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We're going to talk about the birth of personal computing. Up until the early 1970s components were just too expensive, or underpowered, for making a useful computer for an individual, but this would begin to change with the introduction of the Altair 8800 in 1975. In the years that follow, we'll see the founding of Microsoft and Apple and the creation of the 1977 Trinity: The Apple II, Tandy TRS-80, and Commodore PET 2001. These new consumer-oriented computers would become a huge hit, but arguably the biggest success of the era came with the release of the IBM PC in 1981. IBM completely changed the industry as its "IBM compatible" open architecture consolidated most of the industry except for, notably, Apple. Apple chose a closed architecture forming the basis of the Mac versus PC debate that rages today. But in 1984, when Apple was losing market share fast it looked for a way to offer a new user experience like none other - which we'll discuss next time.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the string data type as a way of representing arbitrary sequences of ASCII characters. They will use strings to accept input from a user as they work on mastering two new UI elements, the text input, and the text area. Students combine these skills to develop a simple Mad Libs® app.

Mad Libs® is a trademark of the Penguin Group (USA) LLC., which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site.

Students will be able to:
- identify strings as a unique data type which contains a sequence of ASCII characters.
- describe the characteristics of the string data type.
- accept string input in a program.
- manipulate user-generated string input to generate dynamic output.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Most Internet technology is not designed to protect the privacy of those who use it; in fact, most technology providers make money by leveraging your private information. “Privacy policies” are generally written to protect those providers from lawsuits, not to protect users’ privacy. Laws and regulations cover only certain aspects of privacy and vary from place to place — and enforcement is even more varied. So, like it or not, your privacy is your own responsibility and requires your constant attention.

The lesson elements in this module teach students about the privacy principle: “Only you have an interest in maintaining your privacy”. They are designed to be independent and flexible, so you can incorporate them into any size lesson plan. Student resources are available at https://teachingprivacy.org/privacy-requires-work/. 

Summary of Learning Objectives: Students can articulate why technology design, laws, and business policies do not inherently protect their privacy; students have the capacity to acquire new privacy-management skills as technology and policies change.

Target Age: High school, college undergraduate.

Learning Objectives:

1. Students can describe the user’s personal role in protecting their own online privacy.
2. Students can explain the purpose of a privacy policy.
3. Students can describe some of the limitations of privacy policies.
4. Students can describe some limitations of the laws protecting privacy.
5. Students can explain why it is important to periodically check privacy settings.
6. Students can give examples of effective actions they can take towards improving online privacy protections in general, including actions that can affect business practices and government regulations.

This DragonflyTV segment introduces robotics engineer Dr. Una-May O'Reilly, who designs robots with the ability to function without the help of humans. Her work on artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually give human faces and personalities to robots. This video can be played as an introduction to a lesson on artificial intelligence.

This resource includes information for online safety, information sharing, and privacy when gaming or surfing the internet. Appropriate internet communication skills are also discussed.

This alignment results from the ALEX Health/PE COS Resource Alignment Summit.

Belonging to various communities is important for kids' development. But some online communities can be healthier than others. Show your students how they can strengthen both online and in-person communities by creating norms that everyone pledges to uphold.

Students will be able to:

• Define what a community is, both in-person and online.

• Explain how having norms helps people in a community achieve their goals.

• Create and pledge to adhere to shared norms for being in an online community.

Users will need to create a free account to access this resource. 

Print this PBS KIDS ScratchJr Story Cubes and let the cubes decide which backgrounds and PBS KIDS characters to use! This will help students get ready for block programming. 

PBS KIDS ScratchJr app is now available for free from the App Store on IPad and from the Google Play store on Android tablet.

This resource can be used during a lesson on constructing elements of a simple computer program.

This is a lesson plan from Google Education's Applied Digital Skills. During this lesson, students will begin the process of understanding how to create an if/then pseudocode by writing an if/then adventure story.  As they complete the lesson, students will collaborate with other students in a document to create a story, create a slide presentation with a group and digitally share it with others, make decisions in groups effectively, and create an engaging, visually exciting interactive story. 

This lesson covers common issues that arise when designing web pages in HTML to include the use of intellectual property. The class will correct errors in a sequence of increasingly complex web pages found on Code Studio and learn the importance of comments (narratives), whitespace, and indentation as tools for making web pages easier to read.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Kids make friends everywhere they go--including online. But are all of these friendships the same? How can kids start online friendships and also learn ways to stay safe? Help your students understand both the benefits and the risks of online-only friendships.

Students will be able to:

• Compare and contrast different kinds of online-only friendships.
• Describe the benefits and risks of online-only friendships.
• Describe how to respond to an online-only friend if the friend asks something that makes them uncomfortable.

Resources available in both English and Spanish.

Kids can be voracious consumers -- and creators -- of media, and it's easier than ever for them to find and share digital content online. But do middle-schoolers know about concepts like fair use, copyright, and public domain? Give students a framework they can use to better understand how fair use works in the real world.

• define the terms "copyright," "public domain," and "fair use".
• identify the purpose of the Four Factors of Fair Use.
• apply fair use to real-world examples, making a case for or against.

Users will need to create a free account to access this resource. 

How do people talk to computers? In this clip from Ready Jet Go!, Jet and his friends learn about computer programming from Dr. Rafferty. They demonstrate how it works by using colored playing blocks to signify different computer commands. This video can be played during a lesson on constructing elements of a simple computer program in collaboration with others.

This is a lesson plan from Google for Education, Applied Digital Skills. During this lesson, students learn to identify and avoid online scams by analyzing a real-life situation in a group. Students will work collaboratively to identify online scams. They will analyze an online scam to identify suspicious behavior and warning signs. Then they will create a group document discussing an online scam and provide guidelines for how to avoid scams. 

This lesson introduces the binary number system. With a set of cards that represent the place values in a binary (base-2) number system, the class turns bits "on" or "off" by turning cards face up and face down, then observes the numbers that result from these different patterns. Eventually, the pattern is extended to a generic 4-bit system.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Computer-related laws exist to protect users. By being aware of the laws we can stay safe whilst online.

Computers are fantastic - they help us to learn, share, communicate and find entertainment. However, it is also possible for computers to be used to aid illegal activities. An understanding of computer-related laws in the United Kingdom is needed to make sure we stay on the right side of the law.

While this lesson was created in the UK, it creates an opportunity to explore local laws as well as provides excellent talking points. 

Google-created video

The settings on the sites you visit allow you to choose what you share and who you share with. Understand and adjust your settings on the sites and apps you use so that you only share with those people that you want to share with. This means posts, geotagging, photo uploading, profiles, and more.

In the Middle East, programs that broadcast on the international satellite have more freedom to pursue a broader range of topics than those broadcast on terrestrial state television. This greatly benefits some stations which have found that addressing thought-provoking issues earns their programs higher ratings. In this video segment from the Wide Angle film "Dishing Democracy," learn about how people who work behind the scenes on the MBC hit Kalam Nawaem achieve the balance between social mores and the popular appeal of provocative content. The segment also includes a discussion of the channel’s plans to extend Kalam Nawaem to new platforms. This video comes with several support materials. This video can be played during a lesson on evaluating the impact of digital globalization on public perception and ways internet censorship can affect free and equitable access to information.

The class plans and builds original games using the project guide from the previous two lessons. Working individually or in pairs, the class plans, develops, and gives feedback on the games. After incorporating the peer feedback, the class shares out the completed games.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

The binary number system plays a central role in how information of all kinds is stored on computers. Understanding binary can lift a lot of the mystery from computers, because at a fundamental level they’re really just machines for flipping binary digits on and off. There are several activities on binary numbers in this document, all simple enough that they can be used to teach the binary system to anyone who can count! Generally children learn the binary system very quickly using this approach, but we find that many adults are also excited when they finally understand what bits and bytes really are.

Available in 13 languages. 

The policy of net neutrality prevents internet service providers (ISPs), like Verizon and AT&T, from slowing down the loading speeds of certain websites or creating “fast lanes” for sites that pay a fee. This policy will almost certainly be overturned by the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission. This Lowdown lesson explores the pros and cons of net neutrality and examines the different ways lawmakers view internet service.

In this lesson, students look at how data is collected and used by organizations to solve problems in the real world. The lesson begins with a quick review of the data problem-solving process they explored in the last lesson. Then students are presented with three scenarios that could be solved using data, brainstorm the types of data they would want to solve them, and how they could collect the data. Each problem is designed to reflect a real-world service that exists. After brainstorming, students watch a video about a real-world service and record notes about what data is collected by the real-world service and how it is used. At the end of the lesson, students record whether data was provided actively by a user, was recorded passively, or is collected by sensors.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Are there problems that are too hard even for computers? It turns out that there are. In the chapter on Artificial Intelligence, we'll see that just having a conversation – chatting – is something computers can't do well, not because they can't speak but rather because they can't understand or think of sensible things to say. However, that’s not the kind of hard problem we’re talking about here – it's not that computers couldn’t have conversations, it's more that we don't know just how we do it ourselves and so we can't tell the computer what to do.

In this chapter, we're going to look at problems where it's easy to tell the computer what to do – by writing a program – but the computer can’t do what we want because it takes far too long: millions of centuries, perhaps. Not much good buying a faster computer either: if it were a hundred times faster it would still take millions of years; even one a million times faster would take hundreds of years. That's what you call a hard problem – one where it takes far longer than the lifetime of the fastest computer imaginable to come up with a solution.

Students will use the design circuit boards and create an app of their own design.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Software failures happen all the time. Sometimes it’s a little bug that makes a program difficult to use; other times an error might crash your entire computer. Some software failures are more spectacular than others.

In 1996, The ARIANE 5 rocket of the European Space Agency was launched for its first test flight: Countdown, ignition, flame and smoke, soaring rocket... then BANG! Lots of little pieces scattered through the South American rainforest. Investigators had to piece together what happened and finally tracked down this tiny, irrelevant bug. A piece of software onboard the rocket which was not even needed had reported a value that was too big to be stored. An error was stored instead, but other software interpreted the error as saying the rocket was 90 degrees off course. Thankfully, no one was on board but the failure still caused about $370 million of damage.

Software engineering is all about how we can create software despite this enormous size and complexity while hopefully get a working product in the end. It was first introduced as a topic of computer science in the 1960s during the so-called "software crisis" when people realized that the capability of hardware was increasing at incredible speeds while our ability to develop software is staying pretty much the same.

As the name software engineering suggests, we are taking ideas and processes from other engineering disciplines (such as building bridges or computer hardware) and applying them to software. Having a structured process in place for developing software turns out to be hugely important because it allows us to manage the size and complexity of software. As a result of advances in software engineering, there are many success stories of large and complex software products that work well and contain few bugs. For example, Google's huge projects (Google search, Gmail, etc.) are built by teams of thousands of engineers, yet they still manage to create software that does what it should.

Reading and creating comic strips and comic books are engaging ways to promote literacy at any grade level and across content areas. The students in this video are members of a high school comic book club and have access to drawing tablets and Adobe Photoshop, so they can achieve sophisticated results. Even without such software, however, teachers can still integrate digital comics into a wide range of teaching situations. This video comes with several support materials that include video discussion questions and project suggestions.

There are a number of comic books, especially contemporary ones, that are not “school appropriate,” so you might want to guide students’ web research on comic books. 

Using characters from the Ice Age, students will develop sequential algorithms to move Scrat from one side of a maze to the acorn at the other side. To do this, they will stack code blocks together in a linear sequence, making them move straight, turn left, or turn right.

In this lesson, students will develop programming and debugging skills on a computer platform. The block-based format of these puzzles help students learn about sequence and concepts, without having to worry about perfecting syntax.

Students will be able to:

- Construct a program by reorganizing sequential movements.
- Build a computer program from a set of written instructions.
- Choose appropriate debugging practices when solving problems.

Note: You must create a free account to access this and use this resource. 

According to Murphy’s Law – Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way. Anybody who has used technology knows this well. For this activity, students will prove Murphy wrong. Students will complete four Quests to learn how to troubleshoot common computer problems. Students must be ready to solve problems.

I CAN STATEMENTS

• troubleshoot computer problems
• fix problems on my computer
• create flowcharts to show how I solved the problem
• run anti-virus software
• understand what malware is and have some techniques to avoid it
• research solutions to computer problems

This video will discuss some psychological considerations in building computers, like how to make them easier for humans to use, the uncanny valley problem when humanoid robots get more and more humanlike, and strategies to make our devices work better with us by incorporating our emotions and even altering our gaze.