Namal College, Mianwali

An Associate College of University of Bradford

Module Title: Introduction to Computing Instructor: Junaid Akhtar Stage: Foundation Year Module Description Offered to: BSc (CS), BEng (EEE) Email: junaid.akhtar@namal.edu.pk Semester: Fall 2013-14

This is the first module in a series of computer science and information technology related modules offered at Namal. Students are introduced to the field of computing, IT applications, solving interesting problems using computers and fundamentals of programming through Python. Introduce students to the world of computing and information technology through interesting tools, applications and ideas Make students feel at home with computers, and then computations, and then programming, progressively. At the end of the course students should be ready for a programming course; and also demonstrate the ability to solve problems computationally, on their own.
Mike Fellows, Tim Bell, Ian Witten, Computer Science Unplugged: The Original Activities Book Shelly, Cashman and Vermaat, Discovering Computers, 2010 Handouts

Goals

Textbook

Programming Environment / Software Tools

Microsoft Office 2007/2010 Social web technologies, especially wiki Scratch Python
25% 25% 25% 25%

Assessment Tools

Class work Lab work Assignments Final exam

General Policies

Topics mentioned here are tentative. They may be slightly changed depending on the interest / pace of class. Late submission and other excuses shall only be entertained based on brownie points Assignments will have inclusive marks for: creativity, originality, honesty, helpfulness No plagiarism shall be tolerated!!

Page 1 of 2

Tentative Schedule
A) Unplugged activities: One session per week from CS unplugged, introducing new concepts and areas within CS 1. Introduction + motivation + course outline 2. Simulation of a computer 3. Software, simulating intelligence 4. How internet works 5. Theoretical computer, FSA 6. Binary Numbers 7. Image and song Representation using binary 8. Text compression 9. Information Theory 10. Databases 11. Searching algorithms 12. Sorting algorithms 13. Routing and deadlocks 14. Information sharing and encryption B) Plugged activities: One session per week in class & labs: 1. Getting familiar with computers + Join Wiki/piazza/google group 2. MS Windows and MS Office 3. MS Office continues 4. Internet + Google 5. Social Media and responsibilities 6. Variables 7. Loops 8. Conditionals 9. Scratch Games 10. Interesting Applications 11. Functions 12. Testing / Debugging: Hunting for bugs 13. History of Computing 14. Future of Computing C) Lab sessions: One session per week, it shall be a continuation of my labs - with more exercises. But mainly for Python activities, leading up to projects.

Page 2 of 2