Computer Studies / Computing

Course summary

Content: 1 Programming – imperative procedural-oriented, OOP, recursive techniques 2 Data structures – arrays, lists, dictionaries, hash tables, queues, graphs, trees, stack, vectors, fields, records, files (text & binary) 3 Algorithms – traversal, search, sort, optimization 4 Theory of computation – abstraction, automation, FSM with and without output, language hierarchy, complexity, Turing machines 5 Data representation – number systems/bases, information coding systems, encryption 6 Computer systems – logic gates, Boolean algebra, program translator types, classification of programming languages, system software 7 Computer organization and architecture – machine code/assembly language, CPU, internal components of a computer, external hardware devices (limited range) 8 Consequences of uses of computing – software and their algorithms embed moral & cultural values, issue of scale brings potential for great good but also ability to cause great harm, challenges facing legislators 9 Communication and networking – communication methods/basics, network topology, wireless, the Internet, TCP/IP, CRUD applications and REST, JSON, JavaScript 10 Databases – data modeling, relational database, SQL, client-server databases 11 Big Data – volume/velocity/variety, fact-based model, distributed processing, and functional programming 12 Fundamentals of functional programming – function type, first-class object, function application, partial function application, composition of functions, map, filter, reduce, lists 13 Systematic approach to problem-solving – skills needed for Paper 1 and NEA 14 Non Exam Assessment - The computing practical project