Search the California Content Standards

Standard:
Represent data in multiple ways.

Descriptive Statement:
Computers store data as sequences of 0s and 1s (bits). Software translates to and from this low-level representation to higher levels that are understandable by people. Furthermore, higher level data can be represented in multiple ways, such as the digital display of a color and its corresponding numeric RGB value, or a bar graph, a pie chart, and table representation of the same data in a spreadsheet. For example, students could use a color picker to explore the correspondence between the digital display or name of a color (high-level representations) and its RGB value or hex code (low-level representation). Alternatively, students could translate a word (high-level representation) into Morse code or its corresponding sequence of ASCII codes (low-level representation).

Standard:
Decompose problems into smaller subproblems through systematic analysis, using constructs such as procedures, modules, and/or classes.

Descriptive Statement:
Decomposition enables solutions to complex problems to be designed and implemented as more manageable subproblems. Students decompose a given problem into subproblems that can be solved using existing functionalities, or new functionalities that they design and implement. For example, students could design a program for supporting soccer coaches in analyzing their teams' statistics. They decompose the problem in terms of managing input, analysis, and output. They decompose the data organization by designing what data will be stored per player, per game, and per team. Team players may be stored as a collection. Data per team player may include: number of shots, misses, saves, assists, penalty kicks, blocks, and corner kicks. Students design methods for supporting various statistical analyses and display options. Students design output formats for individual players or coaches.

Standard:
Create computational artifacts using modular design.

Descriptive Statement:
Computational artifacts are created by combining and modifying existing computational artifacts and/or by developing new artifacts. To reduce complexity, large programs can be designed as systems of interacting modules, each with a specific role, coordinating for a common overall purpose. Students should create computational artifacts with interacting procedures, modules, and/or libraries. For example, students could incorporate a physics library into an animation of bouncing balls. Alternatively, students could integrate open-source JavaScript libraries to expand the functionality of a web application. Additionally, students could create their own game to teach Spanish vocabulary words using their own modular design (e.g., including methods to: control scoring, manage wordlists, manage access to different game levels, take input from the user, etc.).

Standard:
Compare levels of abstraction and interactions between application software, system software, and hardware.

Descriptive Statement:
At its most basic level, a computer is composed of physical hardware on which software runs. Multiple layers of software are built upon various layers of hardware. Layers manage interactions and complexity in the computing system. System software manages a computing device's resources so that software can interact with hardware. Application software communicates with the user and the system software to accomplish its purpose. Students compare and describe how application software, system software, and hardware interact. For example, students could compare how various levels of hardware and software interact when a picture is to be taken on a smartphone. Systems software provides low-level commands to operate the camera hardware, but the application software interacts with system software at a higher level by requesting a common image file format (e.g., .png) that the system software provides.

Standard:
Translate between different representations of data abstractions of real-world phenomena, such as characters, numbers, and images.

Descriptive Statement:
Computers represent complex real-world concepts such as characters, numbers, and images through various abstractions. Students translate between these different levels of data representations. For example, students could convert an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) tag for red font into RGB (Red Green Blue), HEX (Hexadecimal Color Code), HSL (Hue Saturation Lightness), RGBA( Red Green Blue Alpha), or HSLA (Hue Saturation Lightness and Alpha) representations. Alternatively, students could convert the standard representation of a character such as ! into ASCII or Unicode.

Standard:
Describe tradeoffs associated with how data elements are organized and stored.

Descriptive Statement:
People make choices about how data elements are organized and where data is stored. These choices affect cost, speed, reliability, accessibility, privacy, and integrity. Students describe implications for a given data organziation or storage choice in light of a specific problem. For example, students might consider the cost, speed, reliability, accessibility, privacy, and integrity tradeoffs between storing photo data on a mobile device versus in the cloud. Alternatively, students might compare the tradeoffs between file size and image quality of various image file formats and how choice of format may be infuenced by the device on which it is to be accessed (e.g., smartphone, computer).

Standard:
Analyze a large-scale computational problem and identify generalizable patterns or problem components that can be applied to a solution.

Descriptive Statement:
As students encounter complex, real-world problems that span multiple disciplines or social systems, they need to be able to decompose problems and apply already developed code as part of their solutions. Students decompose complex problems into manageable subproblems that could potentially be solved with programs or procedures that can be reused or already exist. For example, in analyzing an Internet radio app, students could identify that users need to create an account and enter a password. They could identify a common application programming interface (API) for checking and displaying password strength. Additionally, students could recognize that the songs would need to be sorted by the time last played in order to display the most recently played songs and identify a common API for sorting dates from most to least recent. Alternatively, in analyzing the problem of tracking medical treatment in a hospital, students could recognize that patient records need to be stored in a database and identify a database solution to support quick access and modification of patient records. Additionally, they could recognize that records in the database need to be stored securely and could identify an encryption API to support the desired level of privacy.

Standard:
Construct solutions to problems using student-created components, such as procedures, modules, and/or objects.

Descriptive Statement:
Programmers often address complex tasks through design and decomposition using procedures and/or modules. In object-oriented programming languages, classes can support this decomposition. Students create a computational artifact that solves a problem through use of procedures, modules, and/or objects. This problem should be of sufficient complexity to benefit from decomposition and/or use of objects. For example, students could write a flashcard program in which each card is able to show both the question and answer and record user history. Alternatively, students could create a simulation of an ecosystem in which sprites carry out behaviors, such as consuming resources.

Standard:
Demonstrate code reuse by creating programming solutions using libraries and APIs.

Descriptive Statement:
Code reuse is critical both for managing complexity in modern programs, but also in increasing programming efficiency and reliability by having programmers reuse code that has been highly vetted and tested. Software libraries allow developers to integrate common and often complex functionality without having to reimplement that functionality from scratch. Students identify, evaluate, and select appropriate application programming interfaces (APIs) from software libraries to use with a given language and operating system. They appropriately use resources such as technical documentation, online forums, and developer communities to learn about libraries and troubleshoot problems with APIs that they have chosen. For example, students could import charting and graphing modules to display data sets, adopt an online service that provides cloud storage and retrieval for a database used in a multiplayer game, or import location services into an app that identifies points of interest on a map. Libraries of APIs can be student-created or publicly available (e.g., common graphics libraries or map/navigation APIs).

Standard:
Categorize and describe the different functions of operating system software.

Descriptive Statement:
Operating systems (OS) software is the code that manages the computer’s basic functions. Students describe at a high level the different functions of different components of operating system software. Examples of functions could include memory management, data storage/retrieval, processes management, and access control. For example, students could use monitoring tools including within an OS to inspect the services and functions running on a system and create an artifact to describe the activity that they observed (e.g., when a browser is running with many tabs open, memory usage is increased). They could also inspect and describe changes in the activity monitor that occur as different applications are executing (e.g., processor utilization increases when a new application is launched).