I've been spending the summer attending various computer science related workshops, getting my feet wet as a new department chair and getting really wet at many swim meets for my kids. Recently, I've ordered all sorts of materials to help prepare me to teach the new Computer Science Principles course that I will be piloting in the fall. While the programming part, I have; I'll admit, when it comes to teaching this class, it is the other 2/3 that will be a lot of work for me. I don't have the strongest understanding of how networks work, and its been 10 years since I taught web design, and even then it was more of a programming approach.
To prepare, I've been reading an excellent book 9 Algorithms That Changed The Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers by John MacCormick. While I teach my students the software development cycle and how to plan a program, our algorithms are usually not at the high level that will allow us to explore the depth of the big ideas like, Big Data and the Internet. I've found the first 2 algorithms that relate to internet searching have already opened my eyes to some big concepts when it comes to the internet. Wow! I have never really taken a moment to be curious about how pages are found on the internet. Or why some internet search engines are more popular than others. It truly is amazing that we can find anything meaningful when searching the internet. And the algorithms are, conceptually, so easy to understand.
Algorithms are an area that I have remove to improve and grow my teaching. My students do not always come away seeing the value of an algorithm, because the scale of our programs and projects can sometimes be small. But exploring some of these larger algorithms, will really give students an appreciation for the algorithms that they are using everyday. I'm not sure that I will view an internet search the same again.
As I read more and more of this book, I am confident that it would be an excellent resource for you and your students.
To prepare, I've been reading an excellent book 9 Algorithms That Changed The Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers by John MacCormick. While I teach my students the software development cycle and how to plan a program, our algorithms are usually not at the high level that will allow us to explore the depth of the big ideas like, Big Data and the Internet. I've found the first 2 algorithms that relate to internet searching have already opened my eyes to some big concepts when it comes to the internet. Wow! I have never really taken a moment to be curious about how pages are found on the internet. Or why some internet search engines are more popular than others. It truly is amazing that we can find anything meaningful when searching the internet. And the algorithms are, conceptually, so easy to understand.
Algorithms are an area that I have remove to improve and grow my teaching. My students do not always come away seeing the value of an algorithm, because the scale of our programs and projects can sometimes be small. But exploring some of these larger algorithms, will really give students an appreciation for the algorithms that they are using everyday. I'm not sure that I will view an internet search the same again.
As I read more and more of this book, I am confident that it would be an excellent resource for you and your students.
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