Search the California Content Standards

Standard:
Discuss issues of bias and accessibility in the design of existing technologies.

Descriptive Statement:
Computing technologies should support users of many backgrounds and abilities. In order to maximize accessiblity, these differences need to be addressed by examining diverse populations. With the teacher's guidance, students test and discuss the usability of various technology tools, such as apps, games, and devices. For example, students could discuss the impacts of facial recognition software that works better for lighter skin tones and recognize that the software was likely developed with a homogeneous testing group. Students could then discuss how accessibility could be improved by sampling a more diverse population. (CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy SL.6.1, SL.7.1, SL.8.1)

Standard:
Collaborate with many contributors when creating a computational artifact.

Descriptive Statement:
Users have diverse sets of experiences, needs, and wants. These need to be understood and integrated into the design of computational artifacts. Students use applications that enable crowdsourcing to gather services, ideas, or content from a large group of people. At this level, crowdsourcing can be done at the local level (e.g., classroom, school, or neighborhood) and/or global level (e.g., age-appropriate online communities). For example, a group of students could use electronic surveys to solicit input from their neighborhood regarding an important social or political issue. They could collaborate with a community artist to combine animations and create a digital community collage informing the public about various points of view regarding the topic. (VAPA Visual Art 8.5.2, 8.5.4)

Standard:
Compare tradeoffs associated with licenses for computational artifacts to balance the protection of the creators' rights and the ability for others to use and modify the artifacts.

Descriptive Statement:
Using and building on the works of others allows people to create meaningful works and fosters innovation. Copyright is an important law that helps protect the rights of creators so they receive credit and get paid for their work. Creative Commons is a kind of copyright that makes it easier for people to copy, share, and build on creative work, as long as they give credit for it. There are different kinds of Creative Commons licenses that allow people to do things such as change, remix, or make money from their work. As creators, students can pick and choose how they want their work to be used, and then create a Creative Commons license that they include in their work. For example, students could create interactive animations to educate others on bullying or protecting the environment. They then select an appropriate license to reflect how they want their program to be used by others (e.g., allow others to use their work and alter it, as long as they do not make a profit from it). Students use established methods to both protect their artifacts and attribute use of protected artifacts.

Standard:
Compare tradeoffs between allowing information to be public and keeping information private and secure.

Descriptive Statement:
While it is valuable to establish, maintain, and strengthen connections between people online, security attacks often start with intentionally or unintentionally providing personal information online. Students identify situations where the value of keeping information public outweighs privacy concerns, and vice versa. They also recognize practices such as phishing and social engineering and explain best practices to defend against them. For example, students could discuss the benefits of artists and designers displaying their work online to reach a broader audience. Students could also compare the tradeoffs of making a shared file accessible to anyone versus restricting it to specific accounts. (CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy SL.6.1, SL.7.1, SL.8.1) Alternatively, students could discuss the benefits and dangers of the increased accessibility of information available on the internet, and then compare this to the advantages and disadvantages of the introduction of the printing press in society. (HSS.7.8.4)

Standard:
Explain potential security threats and security measures to mitigate threats.

Descriptive Statement:
Cybersecurity is an important field of study and it is valuable for students to understand the need for protecting sensitive data. Students identify multiple methods for protecting data and articulate the value and appropriateness for each method. Students are not expected to implement or explain the implementation of such technologies. For example, students could explain the importance of keeping passwords hidden, setting secure router administrator passwords, erasing a storage device before it is reused, and using firewalls to restrict access to private networks. Alternatively, students could explain the importance of two-factor authentication and HTTPS connections to ensure secure data transmission.

Standard:
Design algorithms to solve computational problems using a combination of original and existing algorithms.

Descriptive Statement:
Knowledge of common algorithms improves how people develop software, secure data, and store information. Some algorithms may be easier to implement in a particular programming language, work faster, require less memory to store data, and be applicable in a wider variety of situations than other algorithms. Algorithms used to search and sort data are common in a variety of software applications. For example, students could design an algorithm to calculate and display various sports statistics and use common sorting or mathematical algorithms (e.g., average) in the design of the overall algorithm. Alternatively, students could design an algorithm to implement a game and use existing randomization algorithms to place pieces randomly in starting positions or to control the "roll" of a dice or selection of a "card" from a deck.

Standard:
Justify the selection of specific control structures by identifying tradeoffs associated with implementation, readability, and performance.

Descriptive Statement:
The selection of control structures in a given programming language impacts readability and performance. Readability refers to how clear the program is to other programmers and can be improved through documentation. Control structures at this level may include, for example, conditional statements, loops, event handlers, and recursion. Students justify control structure selection and tradeoffs in the process of creating their own computational artifacts. The discussion of performance is limited to a theoretical understanding of execution time and storage requirements; a quantitative analysis is not expected. For example, students could compare the readability and program performance of iterative and recursive implementations of procedures that calculate the Fibonacci sequence. Alternatively, students could compare the readability and performance tradeoffs of multiple if statements versus a nested if statement.

Standard:
Iteratively design and develop computational artifacts for practical intent, personal expression, or to address a societal issue by using events to initiate instructions.

Descriptive Statement:
In this context, relevant computational artifacts can include programs, mobile apps, or web apps. Events can be user-initiated, such as a button press, or system-initiated, such as a timer firing. For example, students might create a tool for drawing on a canvas by first implementing a button to set the color of the pen. Alternatively, students might create a game where many events control instructions executed (e.g., when a score climbs above a threshold, a congratulatory sound is played; when a user clicks on an object, the object is loaded into a basket; when a user clicks on an arrow key, the player object is moved around the screen).

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.).