As a way of further expanding upon the applications of computer science in the advancement of computational technologies, this unit aims to broaden students' awareness of the computing tools they use and rely on every day and to encourage them to start thinking about the decisions and processes that go into the creation of these technologies.
Students will begin by exploring many of the key roles that technology plays in their lives, including social networking, online communication, search, commerce, and news and examining the ways these ever-evolving technologies have impacted individuals and societies in recent years. With so many of these technologies relying on the Internet to connect users and data across varied and remote locations, the students will then "take a peek under the hood" to examine the systems and protocols that make up the global infrastructure of the Internet. Finally, students will turn their attention to the past, present, and future of computing to begin imagining the technology that might exist in their future and the role that they might play in bringing it about.UNIT 5: Big Data
One of the most powerful applications of computational thinking relates to the creation and analysis of large data sets. In this unit, students will explore the complete set of processes and techniques that are involved in collecting large volumes of raw data and extracting new and useful information. Students will look at a variety of ways that data scientists use techniques such as statistical analysis, data mining, clustering, classification, and automatic summarization to construct and visualize new knowledge. And finally, using these techniques themselves, students will perform their own analysis on a sample data set to discover new insights, which they will share with the class through a formal, TED-style presentation.
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