Chapter 6: The Explore Curricular Requirement
Computing Innovations
- A computing innovation is one that has a computer program that is essential to the innovation being able to operate.
- You should be able to describe the program and what it does for an innovation.
- A physical innovation—such as a GPS
- Nonphysical computing software—such as an app
- Nonphysical computing concept—such as social networking
- A key concept is being able to distinguish the data from the device that collects the data.
- For example, a sensor is a data collection device.
- It sends the data it collects to the program.
- The data would be values for distance, temperature, motion, among many others, and it is input to the computer program in the innovation.
- The innovation’s program then processes the data and produces some type of output.
- The message and “turn on” signal are examples of output.
Analyzing Data
- You could also see questions about other important concepts related to analyzing a computing innovation’s data.
- These include the following:
- How the data collected could be traced to an individual (privacy)
- Who can access the data (security)
- Where the data is warehoused (storage)
- Privacy is protecting our identity.
- Could partial data and other publicly available data reveal our identity?
- Can an individual be identified if our data is mixed with a lot of other data to hide our identities?
- Security deals with who can access our data.
- Organizations should restrict data access and update.
- Schools keep much of student and teacher data.
- Keeping your data secure means not letting other students view your grades or vice versa in an online gradebook.
- Data storage concerns center around where the data is located.
- If your school data is stored on a local server, the data should be protected so only authorized people are able to access it.
Impact of Computing Innovations
- Computing advancements have implications based on their intended usage.
- These impacts might be good or bad, sometimes for the same person.
- When examining stimulus questions, attempt to observe the effects from many perspectives to determine whether they are positive or negative.
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Next Chapter:
Chapter 7: Creative Development
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