Computational Thinking for Information Technology

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP STUDENT SCENARIO:Reward Fitness program In this scenario, you have been hired as part of a consulting team to design and implement an application that that will reward college employees with cash for staying in good physical shape. Robert Baker will be your guide and virtual supervisor for the lesson.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP Objectives This course will enable you to develop logical thinking skills, including: • Asking probing questions to uncover details of a problem • Clearly defining a problem • Making design decisions based on rational criteria • Seeing “the big picture” • Deconstructing the problem into its component parts • Correlating the relationships between components and prior knowledge

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP Objectives (cont.) This course will enable you to develop logical thinking skills, including: • Identifying the steps required to solve a problem • Identifying the sequence of steps including possible decisions and alternatives • Identifying normal and exceptional behaviors of a solution • Measuring and evaluating solutions against the success criteria • Adjusting the design and implementation as needed

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP Expectations In your first months here, you will learn new technologies, research cutting-edge technologies, prepare documents, create and deliver presentations, and design and develop websites for clients. These assignments may take you out of your comfort zone and push you to think in new ways. However, we are certain that the excitement of solving these challenges will more than make up for the difficulties you might encounter.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP We expect each of you to make the client’s needs your priority by contributing to your team and producing quality, finished products on time. We have worked hard to develop a reputation for excellence, and are currently the industry leader in consulting services in information technology. We hope to be the industry leader in the region within the next five years. I hope you will be an integral part of helping us reach that goal.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • About our consulting • We are a premier information technology solution provider. We specialize in providing reliable solutions for businesses in today's fast-paced technology world. The company is dedicated to providing clients with the most powerful IT products, solutions and strategies that keep their businesses on the cutting edge of technology.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • We are committed to personal and professional integrity, honesty, and open communications with our clients. We seek long-term relationships with our clients. • The Community College and University IT (CCUIT) Division is responsible for providing consulting services for educational institutions systems. CCUIT is the largest division in the company and key to the company’s success.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Your role • Our excellent reputation is spreading. As a result, within the last year, we have seen a surge in the number of new clients seeking our services. In turn, this has allowed us to hire new employees such as you to help us to deliver these services. You have been assigned to the Community College and University IT Services Division. The division is primarily responsible for providing consulting services for educational institutions.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Since many of the clients you will be working for are new clients to the company, I would like to ask you to start building a good relationship with your client. Pay attention to customer service skills, communicate often, and most importantly provide your client with finished products that are up to our standard of excellence. • This is a fast-paced working environment. I hope you will enjoy and be up to the challenge. • Welcome aboard!

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP TASKS AND ASSIGNMENTS As you know, our consulting firm has been selected by the client, the College’s HR Department, to design and implement a rewards program that will reward college employees with cash reward for being is good physical shape. Please complete all the steps to the tasks, and refer back to your Working in Teams and Working with Tasks overviews if you run into any obstacles.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Overview • Your first task is to develop and deliver a list of items on which employees will be rewarded and the amount of reward for each item. You must do this by suggesting ideas as a consulting team. More specifically, discuss the items which you know can be used to determine how physically fit an employee is, what you don’t know, what you need to know, and how to fill the gaps and then organizing those ideas into a brainstorm document.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Deliverables • A brainstorm document listing the items that will be used to evaluate and reward the fitness level to the client for potential further research and exploration to address the client’s needs. All the ideas from the brainstorming session must be logically placed in general categories that can be easily understood by the client. • Definition of roles and tasks assigned to each team member and a work schedule

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Action Plan (cont.) • Next, move to all items you might not know or understand about physical fitness that may be relevant to this task. Again, consider all ideas as valid and reserve judgment. Definition of roles and tasks assigned to each team member and a work schedule.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Action Plan (cont.) • Then, begin to identify the gaps between what you know and what you don’t know. The client asks you to be thorough. Be sure to consider what else you might have missed. • Take a look at the results and notice the repetition of words or ideas. Begin to sort and group logically these ideas into a few descriptive but broad categories

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Debrief • Reflect on what we've learned from this task by discussing the following questions with your colleagues and manager(s): • Did you find and learn medical vocabulary related to physical fitness that you were not familiar with? • Was your research thorough and uncovered details?

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Debrief (cont.) • Also reflect on what we've learned from this task by discussing the following questions with your manager and team: • How successful was your team at following the work plan you created for this task? What have you learned about each other as teammates? How can you use each other’s strengths to work more effectively in the next tasks?

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Overview • You are working together great so far. Your completed research proposal has been reviewed by the client and they satisfied with the proposed list of categories and the reward associated with each category. • The next step is to design GUI for the application to be developed using established GUI design practices. The developed GUI will be presented to the client for feedback. The feedback then would be used refine and polish the final GUI.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP GUI Principles* The structure principle. Your design should organize the user interface purposefully, in meaningful and useful ways based on clear, consistent models that are apparent and recognizable to users, putting related things together and separating unrelated things, differentiating dissimilar things and making similar things resemble one another. The structure principle is concerned with your overall user interface architecture. *Constantine L., and Lockwood, L. Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Essential Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1999.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP GUI Principles (cont.) The simplicity principle. Your design should make simple, common tasks simple to do, communicating clearly and simply in the user’s own language, and providing good shortcuts that are meaningfully related to longer procedures. The visibility principle.Your design should keep all needed options and materials for a given task visible without distracting the user with extraneous or redundant information. Good designs don’t overwhelm users with too many alternatives or confuse them with unneeded information.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP GUI Principles (cont.) The feedback principle. Your design should keep users informed of actions or interpretations, changes of state or condition, and errors or exceptions that are relevant and of interest to the user through clear, concise, and unambiguous language familiar to users.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP GUI Principles (cont.) The tolerance principle. Your design should be flexible and tolerant, reducing the cost of mistakes and misuse by allowing undoing and redoing, while also preventing errors wherever possible by tolerating varied inputs and sequences and by interpreting all reasonable actions reasonable. The reuse principle. Your design should reuse internal and external components and behaviors, maintaining consistency with purpose rather than merely arbitrary consistency, thus reducing the need for users to rethink and remember.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Overview • The client is exceedingly happy with your revised GUI design and has approved the GUI. Excellent job! We are now ready for the next stage of our project, providing the functionality behind the design GUI. The code should follow clean coding practices. See Resources for a guide to clean coding practices. • It may also be beneficial to revisit Working with Tasks and Working in Teams before you start developing the application.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Deliverables • Create a document that details plan to test the application for correctness and accuracy. Define testing strategies for each area and sub-area to include all the functional and quality (non-functional) requirements. • Divide deliverable of Task 1.0 into testable areas and sub-areas. Be sure to also identify and include areas that are not tested.

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Debrief • Reflect on what we've learned from this task by discussing the following questions with your colleagues and manager(s): • What elements of other teams’ solutions did you particularly admire? Why? • Do you have a better understanding of software testing process?

HOME | OBJECTIVES | WELCOME | TASK 1 | TASK 2 | TASK 3 | TASK 4 | HELP • Debrief (cont.) • Do you feel like the team’s plan for uncovering details of the assigned category was efficient and well thought? Do you feel like you contributed too much, too little, just enough? Did you learn something new about the process of discovering threats in a computing environment?

Computational Thinking for Information Technology