What is a computer?
Be able to explain that a computer follows instructions and does not understand on its own.
Everyday explanation
A computer is a machine that follows instructions. Your tablet, a game console, a washing machine with buttons, and a robot vacuum cleaner are all computers.
The computer does not understand what it is doing. It does exactly what someone has told it to — step by step, very fast. If the instruction is wrong, the computer makes a mistake without noticing.
A human given the instruction «go to the door» goes around the table. A computer goes straight into the table if no one has said «go around the table».
Interactive
Try this: ask a colleague to be the «computer». The colleague may only do exactly what you say, nothing more.
Say: «Take the coffee cup.» Does the colleague take the whole tray? Or do they wait, because you did not say which hand? Write down all the instructions needed for the colleague to drink the coffee.
That is what programming is: saying precisely what should happen, in the right order.
Mastery means
- Give three examples of things that are computers
- Explain that the computer follows instructions and does not understand on its own
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Sources
- CS Unplugged (CC BY-SA 4.0) — CC BY-SA 4.0