A-2 Computer: what's inside?

A-2 What's Inside Your Computer?

In this lesson, students will explore what makes up the inside of a computer to better understand their inner workings. Students will develop a working knowledge of the components that are inside all computers.

Do Now (5 minutes)

TEACHER GUIDANCE:

• • The CPU is good at multitasking; it handles mouse clicks, typing on the keyboard, widgets, notifications, finding files on the hard drive, etc. It fetches billions of instructions every second.

  • There are programs for everything a CPU does; these programs were written by humans using a coding language, but then compiled into binary bits (0s and 1s).

  • Computers are made up of peripherals, basic input/output system (BIOS), CPU, programs, and memory.

Mini-Lesson (5-10 minutes)

Meet Team Hardware:

Computers combine hardware—or a collection of devices to store, change, and display data—with software, which provides instructions for the hardware to follow. Students will begin to understand how software and hardware interact to create what they experience when they use a computer.

We are going to meet our team of Secret Agents using this worksheet: Team Hardware. Each member of the team is an expert in its field. By splitting projects up into specialized tasks that are assigned to the corresponding expert agent, the team is able to work together to solve difficult problems and perform impressive tasks. Normally, the team stays inside their Secret Headquarters during operations. They have agreed to come out of HQ (aka the Computer Tower) for today to teach you more about the inner workings of a computer. They still must maintain their secret identities though, so they are all wearing expertly designed disguises.

(use this image of the inside of a desktop computer)

Now that you've met Secret Agent Team Hardware, you are a Hardware Expert.

Using your new expert skills and this worksheet, help the secret agent hardware team solve a few cases as a whole class.

What is Software?

Computer software is the part of a computer system that consists of computer instructions, in contrast to the actual hardware from which the computer system is built. It is like a computer program, but more generic. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be used on its own.

Remember those Team Hardware agents? Each of them is specialized in a field, but all of them must work together to make a functional computer: to store and display information. As with any team, the agents need instructions on how to work together and accomplish their part of the task. The software in a computer tells the Team Hardware agents how to store and display information by providing each agent with a set of instructions. Most of the computer programs you are familiar with all use the same Team Hardware agents, but give them different instructions. Can you think of some software programs that you use?

Your computer runs on an operating system, like Windows or Macintosh OS. Operating systems are a type of software that manage the basic operations of a computer, as well as determine how you can interact with the computer. They provide a framework for other software. If you've played a game, used a web browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, written an essay in Microsoft Word, or played music in iTunes, you've used software! The apps on a phone are also pieces of software: games, e-mail, to-do lists, calendars, even basic alarm systems and timers.

Software and hardware must work together to create a functional computer.

TEACHER GUIDANCE: Worksheet answers: Case 1 - RAM. So many programs means that there is no more space in RAM, causing her computer to run slowly. Case 2 - Hard Drive. Because they're being permanently stored, Terry has these on his hard drive. Now that it's almost full from storing so much, he can't download any more programs. Case 3 - Optical Drive. Blu-Rays and CDs both must go in the optical, or CD, drive. This is what reads from and writes to the Blu-Ray, DVD, or CD, so the optical drive is malfunctioning.

Close-Out (5 minutes)

• 1. Discuss the following questions:

     • Did your PB&J instructions work? Why or why not?

     • Did you leave out any details you should have included? What kinds of details did you leave out?

• • What kinds of instructions are easier for humans to carry out than computers? Why?

TEACHER GUIDANCE: Humans can understand vague or abstracted instructions much better than computers because they can use reasoning, logic, and prior experience to fill in this missing pieces of information. Computers cannot do this; they need very specific details and instructions to carry out a program.

Standards CSTA

• • CSTA 2-CS-02: Design projects that combine hardware and software components to collect and exchange data.

  • CSTA 2-CS-03: Systematically identify and fix problems with computing devices and their components.