Information Technology
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Computer Science 101

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Course Features

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Duration

6 weeks

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Delivery Method

Online

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Available on

Limited Access

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Accessibility

Mobile, Desktop, Laptop

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Language

English

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Subtitles

English

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Level

Beginner

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Effort

6 hours per week

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Teaching Type

Self Paced

Course Description

CS101 is a self-paced course that teaches the essential ideas of Computer Science for a zero-prior-experience audience. Computers can appear very complicated, but in reality, computers work within just a few, simple patterns. CS101 demystifies and brings those patterns to life, which is useful for anyone using computers today.

In CS101, participants play and experiment with short bits of "computer code" to bring to life to the power and limitations of computers. Everything works within the browser, so there is no extra software to download or install. CS101 also provides a general background on computers today: what is a computer, what is hardware, what is software, what is the internet. Anyone who has the ability to use a web browser may be successful in this course. No previous computer science experience is required.

Course Overview

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International Faculty

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Post Course Interactions

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Instructor-Moderated Discussions

Skills You Will Gain

Prerequisites/Requirements

Zero computer experience is assumed beyond a basic ability to use a web browser.

What You Will Learn

Analog vs. digital

Big ideas: abstraction, logic, bugs

Computer code: loops and logic

Computer security: viruses, trojans, and passwords

Digital media, images, sounds, video, compression

How computer hardware works: chips, cpu, memory, disk

How digital images work

How software works: what is a program, what is "running"

How structured data works

How the internet works: ip address, routing, ethernet, wi-fi

Necessary jargon: bits, bytes, megabytes, gigabytes

The nature of computers and code, what they can and cannot do

Course Instructors

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Nick Parlante

Senior Lecturer, Computer Science at Stanford University

Nick Parlante is a long-time lecturer for Computer Science at Stanford. His primary interest currently is codingbat.com, an experimental online code-practice tool, where you can play with small secti...
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