Computers Unwrapped I

Catalog description

This graduate education course is the first in a two course sequence. The courses are designed to provide insight into how computers work. The courses are intended to fiII a gap in computer education. Students typically learn coding without understanding codes. Students are encouraged to think logically without gaining familiarity with logical relationships, nor how these are implemented in computers. Demystifying computers is both empowering and necessary to full digital literacy. The curriculum is divided into seven major topics: circuits, codes, information, computation. communication, storage. and control. Each topic is introduced through everyday experiences with such artifacts as emojis. calculators and supermarket bar codes, as well as control systems in the human body. These lead to hands-on activities, such as translating between binary and decimal. computing in binary, examining individual pixels displayed by cell phones, detecting and correcting errors in messages and deconstructing bar codes.