Learning About Computers

Who can ignore the presence and importance of computers in our society today? As these machines become more complex and powerful, we all begin to feel their influence on our day to day living, whether at the grocery store with bar code scanning or at the automatic teller machine at the bank. Even though they are just machines and will never be able to "think" like humans do, they can make things easier, faster and simpler for us.
Our children deal with computers in a very relaxed manner, much as we do with calculators. Our parents were awed at the power of those first electronic calculators, as we are absolutely amazed with the things that computers can do for us. Computers have played a part in our children's young lives already, and will have even more impact in the future.
With all of this talk about computers, Information Age, Cyberspace, Information Highway - it is easy to feel quickly overwhelmed and intimidated by this new technology. However, as parents and educators, it is important that we learn what we can about the machine called a computer. Even a limited amount of knowledge is better than avoiding such an important factor that will influence our children's future. Like our children, when we understand things we remove the fear of the unknown and create a framework for knowledge.
Just as other inventions like the telegraph, steam engine, airplane and penicillin, the invention of the computer will forever change this world as we know it. The impact of computers and their technology is tremendous and growing by leaps and bounds daily. To be so easily given such a large role in our society, we should make certain that we have an understanding of its origins, capabilities and how we might use it more effectively in our own lives. We need to control the machine, not vice versa! No matter what modern technology tries, there will never be a machine that can match the intellect and emotional power of these beautiful beings that God created in His image.
As our children have grown, their curiosity about the computer itself has risen. They began asking those tougher questions like, "What is inside there?" and "Who invented the computer?" - making us rethink what we had taught them about computers. We had only shared with them specific applications and software that they could use. As anything else that we come across, why hadn't we done a better job of explaining the invention, its history and other uses through our studies?
So began the creation of the COMPUTER Unit Study, and what a fun time we have had with it. Instead of avoiding the hard questions, we started taking them head-on and developing a plan. We have always wanted the children to learn the "whole picture" about things that are in God's world, and we couldn't turn tail and run on this issue. Avoidance was not an option any longer - these are the children that will take us through the middle of the Information Age, and we want to equip them the best way that we are able.
First, remember that the computer is a machine. It is given instructions by people and can only do what it is told to do, unlike humans. As a machine, it has a history of invention and some very unique people that contributed to its development, just as any other machine. By turning around our perspective on computers, we could more easily recognize that it is truly no different than the automobile, the X-Ray machine or any other invention. It can be taken apart and examined, its history is fun to investigate and it has limited capabilities like all other machines.
Studying the development of computers gives us a good understanding of the invention process, where need for ease and speed drives man to create something better. This process can be traced through many innovations, and computers are interesting to use as an example.
Unit studies that are based on inventions make for some great adventures in learning, and a computer unit study is no exception. Who would have thought that the first programmer was a lady or that the first programmed machine was a weaving loom that used punched cards way back in 1801! Some of the fascinating people that we learned about included:

• French weaver Joseph Jacquard
• Scottish mathematician John Napier who invented logarithms
• Frenchman Blaise Pascal who invented the first Arithmetic Machine in 1642
• Ada Augusta King, Lady Lovelace, the first computer programmer (1843) and daughter of Lord Bryon, the poet
• Herman Hollerith, developer of a Tabulating Machine to speed up census data evaluations in 1890, later started a company that eventually became IBM

Using our favorite time line book, Time Lines: World History Year by Year Since 1492 (Random House), we were able to trace the steps of the invention process through modern history to see how world events marked the invention process and how the invention of the computer changed world history through wars, space exploration and on and on. Through our use of unit studies, I have learned the importance of these connections through time and events. For example, the beginnings of modern computers are connected to the railroad industry in this country. Herman Hollerith, a mining engineer who was employed by the Census Bureau, was watching a train conductor punch a train ticket when he got the idea of using punched cards and electricity to transfer data to counting machines. He went on to eventually found IBM, and the rest is history.
In our study, we included the investigation of both the hardware (the machine and its parts) and the software (the programs that the machine will run). We all learned so much from this part of the study - both parents and students. The buzz words and acronyms are no longer intimidating - for example:

• ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange, the system for converting characters into binary code
• CPU - Central Processing Unit
• CD-ROM - Compact Disc-Read Only Memory
• RAM - Random Access Memory
• ROM - Read-Only Memory

The software that is available today is nothing compared to what will be out there tomorrow, and the sheer volume of titles became overwhelming. We carefully divided up our study in application areas, including Word Processing, Educational, Data Base, Graphics, Desktop Publishing and Communications. This allowed us to closely investigate why and how each application area is used, while not getting bogged down by specific packages or titles.
As with our other unit studies, we looked carefully at some of the inventors involved in the development of this technology. I found that some of the common characteristics of many inventors are those that occur naturally in children and sadly get suppressed or put aside as they grow up - creativity, insatiable curiosity, ingenuity and a thirst for understanding. These are all admirable characteristics, within limits, and ones that we try to encourage in our children throughout our investigations.
During a computer unit study, try to include some hands-on work also. If possible, open up your own computer and try to identify the parts for the students, using some of the resources that are listed at the end of this article to guide you. If possible, try to go to a local used computer dealer or pawn shop and buy a very inexpensive older computer for the students to study. Even the old circuit boards are fun to pull out and look at closely under a magnifying glass - the children can easily see how the circuits on the board resemble "cities" and roads and traffic lights.
A study of computers would not be complete without looking at job opportunities. The children are so fascinated by computers that they can easily see themselves using them in their daily lives, regardless of their future pursuits. We created a huge list of computer career possibilities, some of which are listed here:

• Electronics Engineer
• Software Engineer
• Hardware Engineer
• Mathematician
• Physicist
• Computer Programmer
• Computer Librarian
• Knowledge Engineer
• Computer Musician
• Video Game Designer
• Robotics Engineer
• Computer Artist
• Animation Engineer
• Information Researcher