Computer Science Principles: The Foundational Concepts of Computer Science - For AP® Computer Science Principles

by Kevin P Hare, Pindar Van Arman (Foreword by)

Overview

Computer science is the world's fastest growing field of study, and this growth is showing no signs of slowing down. As a new field, computer science can seem intimidating, but it should not be scary to learn or difficult to understand. If you have ever turned on a phone or surfed the Internet then you have used a computer and should have a basic understanding of what happens when you click the mouse or touch the screen—and how fast it happens! Computer Science Principles introduces the creative side of computing. Once you've made your way through this book, you'll be editing photos, designing websites, coding JavaScript, and getting organized with spreadsheets—and along the way you'll learn the foundational concepts of computer science. How do computers convert information into ones and zeros and send it thousands of miles in a blink of the eye? What is an IP address? What do TCP/IP, DNS, HTML, and CSS stand for? How can a hard drive store large movies and thousands of songs? How can secrets be sent in plain sight? These questions—and more—are answered in Computer Science Principles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781734554915
Publisher:	Kevin P Hare LLC
Publication date:	02/01/2020
Series:	Foundational Concepts of Computer Science , #3
Edition description:	2020 Edition
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Kevin Hare teaches computer science in Atlanta, Georgia. He has more than 17-years experience teaching at the high school level and has offered such courses as AP Computer Science A, AP Computer Science Principles, Web Design, Mobile App Development, Video Design, and TV Broadcasting. He spent the bulk of his career at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC. In his free time, he co-founded the technology company BoxJump. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science, a master's degree in secondary education, and is currently working towards a master's in computer science. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and two children.

Pindar Van Arman is an American artist and roboticist based in Washington DC. His art focuses on designing painting robots that explore the differences between human and computational creativity. Since his first system in 2005, he has built multiple artificially creative robots, including CrowdPainter, bitPaintr, and CloudPainter. His robotic systems typically paint with a brush on stretched canvas and have recently begun to concentrate on creative portraiture.

His work with CloudPainter was awarded First Place in Robot Art 2018, an annual AI and robotics art competition. Judges of the contest noted that "CloudPainter was able to paint evocative portraits with varying degrees of abstraction." A notable aspect of his entries have been their ability to paint with complete creative autonomy, a process Van Arman outlined in his TEDx Talk "Teaching Creativity to Robots."

Van Arman graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1996 and went on to get his Masters from The Corcoran College of Art and Design at George Washington University in 2010.

Table of Contents

Foreword

About AP Computer Science Principles

1 - Hardware, Software, Number Systems, and Boolean Expressions

2 – Pixels, Images, and Adobe Photoshop

3 - Compressing Data

4 – Storing Data: Spreadsheets and Databases

5 - Protecting Data: Heuristics, Security, and Encryption

6 - The Internet

7 – Web Design: HTML and CSS

8 - Programming: JavaScript

9 – Impact of Computing

Appendix 1 – AP Performance Task: Create

Appendix 2 - JavaScript Objects

Important Vocabulary

Editorial Reviews

John O.

High School Student

"As a student, this book is a great resource when preparing for the AP principals exam. Kevin Hare explains the complex code in a way that can be interpreted by any student. I highly recommend this book for any student preparing for the AP principles exam."

Meredith M.

High School Counselor

"As an educator, I appreciate the way this resource is logical, straightforward, and easy to understand. My students taking AP Computer Science will find this resource a helpful supplement to the AP Computer Science course, and even those not enrolled in the course will find it useful as a guide for understanding. Moreover, this book celebrates the unlimited creativity that can be imagined and achieved in this field rather than emphasizing formulaic rigidity, which will inspire all students of the study, regardless of age!"

Brian L.

Technology Specialist

"I've scoured countless digital textbooks about comp sci over the years, and I'm thrilled to find Computer Science Principles available now through Amazon. This textbook is an excellent resource for AP and non-AP students alike. The writing and images make difficult to grasp concepts easy for high school aged students, and there's enough depth to challenge even the biggest nerds. I didn't know hexadecimal could be so fascinating! Highly recommended."

From the Publisher