Indiana Principles of Computing

In this lesson, students are introduced to CodeHS and how Karel the Dog can be given a set of instructions to perform a simple task.

In this lesson, students learn more about Karel and Karel’s world. Students learn about walls in Karel’s world, the directions Karel can face, and how to identify a location in Karel’s world using streets and avenues. In these exercises, students will begin to see the limitations of Karel’s commands. Students will need to apply Karel’s limited set of commands to new situations. For example, how can they make Karel turn right, even though Karel does not know a turnRight command?

In this lesson, students will learn how they can create their own commands for Karel by calling and defining functions. Functions allow programmers to create and reuse new commands that make code more readable and scalable.

In this lesson, students learn in more detail about functions, and how they can use functions to break down their programs into smaller pieces and make them easier to understand.

In this lesson, students will deepen their understanding of functions by learning about the start function. The start function helps to organize the readability of code by creating a designated place where code that is going to be run in a program can be stored:

function start(){
   turnRight();
}

function turnRight(){
   turnLeft();
   turnLeft();
   turnLeft();
}

In this lesson, students learn about Top Down Design and Decomposition. Top Down Design is the process of breaking down a big problem into smaller parts.

In this lesson, students learn how to style their programs by including comments. Comments allow students to leave notes on their program that makes it easier for other to read. Comments are written in plain English.
Commenting Your Code Example:

/*
 *  multi-line  comments
 */

// single line comments

In this lesson, students are introduced to Super Karel! Since commands like turnRight() and turnAround() are so commonly used, students shouldn’t have to define them in every single program. This is where SuperKarel comes in. SuperKarel is just like Karel, except SuperKarel already knows how to turnRight and turnAround, so students don’t have to define those functions anymore!

In this lesson, students learn how to use for loops in their programs. The for loop allows students to repeat a specific part of code a fixed number of times.

For loops are written like this:

for(var i = 0; i < 4; i++)
{
    // Code to be repeated 4 times
}

In this lesson, students learn about the conditional statement “if”. Code within an “if statement” will only execute IF the condition is true.

if (frontIsClear()) {
    // Code to be executed only if front is clear
}

In this lesson, students learn about an additional control structure, if/else statements. If/else statements let students do one thing if a condition is true, and something else otherwise.

if/else statements are written like this:

if(frontIsClear())
 {
      // code to execute if front is clear
 }
 else
 {
      // code to execute otherwise
 }

In this lesson, students are introduced a new type of loop: while loops. While loops allow Karel to repeat code while a certain condition is true. While loops allow students to create general solutions to problems that will work on multiple Karel worlds, rather than just one.

In this lesson, students learn how to combine and incorporate the different control structures they’ve learned to create more complex programs.

In this lesson, students get extra practice with control structures. Students will continue to see different ways that the if, if/else, while, and for loops affect their code and what Karel can do.

In this lesson, students review how they should indent their code to make it easier to read.

Debugging is a very important part of programming. In this lesson, students learn how to effectively debug their programs.

In this lesson, students will explore the careers available in computer science and learn how bias can affect computer programs.

In this unit, students will synthesize all of the skills and concepts learned in the Karel unit to solve increasingly challenging Karel puzzles.

Students will be introduced to cybersecurity and learn how cyberattacks can negatively affect businesses.

As students use the Internet, they are building their digital footprint. In this lesson, students understand how they can control and protect their footprint.

Using best practices like setting strong passwords, reading privacy policies, and using https can help us stay safe online.

Information literacy is having the ability to find information, evaluate information credibility, and use information effectively.

In this lesson, students will learn what copyright laws are and how to avoid copyright infringement. They will explore why copyright laws are important and how they protect the creators.

A security hacker is someone who seeks to break through defenses and exploit weaknesses in a computer system or network. There are white hat hackers, who help companies find and protect exploits in their systems, and black hat hackers who hack maliciously.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the concept of risk assessment, and students learn about the role of vulnerability scans in detecting weaknesses. Students also learn about honeypots and packet sniffing and explore how these tools can be used to detect vulnerabilities and improve the security of a network.

Digital Citizenship and Cyber Hygiene unit quiz

When was the first computer made? What did it look like, and what was it used for? In this lesson, students will explore the creation and evolution of computing machines that now permeate our day-to-day life.

How are computers organized? What are the main components of a computer?

In this lesson, we will explore how different organizational structures of computers interact with each other to make computers functional.

What kinds of software do computers use and need?

In this lesson, the topic of software is broken down into types of software, how they interact, and the specific functions of the different types of software.

What is hardware? How does hardware work?

In this lesson, hardware is broken down into the different physical components of computers and how they contribute to the function of the computer as a whole.

Where is computing headed? What is Artificial Intelligence and what are the potential impacts that this might have on our world?

In this lesson, students learn about Artificial Intelligence and how the landscape of computing might change in the future. Students will discuss how these future developments might impact our society.

In this lesson, students will explore the three primary divisions of cloud computing: Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). They will create a visually engaging half Pecha Kucha presentation to demonstrate their understanding of these cloud computing models.

How do computers store and manipulate information? In this lesson, students learn how computers abstract complicated information into manageable chunks that they can then store and manipulate.

In this lesson, students will learn what a number system is, the difference between the decimal number system and the binary number system, and how to convert between decimal and binary.

In this lesson, students will learn what a number system is, the difference between the decimal number system and the binary number system, and how to convert between decimal and binary.

In this lesson, students will learn how computers break down images into concrete values that can be stored. Students will learn how images are represented digitally using pixels.

In this lesson, students will learn about the hexadecimal number system, and how it is useful in storing digital information. They will also learn how to convert numbers from the hexadecimal system to binary and vice versa.

In this lesson, students will learn how the RGB encoding scheme allows us to encode colors as numeric data. It defines the amount of red, green and blue light in a pixel.

In this lesson, students will have a high level discussion about what the internet is and how the internet works. The topics of anonymity and censorship will also be discussed.

In this lesson, we explore the hardware that makes up the internet and explore characteristics of that hardware that define our experience on the internet.

In this lesson, students will explore how internet hardware communicates using Internet Addresses and the Internet Protocol.

In this lesson, students will explore the DNS system and how it maps human readable domain names into actual accessible IP addresses.

In this lesson, students explore how messages get from one address on the internet to another.

In this lesson, students learn about the last piece of the puzzle for how the Internet works: Packets and Protocols. All information sent over the internet is broken down into small groups of bits called packets. The format for creating and reading packets is defined by open protocols so that all devices can read packets from all other devices.

In this lesson, students are presented with different ways that the Internet impacts their lives. The Internet affects the way that people communicate (emails, social media, video chat) and collaborate to solve problems. It has revolutionized the way that people can learn and even buy things. Because the Internet is present in almost every facet of people’s lives, there are severe ethical and legal concerns that derive from the Internet.

In this performance task, students choose an innovation that was enabled by the Internet and explore the effects of this innovation. Students will produce a computational artifact (visualization, a graphic, a video, a program, or an audio recording that you create using a computer) and a written responses to several prompts. This lesson is meant to be a culminating project of students understanding of the Internet and its impact.

In this lesson, students will become familiar with Integrated Development Environments (IDE) and learn the fundamentals of the CodeHS IDE.

In this lesson, students will learn how to print messages out onto the console using the Javascript command println.

In this lesson, students learn how to assign values to variables, manipulate those variable values, and use them in program statements. This is the introductory lesson into how data can be stored in variables.

In this lesson, students learn how they can allow users to input information into their programs, and use that input accordingly.

In this lesson, students learn about the different mathematical operators they can use to perform mathematical computations and create useful programs that compute information for the user.

In this lesson, students will learn the basics of creating graphics objects. Graphic creation relies on setting the type, shape, size, position, and color on the artist’s canvas before adding to the screen. Using the geometric concepts, and the concept of getWidth() and getHeight(), multiple graphic objects can be created in JavaScript.

In this lesson, students will learn what pair programming is, why it is used, and the appropriate behaviors of a driver and navigator.

In this unit, students will synthesize all of the skills and concepts learned in the JavaScript and Graphics unit to solve increasingly challenging puzzles.

In this lesson, students will learn more about boolean values. Booleans refer to a value that is either true or false, and are used to test whether a specific condition is true or false.

In this lesson, students will learn about logical operators. Logical operators allow students to connect or modify Boolean expressions. Three logical operators are the !, ||, && characters.

• ! = NOT
• || = OR
• && = AND

In this lesson, students learn how to use comparison operators. Comparison operators let students compare two values.

In this lesson, students learn about if statements as a way to make decisions and execute specific code depending on the validity of a condition.

In this lesson, students will learn in greater detail about for loops. For loops in Javascript are written and executed in the same manner as Karel exercises, except now students will explore modifying the initialization statement, test statement, and increment statements of the loops.

In this lesson, students will explore in more detail how they can modify the initialization statement, test statement, and increment statement in a for loop.

In this lesson, students will learn how to create for loops to solve increasingly challenging problems by using nested for loops and branching control structures.

In this lesson, students will learn how randomization can enhance a program and be used in combination with various control structures.

In this lesson, students will explore while loops and JavaScript variables. This combines the ideas of creating variables, updating variables throughout a loop, and determining the correct ending condition.

In this lesson, students will learn how to create a Loop and Half. A Loop and a Half is a specific way to write a while loop with the condition being true. Inside the loop, students create a SENTINEL value to break out of the loop whenever that condition is met, causing the loop to end.

In this unit, students will synthesize all of the skills and concepts learned in the Control Structures unit to solve increasingly challenging puzzles.

In this lesson, students learn about functions and parameters in the context of JavaScript, which builds on their prior knowledge of working with functions in Karel. This lesson focuses specifically on defining and calling functions, and passing simple, single parameters to functions.

In this lesson, students will work with, define and call their own functions that take in multiple parameters as input and print out output.

In this lesson, students continue working with multiple parameters that create graphics as output which is very useful, since creating several different graphical objects involves writing the same code over and over again (set the size, set the color, set the location, etc).

In this lesson, students learn about return values so they can write functions that do some work and send the result back or use later in the program.

In this lesson, students work with and define functions with return values and more than one parameter.

In this lesson, students will explore the scoping of a variable, which is where the variable is “defined” or where it exists.

In this unit, students will synthesize all of the skills and concepts learned in the Functions and Parameters unit to solve increasingly challenging puzzles.

In this lesson, students will learn about the basic functions and types of operating systems. Students will also explore the process for upgrading and installing Windows and Mac operating systems.

In this lesson, students delve deeper into the differences between the three main operating systems. They learn how operating systems store and manage files and the differences and similarities in each system’s interface.

In this lesson, students learn about the different types of software. Through interactive exercises, students explore how different software can be used in the workplace and our every day lives. Students also learn about single and cross-platform software.

In this lesson, students learn about the different types of software licenses as well as the different methods of installing software based on the application’s architecture.

In this lesson, students will learn about the essential internal components that make up a computer. Component categories include the motherboard (system board), firmware (BIOS), CPU (processor), GPU (graphics processor), storage, cooling, and NIC (network adapter).

In this lesson, students will learn and explain the purposes and use of various peripheral types. They will classify the peripherals as input or output devices and explore different ways of installing them on a laptop or PC.

In this lesson, students will learn about different networking devices that allow devices to connect to other devices as well as the Internet. They will also learn different networking connection methods such as using dialup, DSL, coax cables, and fiber optic cables.

In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the module’s learning objectives.

In this lesson, students will learn how computers are used to collect, store, manipulate, and visualize data in order to answer questions and gain knowledge of the world.

In this lesson, students will learn about the impact of visually representing data to make information easier to analyze and use.

Students will work with a partner to answer a question of personal interest using a publicly available data set. Students will need to produce data visualizations and explain how these visualizations led to their conclusions. They will develop a computational artifact that illustrates, represents, or explains their findings, communicate their findings to their classmates, and embed their artifact in their personal portfolio website.

In this final programming module, students will put together all of the concepts learned throughout the course to create a program of their choice. They will work with partners or in groups to creatively develop a program of their choosing.