Crash Course Computer Science Preview Video Lecture | Understanding the Basics of Computer Science and Technology - Basic Technology

Hello world!
I’m Carrie Anne Philbin and welcome to Crash
Course Computer Science!
So, computers really have allowed us to do
some pretty amazing things - think global
telecommunications, international commerce,
global transportation, breakthroughs in medicine,
distributed education, online shopping, online
dating, just the Internet in general.
Computers are allowing us to explore our own
world and other worlds, and of course some
seemingly mundane things like permitting us
to spy on our pets from work or communicate
with our friends in a nearly indecipherable
stream of emoji!
But don’t call computers magical.
They are not, I repeat ARE NOT, magical.
So before we get into what we are going to
talk about in this course, it might be useful
to tell you what we aren’t going to talk
about.
We aren’t going to teach you how to program.
Programming is a really crucial aspect of
computer software, and we will get to the
rules that guide the logic of hardware and
software design.
But we aren’t going to teach you how to
program an Arduino Uno to water your plant
or how to change the CSS on your grandma’s
sewing blog so visitors’ cursors turn into
kittens.
This also isn’t a computing course.
Or at least how computing is thought of in
the U.S. Computing here is a goal - it’s
what computers do.
And we’ll talk about some of that for sure,
but OUR goal for this course is much broader.
But computing means other things in other
countries.
It’s all pretty confusing.
But what we are going to look are the history
of computers… even before we had electricity.
We’re going retrace the design decisions
that have given us our president-day components.
We’re going to talk about how Operating
Systems work… or don’t work… how the
YouTubes get to you over the Internet, how
our smartphones and other smart devices are...
well getting smarter, and of course mysterious
futuristic stuff like quantum computing and
frustrating present-day stuff like hacking!
It’s a lot to cover, but I suppose before
we get started I should introduce myself.
I’m Carrie Anne Philbin!
Hello!
I'm an award winning secondary Computing teacher,
author of 'Adventures in Raspberry Pi' and
the creator of a YouTube video series for
teenagers called the Geek Gurl Diaries, which
includes stuff like interviews with women
working in technology, computer science based
tutorials, and hands on digital maker style
projects.
In my day job, I help people learn about technology
and how to make things with computers as Director
of Education for the Raspberry Pi Foundation,
which is a charity based in Cambridge in the
UK.
Needless to say, I am passionate about this
stuff, but not because computers are these
amazing devices that are always making our
lives easier (sometimes that’s debatable)
but because computers inarguably have become
pivotal in our society.
From our cars and thermostats to pacemakers
and cellphones, computers are everywhere,
and it’s my hope that by the end of this
course you’ll have a better understanding
and appreciation for how far we’ve come
and how far they may take us.
I’ll see you next week.