About the Book
Fluency with Information Technology
gives students the experience, knowledge, and capabilities needed to apply
information technology effectively throughout their lives. Unlike computer
literacy, which teaches only immediately useful skills, Fluency with Information
Technology adds problem solving, reasoning and complexity management to
prepare students to use computers today and to be effective technology
users tomorrow.
Features
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Prepares students to adapt to an ever-changing
computing environment through lifelong learning by focusing on three different
types of content: Skills, Concepts, and Capabilities.
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Contains both in-chapter and end-of-chapter
features including: FIT: Bytes, Tips, Cautions, Links and Try it (in-chapter
exercises), along with Great FIT Moments and end-of-chapter Multiple Choice
and Short Answer exercises.
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Skills: refers to proficiency with contemporary
computer applications like email, word processing, Web searching, etc.
Skills make the technology immediately useful to students and ground their
learning of other content in practical experience.
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Concepts: refers to the fundamental knowledge
underpinning IT, such as how computers work, digital representation of
information, assessing information authenticity, etc. Concepts provide
the principles on which students will build new understanding as IT evolves.
-
Capabilities: refers to higher-level thinking
processes such as problem-solving, reasoning, complexity management, trouble-shooting,
etc. Capabilities embody modes of thinking that are essential to exploiting
IT, but they apply in many other situations as well. The Capabilities component
is a standard element of all education, and is essential to the effective
use of IT, making it an explicit focus of this book.
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Extensive supplements package including labs
(with applications) and an activities guide for students and an online
solutions manual and computerized test bank for instructors.
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Written by the chairman of the National Research
Council's report, “Being Fluent with Information Technology.”
Related
Books
Computer Fluency, Literacy & Introduction
to Computer Science (Computer
Science)
Table of Contents
I. BECOMING SKILLED AT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.
1. Terms of Endearment: Defining Information
Technology.
Why Know Just the Right Word in Information
Technology?
Where's the Start Button?
Where is the Computer?
How Soft is Software?
The Words for Ideas.
Analytical Thinking.
2. What the Digerati Know: Exploring
the Human-Computer Interface.
Learning about Technology.
Basic Metaphors of Software.
Standard GUI Functionality.
“Clicking Around”.
“Blazing Away”.
“Watching Others”.
A Basic Principle: Form Follows Function.
Searching Text Using Find.
Editing Text Using Substitution.
Thinking about Information Technology
Abstractly.
3. Making the Connection: The Basics
of Networking.
Networked Computers Change Our Lives.
Communication Types: Some Comparisons.
The Medium of the Message.
The World Wide Web.
File Structure.
The Internet and the Web.
4. Marking Up with HTML: A Hypertext
Markup Language Primer.
Marking Up with HTML.
Structuring Documents.
Marking Links with Anchor Tags.
Including Pictures with Image Tags.
Handling Color.
Handling Lists.
Handling Tables.
HTML Wrap-Up.
5. Searching for Truth: Locating Information
on the WWW.
Searching in All the Right Places.
How Is Information Organized?
How Is Web Site Information Organized?
Searching the Web for Information.
Web Information: Truth or Fiction?
The Burmese Mountain Dog Page.
6. Searching for Guinea Pig: Case Study
in Online Research.
Getting Started on Online Research.
Primary Sources.
Chronfile and Everything I Know.
Resolving Questions.
Secondary Sources.
Exploring Side Questions.
Case Study Wrap-Up.
II. ALGORITHMS AND DIGITIZING INFORMATION.
7. To Err Is Human: An Introduction to
Debugging.
Precision: The High Standards of IT.
Exactly How Accurate is “Precise”?
Debugging: What's the Problem?
A Dialog About Debugging.
Debugging Recap.
Butterflies and Bugs: A Case Study.
No Printer Output: A Classic Scenario.
8. Bits and the “Why” of Bytes: Representing
Information Digitally.
Digitizing Discrete Information.
Encoding with Dice.
The Fundamental Representation of
Information.
Hex Explained.
Digitizing Text.
The Oxford English Dictionary.
9. Following Instructions: Principles
of Computer Operation.
Instruction Execution Engines.
The Fetch/Execute Cycle.
Anatomy of a Computer.
The Program Counter: The PC's PC.
Instruction Interpretation.
Cycling the F/E Cycle.
Many, Many Simple Operations.
Integrated Circuits.
How Semiconductor Technology Works.
Combining the Ideas.
10. What's the Plan?: Algorithmic Thinking.
Algorithm: A Familiar Idea.
An Algorithm: Alphabetizing CDs.
Analyzing Alphabetize CD Algorithm.
Abstraction in Algorithmic Thinking.
11. Sound, Lights, Magic: Representing
Multimedia Digitally.
Digitizing Color.
Computing on Representations.
Digitizing Sound.
Digital Images and Video.
Optical Character Recognition.
Virtual Reality: Fooling the Senses.
III. DATA AND INFORMATION.
12. Computer in Polite Society: Social
Implications of IT.
Improving the Effectiveness of Email.
Expect the Unexpected.
Creating Good Passwords.
Viruses and Worms.
Protecting Intellectual Property.
Ensuring the Reliability of Software.
13. Getting to First Base: Introduction
to of Databases Concepts.
Tables: “You Can Look It Up”.
Database Tables.
Defining a Database Table.
Operations on Tables.
Join Operation.
14. A Table with a View: Database Queries.
Designing the Physical Database.
The Database Schema.
Queries: Creating Views.
A Query Language: SQL.
Entity Relationship Diagrams.
15. HAI! Adventure Database: Case Study
in Database Design.
Strategy for Building a Database.
The HAI! Adventure Businesses.
Perform a Needs Analysis.
Approximate/Revise the DB Design.
Implement the Physical DB Design.
Design the Logical Database.
Implement the Logical Database Design.
Implement the GUIs.
Extending a Database: Lessons and
Tours.
16. Working Online: eCommerce and Interactive
Networking.
Challenges of eCommerce.
The Challenge of Variation.
Structure of the Setting.
Discrete Events.
Transactions to the Work.
The Standards Case.
Redundancy is Very, Very, Very Good.
17. SHHH, It's a Secret: Privacy and
Digital Security.
Privacy: Whose Information Is It?
A Privacy Definition.
Fair Information Practices.
Comparing Privacy Across the Atlantic.
Keeping Information Private.
The Cookie Monster.
Encryption and Decryption.
Pubic Key Cryptosystems.
RSA Public Key Cryptosystems.
IV. PROBLEM SOLVING.
18. Get with the Program: Fundamental
Concepts Expressed in JavaScript.
Overview: Programming Concepts.
Names, Values, and Variables.
A Variable Declaration Statement.
Three Basic Types of JavaScript.
The Assignment Statement.
An Expression and its Syntax.
A Conditional Statement.
The Espresso Program.
19. The Bean Counter: A JavaScript
Program.
Preliminaries.
Background for the GUI.
Create the Graphical User Interface.
Event-based Programming.
Critiquing the Bean Counter.
Recap of the Bean Counter Application.
20. Thinking Big: Abstraction and Functions.
Abstraction.
Creating a JS Function: convertC2F().
Applying Functions.
JavaScript Rules for Functions.
The Memory Bank Web Page.
Improving the Memory Bank Web Page.
Add Final Touches to Memory Bank.
21. Once Is Not Enough: Iteration Principles.
Iteration: Play It Again, Sam.
JavaScript rules for for Loops.
The Fundamental Principle of Iteration.
Experiments with Flipping Electronic
Coins.
Indexing.
Arrays.
The Busy Animation.
22. The Smooth Motion: Case Study Algorithmic
Problem Solving.
The Smooth Motion Application.
Planning Smooth Motion.
Build the Basic Web Page GUI.
Animate the Grid.
The Best Laid Plans...
Build Controls.
Sense the Keys.
Staircase Detection.
Assemble Overall Design.
Primp the Design.
23. Computers Can Do Almost { everything,
nothing}: Limits to Computation.
Can Computers Think?
Acting Intelligently.
Acting Creatively.
The Universality Principle.
More Work, Slower Speed.
How Hard Can a Problem Be?
24. Commencement: A Fluency Summary.
Two Big Ideas of IT.
Fluency: Less is More.
Lifelong Learning in IT.
Shifting for Yourself.
Appendix A: HTML Reference.
Appendix B: JavaScript Programming
Rules.
Appendix C: Bean Counter Program.
Appendix D: Memory Bank Code.
Appendix E: Smooth Motion Program.
Glossary.
Answers to Selected Questions.
Index. |
