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Amanda Bennett's Unit Studies |
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Learning About Computers
Copyright 2003 Amanda Bennett -- All Rights Reserved
Who can ignore the presence and importance
of computers in our society today? As these machines become more complex
and powerful, we all begin to feel their influence on our day to day
living, whether at the grocery store with bar code scanning or at the
automatic teller machine at the bank. Even though they are just machines
and will never be able to "think" like humans do, they can make
things easier, faster and simpler for us.
Our children deal with computers in a very relaxed manner, much as we do
with calculators. Our parents were awed at the power of those first
electronic calculators, as we are absolutely amazed with the things that
computers can do for us. Computers have played a part in our children's
young lives already, and will have even more impact in the future.
With all of this talk about computers, Information Age, Cyberspace,
Information Highway - it is easy to feel quickly overwhelmed and
intimidated by this new technology. However, as parents and educators, it
is important that we learn what we can about the machine called a
computer. Even a limited amount of knowledge is better than avoiding such
an important factor that will influence our children's future. Like our
children, when we understand things we remove the fear of the unknown and
create a framework for knowledge.
Just as other inventions like the telegraph, steam engine, airplane and
penicillin, the invention of the computer will forever change this world as
we know it. The impact of computers and their technology is tremendous and
growing by leaps and bounds daily. To be so easily given such a large role
in our society, we should make certain that we have an understanding of
its origins, capabilities and how we might use it more effectively in our
own lives. We need to control the machine, not vice versa! No matter what
modern technology tries, there will never be a machine that can match the
intellect and emotional power of these beautiful beings that God created
in His image.
As our children have grown, their curiosity about the computer itself has
risen. They began asking those tougher questions like, "What is
inside there?" and "Who invented the computer?" - making us
rethink what we had taught them about computers. We had only shared with
them specific applications and software that they could use. As anything
else that we come across, why hadn't we done a better job of explaining
the invention, its history and other uses through our studies?
So began the creation of the COMPUTER Unit Study, and what a fun time we
have had with it. Instead of avoiding the hard questions, we started
taking them head-on and developing a plan. We have always wanted the
children to learn the "whole picture" about things that are in
God's world, and we couldn't turn tail and run on this issue. Avoidance
was not an option any longer - these are the children that will take us
through the middle of the Information Age, and we want to equip them the
best way that we are able.
First, remember that the computer is a machine. It is given instructions
by people and can only do what it is told to do, unlike humans. As a
machine, it has a history of invention and some very unique people that
contributed to its development, just as any other machine. By turning
around our perspective on computers, we could more easily recognize that
it is truly no different than the automobile, the X-Ray machine or any
other invention. It can be taken apart and examined, its history is fun to
investigate and it has limited capabilities like all other machines.
Studying the development of computers gives us a good understanding of the
invention process, where need for ease and speed drives man to create
something better. This process can be traced through many innovations, and
computers are interesting to use as an example.
Unit studies that are based on inventions make for some great adventures
in learning, and a computer unit study is no exception. Who would have
thought that the first programmer was a lady or that the first programmed
machine was a weaving loom that used punched cards way back in 1801! Some
of the fascinating people that we learned about included:
- French weaver Joseph Jacquard
- Scottish mathematician John Napier who invented logarithms
- Frenchman Blaise Pascal who invented the first Arithmetic Machine in 1642
- Ada Augusta King, Lady Lovelace, the first computer programmer (1843) and daughter of Lord Bryon, the poet
- Herman Hollerith, developer of a Tabulating Machine to speed up census data evaluations in 1890, later started a company that eventually became IBM
Using our favorite time line book, Time Lines: World History Year by
Year Since 1492 (Random House), we were able to trace the steps of
the invention process through modern history to see how world events
marked the invention process and how the invention of the computer changed
world history through wars, space exploration and on and on. Through our
use of unit studies, I have learned the importance of these connections
through time and events. For example, the beginnings of modern computers
are connected to the railroad industry in this country. Herman Hollerith,
a mining engineer who was employed by the Census Bureau, was watching a
train conductor punch a train ticket when he got the idea of using punched
cards and electricity to transfer data to counting machines. He went on to
eventually found IBM, and the rest is history.
In our study, we included the investigation of both the hardware (the
machine and its parts) and the software (the programs that the machine
will run). We all learned so much from this part of the study - both
parents and students. The buzz words and acronyms are no longer
intimidating - for example:
- ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange, the system for converting characters into binary code
- CPU - Central Processing Unit
- CD-ROM - Compact Disc-Read Only Memory
- RAM - Random Access Memory
- ROM - Read-Only Memory
The software that is available today is nothing compared to what will be
out there tomorrow, and the sheer volume of titles became overwhelming. We
carefully divided up our study in application areas, including Word
Processing, Educational, Data Base, Graphics, Desktop Publishing and
Communications. This allowed us to closely investigate why and how each
application area is used, while not getting bogged down by specific
packages or titles.
As with our other unit studies, we looked carefully at some of the
inventors involved in the development of this technology. I found that
some of the common characteristics of many inventors are those that occur
naturally in children and sadly get suppressed or put aside as they grow
up - creativity, insatiable curiosity, ingenuity and a thirst for
understanding. These are all admirable characteristics, within limits, and
ones that we try to encourage in our children throughout our
investigations.
During a computer unit study, try to include some hands-on work also. If
possible, open up your own computer and try to identify the parts for the
students, using some of the resources that are listed at the end of this
article to guide you. If possible, try to go to a local used computer
dealer or pawn shop and buy a very inexpensive older computer for the
students to study. Even the old circuit boards are fun to pull out and
look at closely under a magnifying glass - the children can easily see how
the circuits on the board resemble "cities" and roads and
traffic lights.
A study of computers would not be complete without looking at job
opportunities. The children are so fascinated by computers that they can
easily see themselves using them in their daily lives, regardless of their
future pursuits. We created a huge list of computer career possibilities,
some of which are listed here:
- Electronics Engineer
- Software Engineer
- Hardware Engineer
- Mathematician
- Physicist
- Computer Programmer
- Computer Librarian
- Knowledge Engineer
- Computer Musician
- Video Game Designer
- Robotics Engineer
- Computer Artist
- Animation Engineer
- Information Researcher
Uses for the computer should also be looked at in a computer unit study.
Notice how they were used initially and how their use has become so
widespread throughout many areas of our daily lives. They are used in
large applications like manufacturing, banking, retailing, medicine,
research, space travel and communications. They are also used in our homes
in some innocent looking mundane items like a wristwatch, television, VCR,
dishwasher, washing machine, iron, calculator and microwave oven. The list
is long and growing at a terrific rate! There will be more applications in
the future than we can even imagine. Their use will help us even more, as
long as we understand and control the machine, instead of vice versa. What
better opportunity to learn about the technology than with a unit study!
Copyright 2003 Amanda Bennett
PLEASE NOTE:
This article is copyrighted, and may NOT be used or
copied without written permission of
Amanda
Bennett. It is NOT in the public domain, and is protected by copyright laws.
Thanks for your cooperation & understanding!
WRITE YOUR OWN UNIT STUDIES & SAVE!
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