be a clearer indication of the professional attitudes that our graduates have.
The final experience that I have had with this course is that in the three times that I have taught the course I have found that the women in the class appeared to be more interested in the material and that the high mark went to a woman in each term that I taught the course. I have also found that women were more likely to take the course as an elective than were men. This, albeit limited evidence, makes me think that a greater focus on the social issues of computing may result in a higher number of women pursuing degrees in computing.