A breadth-first introduction to computer science based upon 7 “Big Ideas,” namely: 1) computing is a creative activity, 2) abstraction reduces information and detail to facilititate focus on relevant concepts, 2) data and information facilitate the creation of knowledge, 4) algorithms are used to develop and express solutions to computational problems, 5) programming enables problem solving, human expression and creation of knowledge, 6) the internet pervades modern computing and 7) computing has global impacts.
Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion, Abelson, Ledeen, Lewis, Pearson. This book is freely available on the web.
- Students will practice and enhance their creative abilities within the development of software.
- Students will use abstraction to reduce information and detail in order to facilitate focus on relevant topics. In software this typically occurs both in designing algorithms and creating modules within their programs.
- Students will access and summarize available data to create information and evaluate information to create knowledge.
- Students will develop, evaluate and use algorithms in defining solutions to computational problems.
- Students will create software that enables problem solving, human expression and creation of knowledge.
- Students will both describe how the internet pervades modern computing and make effective and ethical use of the internet in solving problems.
- Students will recognize, discuss and describe the global impacts of computing.