What should we be teaching in an Introductory Computer Course?

[A S Google]

As president of PA4C (Community College Computer Consortium of Pennsylvania), I was wondering if you, as local businessmen/women would be willing to chime in on this question.

 

We are meeting on November 1 to discuss this topic.   We will be having speakers from the textbook publishing area, and wanted to see what the “real world folks” think should be included in the course.

 

Arta Szathmary

szathmar....@gmail.com

[David Moskowitz]

Arta,

What is the question? It does appear that it made into the message.

David

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[David Moskowitz]

Unless you're talking about the subject...  :-)

If that's the case, then I suspect most of what follows might not be exactly what you're expecting.  :-))

Nearly every CompSci course I know teaches algorithms, process, languages, etc. In other words, the course focus almost purely on technology,  While that's important, what students need to understand isn't just the HOW (the tech). They also need to understand the WHY -- as in EVERY project should have a business basis. Every real-world programming challenge should have a business-based purpose. 

Business exists (at least from Peter Drucker's perspective) to create and retain customers. IT has to participate in that purpose. What can IT do to make it easier to acquire customers, to keep customers?  This represents a radical change from the typical inside-out (tech-first) thinking that is part of the technical DNA to outside-in (customer-first) thinking. Note: I'm using the term customers a bit more broadly than Drucker because everyone outside of IT (as well as most inside IT) consume service provided by IT. So, every user is an IT customer (from this point of view).

So, what should be included in the class... ?

*  Introduce the concept of a business case as a justification for projects.

*  Include concepts from IT service management (ITSM) starting in CompSci 101 (or whatever number is the first course :-)) and expanding from there.
*  Put the technology into a business context instead of leaving in a tech context.

Tech topics (just a conversation starter, not intended to be a complete list or even necessary at level 1):

*  Langauges: Java, .NET, Python, PHP, perl, etc...

*  Technologies: Cloud, virtualization, distributed computing, big data, etc..

*  Algorithms

*  Patterns.

*  Problem solving: not just debugging, but root cause analysis, intro to complexity, business prioritization

*  Other skills: handling change, project tolerance (not just getting the answer, but getting it within defined parameters), financial management for IT (what does it cost to design, prepare, provision, run, maintain). 

There's more, but this is probably enough to get started.  :-))

[RBL]

Also, tell us more about the student demographics. Seniors? Teens? 20-somethings? Etc.

--
"We've tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question." -
Grace Hopper

Rich Levin
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Skype: RBLevin
http://www.rblevin.org