Bedienen und Anwenden

Today we’re going to discuss the World Wide Web - not to be confused with the Internet, which is the underlying plumbing for the web as well as other networks. The World Wide Web is built on the foundation of simply linking pages to other pages with hyperlinks, but it is this massive interconnectedness that makes it so powerful. But before the web could become a thing, Tim Berners-Lee would need to invent the web browser at CERN, and search engines would need to be created to navigate these massive directories of information. By the mid 1990’s we will see the rise of Yahoo and Google and monolithic websites like Ebay and Amazon, forming the web we know today. But before we end our unit on the Internet we want to take a moment to discuss the implications of Net Neutrality, and its potential to shape the Internet's future.

Informatik, MINT, Medienbildung

Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II

Today, we're going to talk about how the Internet works. Specifically, how that stream of characters you punch into your browser's address bar, like "youtube.com", return this very website. Just to clarify we're talking in a broader sense about that massive network of networks connecting millions of computers together, not just the World Wide Web, which is a portion of the Internet, and our topic for next week. Today, we're going to focus on how data is passed back and forth - how a domain name is registered by the Domain Name System, and of course how the data requested or sent gets to the right person in little packets following standard Internet Protocol, or IP. We'll also discuss two different approaches to transferring this data: Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, when we need to be certain no information is lost, and User Datagram Protocol, or UDP, for those time sensitive applications - because nobody wants an email with missing text, but they also don't want to get lag-fragged in their favorite first person shooter.

Informatik, MINT, Medienbildung

Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II

Today we start a three episode arc on the rise of a global telecommunications network that changed the world forever. We’re going to begin with computer networks, and how they grew from small groups of connected computers on LAN networks to eventually larger worldwide networks like the ARPANET and even the Internet we know today. We'll also discuss how many technologies like Ethernet, MAC addresses, IP Addresses, packet switching, network switches, and TCP/IP were implemented to new problems as our computers became ever-increasingly connected.

Informatik, MINT, Medienbildung

Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II

Today we’re going to look at how our computers read and interpret computer files. We’ll talk about how some popular file formats like txt, wave, and bitmap are encoded and decoded giving us pretty pictures and lifelike recordings from just strings of 1’s and 0’s, and we’ll discuss how our computers are able to keep all this data organized and readily accessible to users. You’ll notice in this episode that we’re starting to talk more about computer users, not programmers, foreshadowing where the series will be going in a few episodes.

Informatik, MINT, Medienbildung

Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II

So we’ve talked about computer memory a couple times in this series, but what we haven’t talked about is storage. Data written to storage, like your hard drive, is a little different, because it will still be there even if the power goes out - this is known as non-volatile memory. Today we’re going to trace the history of these storage technologies from punch cards, delay line memory, core memory, magnetic tape, and magnetic drums, to floppy disks, hard disk drives, cds, and solid state drives. Initially, volatile memory, like RAM was much faster than these non-volatile storage memories, but that distinction is becoming less and less true today.

Informatik, MINT, Medienbildung

Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II

This video is going to trace the development of operating systems from the Multics and Atlas Supervisor to Unix and MS-DOS, and take at look at how these systems heavily influenced popular OSes like Linux, Windows, MacOS, and Android that we use today.

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Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II

Today, we’re going to talk about how HUGE programs with millions of lines of code like Microsoft Office are built. Programs like these are way too complicated for a single person, but instead require teams of programmers using the tools and best practices that form the discipline of Software Engineering. We'll talk about how large programs are typically broken up into into function units that are nested into objects known as Object Oriented Programming, as well as how programmers write and debug their code efficiently, document and share their code with others, and also how code repositories are used to allow programmers to make changes while mitigating risk.

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Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II

Today we’re going to take a step back from programming and discuss the person who formulated many of the theoretical concepts that underlie modern computation - the father of computer science himself: Alan Turing. Now normally we try to avoid “Great Man" history in Crash Course because truthfully all milestones in humanity are much more complex than just an individual or through a single lens - but for Turing we are going to make an exception. From his theoretical Turing Machine and work on the Bombe to break Nazi Enigma codes during World War II, to his contributions in the field of Artificial Intelligence (before it was even called that), Alan Turing helped inspire the first generation of computer scientists - despite a life tragically cut short.

Informatik, MINT, Medienbildung

Sekundarstufe I, Sekundarstufe II