Foundation Course for Advanced Computer Studies

In the modern world, computer systems are playing a greater and greater part in everyday life. From office work, to entertainment, to providing information, the personal computer is quickly becoming a more integral part of the home. However, most PC users have no idea how most of the parts which make up their computer work internally. I am one of those who find that the framework provided by the school curriculum in the United Kingdom is of great assistance in planning lessons and learning plans but the curriculum does not plan out the work for us. We therefore need to invest a lot of time and effort into developing schemes of work that will suit the people we are going to teach. For me, it is a fantastic opportunity to employ our imagination and creativity to make lessons useful and interesting for children of different abilities. It is why I wrote this book. This book is a foundation course for Advanced Computer Studies and designed as a blueprint to teach users with a basic knowledge of computer science. Computer science is a subject that combines the use of technology which is ICT (Information Communication Technology) and the creation of technology. To use ICT (the subject about how to use technology to communicate information) more effectively, we need to know how technology works. Computing or computer science will create a generation of young people able to work at the forefront of technology change. It is the umbrella term for the subject that comprises 3 elements: computer science, information technology and digital literacy. It is helpful to think of these as the foundations, applications and implications of digital technology. The new focus on computer science will provides a well-defined and rigorous academic discipline and a unique lens through which pupils can understand the world. Children must therefore be taught computing if they are to be ready for tomorrow technology challenges. Our ingenuity to invent new means of communicating with each other, our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries however still a lot remain to be done with the arrival of quantum computing. A more rigorous approach to computer science teaching will help compete across the full spectrum of digital industries. This can only be achieved by equipping ourselves with the foundation skills, knowledge and understanding of computing do the necessity to introduce “computational thinking” at school via the new national curriculum (programmes of study and targets), the 2014 national curriculum that introduces computing which will replace ICT.