My Materials Supporting Exploring Computer Science Curriculum Unit 1

Included here will be my personal materials supporting the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) curriculum, specifically version 4.0. (Some teachers in Chicago may also be using a version of this curriculum with integrated experiences providing preparation for Microsoft Office Specialist certification: Taste of Computing curriculum.)

My materials have not been reviewed by others, and do not have any official status within the ECS curriculum; rather they are simply a few handouts, web pages, and suggestions that I have prepared to support certain pieces within the ECS curriculum.

Most of my materials are available in

PDF format. (If you don't have it already, you can download the free Adobe PDF Reader for .pdf files.)
LaTeX format. (If you are not already familiar with this format, you will probably want to skip over it, but here is a starting point for learning more about LaTeX.)

Feel free to edit and repackage these materials for your own use. If you are not familiar with LaTeX, you will probably want to cut-and-paste from the PDF to whatever document preparation tool you prefer. These materials are presented in the same order as the standard curriculum for Unit 1 and labeled with appropriate topical descriptions. Many topics are skipped, since it may be sufficient to hand out things copied directly from the official curriculum or materials that it references. I include here only additional/modified handouts. In a few places, I have introduced minor innovations such as replacing discussion of certain kinds of activities with activities that are less sensitive for high school students in conservative communities. I also created a couple supplements up front that are not directly connected to the ECS curriculum but might be useful if time is available. (See also available materials for other units.)

Supplement with some direct education about computing applications and careers in the form of questions with references that you could go through in class; includes robotics videos generally of high interest to students. HTML.
Supplement with information about metric prefixes, bits, bytes, nibbles, pixels, and other hardware terms; some of this could be useful for computer buying project. PDF, LaTeX.
Questions with references for website evaluation. Part assumes you have copied and distributed the website evaluation rubric from ECS. HTML.
Communication Methods Chart with a few changes in the list of scenarios, for example planning a surprise party instead of gossiping. PDF, LaTeX.
Privacy Activity with activities less sensitive for high school students: PDF, LaTeX.
Handouts for 5 groups for Room Activity:
1. Group 1: Directions for picture. PDF, LaTeX.
2. Group 2: Directions for word cloud. (Need to cut and paste word cloud in empty space.) PDF, LaTeX.
3. Group 3: First word list and directions. PDF, LaTeX.
4. Group 4: Second word list and directions. PDF, LaTeX.
5. Group 5: Third word list and directions. PDF, LaTeX.
6. Second page common to all groups. PDF, LaTeX.
(The word cloud here is a good leadin for an activity to use when students are to report/discuss on reading material; see what I have at the beginning of Unit 2 for the articles on privacy/data.
Communication Methods and Data Chart with a few changes in the list of scenarios to correspond with Communication Methods Chart above. PDF, LaTeX.
For convenience in conducting Computer Science Unplugged Activity 20 (Conversations with Computers --- The Turing Test), these handouts provide the questions for the class to look at and answer/reference sheets for the students playing computer and human:
- Questions. PDF
- Questions and answers for computer. PDF, LaTeX.
- Questions/instructions for human. PDF, LaTeX.
A chatterbot handout based on ECS page 73 Part I; the online version includes clickable links to the referenced websites. This handout references the 17 Turing Test questions from Computer Science Unplugged Activity 20. PDF, LaTeX.
An additional activity I suggest is to have students play rock-paper-scissors at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scissors.html and reflect on the results. (This also foreshadows Instructional Day 18 in Unit 4.)

Other units: Next Unit: Unit 2, Unit 3.