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Midterm 1 Notes

Reading

 Chapter 1 – The impact of technology in a changing world

 Learning Targets
1. Describe various technological tools being used to impact national and global
issues.
 Social media – connects and exchange ideas and fight for social
change.
 #MeToo movement
 Bot accounts – automated programs to spread news, stories etc.
 Used for creating discord + controversy.
 Crisis Mapping tool – AKA Ushahidi – collects emails, texts, blogs
etc. and maps them to make them public.
 Used in COVID
 Brings awareness.
2. Describe various global social issues that are being affected by technology.
 Healthcare
 Tech helped “end” covid.
 Use of Computationally intense modeling software – increases
pace of vaccine discovery.
o Folding Home
 Concussions
o Sensors data from impacts then leads to new helmets to
prevent injury.
 Environment
 Atmospheric sensors – to collect air/ water quality and alerts
researchers.
 Smart internet connected water sprinklers – saves water. 30%
reduction
 Digital Divide
 Divide between those who do and do not have access to tech.
 Restricts education.
 NEI (Next Einstein initiative) – Turok founded AIMS (African
institute of Math and science) to spread centers in Africa.
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3. Describe how technology is changing how and why we connect and

collaborate with others.
 Web 2.0 – online services that encourage users to collaborate.
 Cognitive surplus – combination between leisure time and tools to be
creative.
 Businesses
 Kickstarter video to connect with collaborators and donors.
 Crowdfunding – asking for small donations in a large audience
on the internet.
o Go fund me.

4. Summarize how technology has impacted the way we choose and consume
products and services.
 Marketing
 Influencers – do product placing and reviews.
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 Crowdsourcing - collaborating with the crowd, like asking the

audience to make a logo.
 Sharing economy – Share services, Subscriptions like uber and Lyft.
 Collaborative consumption – together as a group using a product
efficiently.
 Lessens environmental concerns.
5. Characterize computer literacy and explain why it is important to be computer
literate.
 What it means to be computer literate
 Avoiding hackers/viruses
 Protecting your privacy
 Understanding risks
o Like if cookies will risk your privacy
 Using web wisely
 Avoiding spam and etc.
 Maintain/ upgrading and troubleshooting the computer.
 And keeping up to date on computer Info
o Like can the TV connect to the wireless network or etc.

6. Describe artificial intelligence systems and explain their main goals.
 AI – computer systems that perform tasks associated with human
intelligence (acquires and applies knowledge and skills)
 Goal – to create an intelligent output but does not have to mimic
human thought processes- Human recs vs computer recs (created from
existing data)
 Areas of research in AI
 Natural language processing – understand written and spoke
words + interact with humans and language.
 Perception – senses like sonar, accelerometer, infrared etc. to
gather data.
 Knowledge representation – encoding information about the
work into formats for AI and AI uses it to solve problems.
 Planning – Ai sets goals and needs to plan to do them.
 Problem Solving – does a rules-based approach and
judgements with incomplete information.
 Learning – Ai adapts and learn through supervised learning
(learning from many examples) and unsupervised learning (can
look at data and build riles)
 Computer vision – computers interprète Visual info
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 Used in self-driving cars.

 Expert systems – mimics human experts experience like doctors and
lawyers.
 Rules based systems = software asks questions based on
preprogrammed algorithms
 Do you have a fever?
 For simple tasks
 Artificial Neural Networks – designed based on human brain structure
with network of loosely connected neurons.
 Neurons receive signal and fires electrical impulse and travels
to other neurons.
 Tackles complex problems like speech recognition.
 Machine learning
 AI that analyzes patterns in data and uses it to draw
conclusions- and then adapts and improves itself.
 Deep Learning- ML that learns from mistakes – unsupervised learning.
7. Describe how artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are
important in many careers.
 Retail
 Data mining – analyzing huge amounts of data for a specific
trend.
o For inventory and etc.
 Recommendation Engines – AI systems that helps discover
things.
o Uses data mining.
 Banking
 Credit card process – Use AI to analyze transaction data to spot
frauds.
 Uses it to spot risks of extending credit to customers (credit
scores and etc.)
 Transportation
 Self-driving cars - Software anticipates actions.
 Robots
 Embodied agents – robots who look human, used to help with
empathy and understanding.
 Education
 VR to correct grammar and improve word choice.
 Plagiarism – Turnitin, also uses Machine learning.
 Law enforcement
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 Facial reconstruction systems

 AI uses to fund similarities in crimes and patterns.
 Digital Forensics – analysis done by computer to gather
potential legal evidence.
 Medicine
 Modernizing Medicine – uses AI to search through Data of
patients and treatments to quickly diagnose conditions.
 Makes recommendations for treatment.
 Analyze genetic traits.
 Prosthetic devices – software sensors pressure of tissues
 #D printing – for prosthetics
 Psychology
 MACH – my automated conversation Coach – helps with job
interviews.
o Affective computing – computing the relates to
emotions and influences it.
8. Define ethics and describe various ethical systems.
 Ethics – study of morals and choices a person makes.
 Relativism – morals a dictated by culture and customs of a society
 Divine command theory – God is all knowing.
 Utilitarianism– right or wrong is judged by consequences.
 Virtue ethics - internal moral compass
 Deontology – follow all common moral codes.
 Not all illegal behavior is unethical.
 Civil disobedience - not obeying laws for change.
 Unethical Behavior – not conforming to a set of behaviors.
 Amoral Behavior – no sense of right or wrong
9. Describe influences on the development of your personal ethics.
 Personal ethics – personal principles you use to make decisions.
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10. Present examples of how technology creates ethical challenges.

 Intellectual Property – someone’s creativity or knowledge protected by
copyright laws, patents or trademarks.
 Pirvacy – tech and personal agents (Alexa) listen and comb through
data to better personalize out needs.
 Social media shares information
 Social Justice
 Predictive Policing – gathering data, analyzing it to prevent
future crimes.
o Possibility of a crime warrant intervention???
 Military
o Wiki leaks make private and secret documents public.
 Liability
 3D printed helmet design from online is sent to a friend and she
get injured because of the design – Who is responsible.
 Censorship – What people are allowed to see.
 Social activism
 Hacktivism – computer is used to promote huma rights, free
speech, freedom and etc. Hacking is used to support a change.
o Denile of service attacks – attacks so that websites a
bombarded with requests for info that it makes it
inaccessible.
o Cyber terrorism – embarrass and harass the company by
steaking info.
 Automated robotic machinery
 Cars with AI systems have more control of the car than
humans.
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o Uses sensors to apply breaks faster than humans.

 Chapter 2 – Looking at computers: Understanding the Parts
 Learning Targets
1. Describe the four main functions of a computer system and how they interact
with data and information.
 Input: gathers/ enters data
 Process – manipulates/calculates/ organizes data to info
 Output – displays data and info
 Storage – saves data and info
 Data becomes information
o Data is a rep of information
2. Define bits and bytes, and describe how they are measured, used, and
processed.
 Binary Language – two digits : 0 and 1(a Bit), 8 bits = byte
o Tells computer what to do and represents the quantity of
data and info input and outputed (Word docs)
o Byte = 1
o Kilobyte = 1000 bytes
o Megabyte = 1 mill bytes
o Gigabyte = 1 billion bytes
o Terabytes = 1 trillion bytes
o Petabyte = 1000 terabytes
 Electrical switches are used to keep track of 0 and 1s
o Early computers use Transistors made out of silicon ( a
semi conductor)
o Integrated circuits – chips/ Tiny regions of semiconductor
material with huge number of transistors
 Central Processing Unit – Brian of the computer, where processing
data takes place
 Computer processes Byte and buts in
o Software – computer programs the makes hardware do
tasks
o Hardware – physically touch
o Operating System – controls how computer functions
3. List common types of computers and discuss their main features.
 Digital convergence – range of features in a singular device
o You can test, take pics and play music all on a phone
 Peripheral Device – a component that connects to the computer
o Ie. Printer or mouse
 Mainframe – has many users at once
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 Supercomputer – does super fast calculations

 Embedded computer – computer chip in a device like a car or a
drone
4. Identify the main types of keyboards and touch screens.
 Input device – enters data
 Touch screen – you click the inputs with you finger
5. Describe the main types of mice and pointing devices.
 Touch pads
 Joysticks
 Wireless mice
6. Explain how images, sounds, and sensor data are input into computing
devices.
 Flatbed scanners – like a phot copy machine but make a digital
image instead of a paper one
 Digital Cameras scan information
 Webcam
 Mics – capture sound waves and then transfers to a digital format
 Voice recognition software – controls device by speaking
o Like intelligent personal assistants (Alexa, Siri)

 Sensors
o Light sensors
o Accelerometer
o Gyro sphere
o thermometer

7. Describe options for outputting images and audio from computing devices.
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 Display screen
o Liquid crystal display – light and energy efficient
 2+ sheets of liquid crystal solution and a florescent
panel to generate light waves while some crystals
block the other light waves
o Light emitting diode (LED) – energy efficient and color
acuter and thinner than LCD
o Organic light emitting diode OLED – uses organic
compounds to make like when not exposed to electricity
 Displays are made up of Pixels
 Aspect ratio – width to height proportions of a monitor
 Resolution – clearness of the image , the number of pixels 5120 X
2880 (mean the amount of pixels horizontally and vertically)
 Surround sound system – speakers that output sound in 360
degrees
8. Describe various types of printers and explain when you would use them.
 Ink jet printers – spraying small dots of ink
 Laser printer – laser beans and static electricity to deliver toner,
heat fuses the toner to the page – higher quality and faster
 DPI – higher Dpi higher clarity

o Text needs only 300

o General – 1200
o Photos - 4800
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9. Describe the functions of the motherboard and RAM.

 Motherboard – main circuit board, holds CPU, memory and etc
 RAM – random access memory – where computer programs and
data the computer is currently using is stored
 Volatile storage – temporary storage , RAM is this
 Read only memory – ROM, permanent, holds all instructions a
device needs
 Expansion cards/ adapter cards – circuit boards that give additional
functionality
o Sound card – provides connection for the speakers
o Video card – provides connection for the monitor
10. Explain the main functions of the CPU.
 Brians of the computer
 Processer speed is measured in Hertz HZ or Gigahertz (billions of
operations per second)
 Speed is also determined by number of cores/ processing paths (2 –
to 10 paths)
o Like virus protection – runs behind the scenes
o Takes multiple instructions
11. Describe the various means of storing data and information with computing
devices
 Local storage
o Hard drive – laptops primary device for permanent storage
– 30 TB
o SSD – like a flash drive but reaches data in 1/10 of the time
the flash does 30 + Tb
o Drive bay – where permanent storage devices hare located
on the computer
 Portable Storage
o Flash drive – uses solid state false memory to store
information in a internal memory chip – 4 TB
o Flash memory card – AKA SD card, removable memory
card used in cameras, video games and etc – 1 TB
 Cloud storage – files on the internet
12. Describe common types of ports used today.
 Port – where peripheral device is places
 Thunderbolt ports – can connect up to 6 devices
 Universal serial bus USB – commonly used
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 Connectivity port – give access to networks/ Ethernet port

 HDMI – HD video and uncompressed digital audio travels through
one cable
 Display port – like HDMI but used on low end devices
13. Describe how to manage power consumption on computing devices.
 Displays drain battery – draws a lot of power
 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drain battery
 Apps do too
 Power supply – brick with the cord, transformer voltage from the
wall to battery
 Warm boot – when you click restart, restart the system while its on
 Cold boot – oning your computer while its off
14. Define ergonomics and discuss the ideal physical setup for using computing
devices.
 Ergonomics – science that deals with the design and location of
machines and furniture
o Placement to avoid joint pain and physical uncomfortable