41–50 of 67 posts
Before we move to CS for all, can we at least solve the problem of Computer Literacy for all!? There's a huge population of people who simply cannot effectively use a computer. Can we fix that first? Otherwise we're leaving them behind and that's not right.
I see no reason that they can't be tackled concurrently!
Before we move to CS for all, can we at least solve the problem of Computer Literacy for all!? There's a huge population of people who simply cannot effectively use a computer. Can we fix that first? Otherwise we're leaving them behind and that's not right.
This. I believe very strongly in the importance of touch-typing. I went to an inner city school for elementary and high school. And when I arrived at university computer science I felt like I was light years behind my peers. A lot of that stemmed from not being able to type as fast as them. Hunting and pecking typing while trying to wrap your head around making abstractions and recursion is enough to make anyone frus…
Great--I think every student should take a CS class! That said, this course suffers from so many CS courses. 1. It's too wordy! 2. As usual, I don't like the layout. 3. Funnel your subjects. (I'll give that a B.) 4. Funnel your paragraphs, or eliminate most of them? 5. Most people(students) find this material extremely dry. Introductory books should be "tight"! They should go through numerous edits? Take out every no…
Part of my anger is I don't have a good grasp of CS theory, or why we do someting a particular way? I can get things done, but I'm missing the bigger picture--in many instances?
My education into CS has just been following many steps, and listening to videos. I will go back to this free book, and give it a full read. Sorry to the Authors. I was in a bad mood?
Great--I think every student should take a CS class! That said, this course suffers from so many CS courses. 1. It's too wordy! 2. As usual, I don't like the layout. 3. Funnel your subjects. (I'll give that a B.) 4. Funnel your paragraphs, or eliminate most of them? 5. Most people(students) find this material extremely dry. Introductory books should be "tight"! They should go through numerous edits? Take out every no…
Yes! I agree wholeheartedly. I took an intro to CS course at UBC which is similar to this (I talked about it in a comment thread above) and this was a big thing I loved about having new exercises created specifically for that course. I got to create space invaders (I found that super fun), newer years create a snake game. In addition, I created a simple graph crawler which used Google a lot as a way to tie in what we were creating with what Google does. Now, they create part of a client-server application which resembles Twitter or an IM program. We also created a minmax algorithm for pawns which was really cool since it showed how an NPC could ostensibly be made in a game, although that has been dropped since. It's all really cool examples that simplify something that exists in real life, and really helps engage students a lot more.
I'm a current UC San Diego student. It's awesome to see our faculty featured here, particularly Christine Alvarado. She has a fantastic reputation within our CS department and I'm really glad to see she's doing great things and getting recognition outside UCSD as well!
Before we move to CS for all, can we at least solve the problem of Computer Literacy for all!? There's a huge population of people who simply cannot effectively use a computer. Can we fix that first? Otherwise we're leaving them behind and that's not right.
Those of us in computing sometimes tend to forget that there's a whole world of people for whom computers are not a passion, they are simply something they have to deal with whether they like it or not. I know MD's who have no love or interest in computers at all. No interest in becoming "computer literate" as defined by people like us. These are not dinosaurs. Yet, some of them live in a world where pen-and-paper ar…
I think that being a med school student today probably means osmosis of cultural information from other med students, including student solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox, as well as Tinder. Along the way, that probably means comfort with email, chat, downloading apps and files, browsing, buying, PDF reading, and so on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this is a solvable problem, especially when people just don't care. There are plenty of resources from websites to youtube videos to teach users how to be more computer literate. But instead of learning, people would rather watch someone unbox candy on youtube.
"... people would rather watch someone unbox candy on youtube." That made me laugh out loud. Then it made me sad again. Look, I get we can't all know everything. I mean, we can't all be mechanics, right? But every driver should know how to check their fluids, air, etc. Maybe change a tire. Same with computers. I don't think everyone should have to learn to code. I think that's not an ideal scenario. But I do think ev…
We've changed our policy where we don't provide instructional services anymore, only tech support, because it would take up so much of our time trying to teach basic concepts.
You should still be able to test out, though. That way, if you're totally uninterested, you can test out of the MS Word class and move on.
I think there are enough students sufficiently interested in computers that they'd check out the harder course if its name didn't sound too obscure.
Before we move to CS for all, can we at least solve the problem of Computer Literacy for all!? There's a huge population of people who simply cannot effectively use a computer. Can we fix that first? Otherwise we're leaving them behind and that's not right.
Often times, when people say "computer literacy", they mean popular software competency. It often means ad-hoc comfort with specific software interfaces and solutions.
So if I've learned the steps necessary to attach files into Gmail, browse in Safari, download and remove apps, use Dropbox, and so on, then I'm considered computer literate. At one time, employees were expected to type in DOS commands. Now command line is considered hacker territory.
Almost everyone in the world is living very high away from computer science, and instead they are living in the world of corporate designers. They are living in a world where people at Apple build app experiences called "Mail", "Calendar", "Reminders", and you swipe left to delete. Soon you'll be asking Cortana or Siri to do things for you.
In that designer world of proprietary software and aesthetic trends, what does computer literacy mean? It sounds like a class on Microsoft Word or Outlook. It sounds like a class on how to use the App Store.