Fluency with Information Technology : Skills, Concepts, and Capabilities

by Snyder, Lawrence

• ISBN13: 9780201754919
• ISBN10: 0201754916
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Addison Wesley

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Lawrence Snyder is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

Becoming Skilled at Information Technology
Terms of Endearment: Defining Information Technology	p. 3
Why Know Just the Right Word in IT	p. 5
Where's the Start Button?	p. 6
Where is the Computer?	p. 9
How Soft is Software?	p. 16
The Words for Ideas	p. 18
Analytical Thinking	p. 21
Summary	p. 25
Exercises	p. 26
What the Digerati Know: Exploring the Human-Computer Interface	p. 29
Learning About Technology	p. 31
Basic Metaphors of Software	p. 33
Standard GUI Functionality	p. 37
"Clicking Around"	p. 41
"Blazing Away"	p. 43
"Watching Others"	p. 44
A Basic Principle: Form Follows Function	p. 45
Searching Text Using Find	p. 47
Editing Text Using Substitution	p. 51
Thinking About Information Technology Abstractly	p. 56
Summary	p. 57
Exercises	p. 58
Making the Connection: The Basics of Networking	p. 61
Networked Computers Change Our Lives	p. 63
Communication Types: Some Comparisons	p. 66
The Medium of the Message	p. 68
The World Wide Web	p. 78
File Structure	p. 80
The Internet and the Web	p. 84
Summary	p. 85
Exercises	p. 86
Marking Up with HTML: A Hypertext Markup Language Primer	p. 89
Marking Up with HTML	p. 91
Structuring Documents	p. 92
Marking links with Anchor Tags	p. 97
Including Pictures with Image Tags	p. 101
Handling Color	p. 104
Handling Lists	p. 107
Handling Tables	p. 110
HTML Wrap-up	p. 115
Summary	p. 115
Exercises	p. 116
Searching for Truth: Locating Information on the WWW	p. 119
Searching in All the Right Places	p. 121
How is Information Organized?	p. 123
How is Web Site Information Organized?	p. 129
Searching the Web for Information	p. 130
Web Information: Truth or Fiction?	p. 137
The Burmese Mountain Dog Page	p. 140
Summary	p. 141
Exercises	p. 142
Searching for Guinea Pig B: Case Study in Online Research	p. 145
Getting Started with Online Research	p. 147
Primary Sources	p. 152
Chronfile and Everything I Know	p. 159
Resolving Questions	p. 162
Secondary Sources	p. 164
Exploring Side Questions	p. 167
Case Study Wrap-Up	p. 169
Summary	p. 170
Exercises	p. 173
Interview	p. 175
Algorithms and Digitizing Information
To Err is Human: An Introduction to Debugging	p. 179
Precision: The High Standards of IT	p. 181
Exactly How Accurate is "Precise"?	p. 181
Debugging: What's the Problem?	p. 182
A Dialog About Debugging	p. 185
Debugging Recap	p. 188
Butterflies and Bugs: A Case Study	p. 189
No Printer Output: A Classic Scenario	p. 196
Summary	p. 199
Exercises	p. 200
Bits and the "Why" of Bytes: Representing Information Digitally	p. 203
Digitizing Discrete Information	p. 205
Encoding with Dice	p. 207
The Fundamental Representation of Information	p. 212
Hex Explained	p. 216
Digitizing Text	p. 218
The Oxford English Dictionary	p. 222
Summary	p. 227
Exercises	p. 229
Following Instructions: Principles of Computer Operation	p. 233
Instruction Execution Engines	p. 235
The Fetch/Execute Cycle	p. 237
Anatomy of a Computer	p. 239
The Program Counter: The PC's PC	p. 244
Instruction Interpretation	p. 245
Cycling the F/E Cycle	p. 248
Many, Many Simple Operations	p. 251
Integrated Circuits	p. 255
How Semiconductor Technology Works	p. 258
Combining the Ideas	p. 261
Summary	p. 262
Exercises	p. 264
What's the Plan? Algorithmic Thinking	p. 267
Algorithm: A Familiar Idea	p. 269
An Algorithm: Alphabetize CDs	p. 274
Analyzing Alphabetize CDs Algorithm	p. 278
Abstraction in Algorithmic Thinking	p. 281
Summary	p. 285
Exercises	p. 286
Sound, Light, Magic: Representing Multimedia Digitally	p. 289
Digitizing Color	p. 291
Computing on Representations	p. 298
Digitizing Sound	p. 301
Digital Images and Video	p. 305
Optical Character Recognition	p. 306
Virtual Reality: Fooling the Senses	p. 307
Bits Are It	p. 309
Summary	p. 311
Exercises	p. 312
Interview	p. 315
Data and Information
Computers in Polite Society: Social Implications of IT	p. 321
Improving the Effectiveness of Email	p. 323
Expect the Unexpected	p. 327
Creating Good Passwords	p. 330
Viruses and Worms	p. 334
Protecting Intellectual Property	p. 338
Ensuring the Reliability of Software	p. 343
Summary	p. 345
Exercises	p. 347
Getting to First Base: Introduction to Database Concepts	p. 351
Tables: "You Can Look It Up"	p. 353
Database Tables	p. 353
Defining a Database Table	p. 357
Operations on Tables	p. 360
Join Operation	p. 367
Summary	p. 370
Exercises	p. 371
A Table with a View: Database Queries	p. 375
Designing the Physical Database	p. 377
The Database Schema	p. 378
Queries: Creating Views	p. 382
A Query Language: SQL	p. 385
Entity Relationships Diagrams	p. 387
Summary	p. 389
Exercises	p. 390
HAI! Adventure Database: Case Study in Database Design	p. 395
Strategy for Building a Database	p. 397
The HAI! Adventure Businesses	p. 398
Perform a Needs Analysis	p. 400
Approximate/Revise the DB Design	p. 401
Implement The Physical DB Design	p. 408
Design the Logical Database	p. 408
Implement the Logical Database Design	p. 413
Implement the GUIs	p. 417
Extending a Database: Lessons and Tours	p. 417
Summary	p. 424
Exercises	p. 426
Working Online: eCommerce and Interactive Networking	p. 429
Challenges of eCommerce	p. 431
The Challenge of Variation	p. 432
Structure of the Setting	p. 433
Discrete Events	p. 436
Transactions Do the Work	p. 442
The Standards Case	p. 444
Redundancy is Very, Very, Very Good	p. 447
Summary	p. 450
Exercises	p. 451
Shhh, It's a Secret: Privacy and Digital Security	p. 455
Privacy: Whose Information is It?	p. 457
A Privacy Definition	p. 459
Fair Information Practices	p. 461
Comparing Privacy Across the Atlantic	p. 463
The Cookie Monster	p. 466
Encryption and Decryption	p. 469
Public Key Cryptosystems	p. 472
RSA Public Key Cryptosystem	p. 474
Summary	p. 480
Exercises	p. 481
Interview	p. 484
Problem Solving
Get with the Program: Fundamental Concepts Expressed in JavaScript	p. 489
Overview: Programming Concepts	p. 491
Names, Values, and Variables	p. 493
A Variable Declaration Statement	p. 495
Three Basic Data Types of JavaScript	p. 497
The Assignment Statement	p. 500
An Expression and Its Syntax	p. 503
A Conditional Statement	p. 507
The Espresso Program	p. 511
Summary	p. 514
Exercises	p. 516
The Bean Counter: A JavaScript Program	p. 521
Preliminaries	p. 523
Background for the GUI	p. 525
Create the Graphical User Interface	p. 529
Event-based Programming	p. 532
Critiquing the Bean Counter	p. 536
Recap of the Bean Counter Application	p. 537
Summary	p. 539
Exercises	p. 540
Thinking Big: Abstraction and Functions	p. 543
Abstraction	p. 545
Creating a JS Function: convertC2F ()	p. 546
Applying Functions	p. 548
JavaScript Rules for Functions	p. 553
The Memory Bank Web Page	p. 559
Improving the Memory Bank Page	p. 564
Add Final Touches to Memory Bank	p. 569
Summary	p. 573
Exercises	p. 575
Once is Not Enough: Iteration Principles	p. 579
Iteration: Play It Again, Sam	p. 581
JavaScript Rules for for Loops	p. 584
The Fundamental Principle of Iteration	p. 587
Experiments with Flipping Electronic Coins	p. 588
Indexing	p. 591
Arrays	p. 593
The Busy Animation	p. 594
Summary	p. 599
Exercises	p. 601
The Smooth Motion: Case Study Algorithmic Problem Solving	p. 605
The Smooth Motion Application	p. 607
Planning Smooth Motion	p. 608
Build the Basic Web Page GUI	p. 611
Animate the Grid	p. 612
The Best Laid Plans...	p. 619
Build Controls	p. 619
Sense the Keys	p. 620
Staircase Detection	p. 623
Assemble Overall Design	p. 625
Primp the Design	p. 626
Summary	p. 629
Exercises	p. 631
Computers Can Do Almost {[square]Everything, [square]Nothing]}: Limits to Computation	p. 635
Can Computers Think?	p. 637
Acting Intelligently?	p. 639
Acting Creatively	p. 644
The Universality Principle	p. 646
More Work, Slower Speed	p. 651
How Hard Can a Problem Be?	p. 653
Summary	p. 655
Exercises	p. 656
Commencement: A Fluency Summary	p. 661
Two Big Ideas of IT	p. 663
Fluency: Less is More	p. 664
Lifelong Learning in IT	p. 666
Shifting For Yourself	p. 669
Exercises	p. 670
Interview	p. 673
Html Reference	p. 675
Javascript Programming Rules	p. 680
Bean Counter Program	p. 687
Memory Bank Code	p. 690
Smooth Motion Program	p. 694
Glossary	p. 697
Answers to Selected Questions	p. 709
Index	p. 721
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