SPEAKER 1: Called algorithms as we'll soon
see that implement what is underneath there, the hood.
But these inputs--
DOUG LLOYD: So I'm about to sort of dive into our first major topic
here, which is binary numbers, which might be a little bit
surprising, if you think about it in your science class.
We really are starting it at the very, most fundamental concept here.
DAVID J. MALAN: It is, but I've wrestled with this opening to the class
too, because there's a lot of students these days that
are a little uncomfortable with mathematics
or just assume that it's going to be a very math heavy field.
And I've not wanted to send the message through arithmetic even,
at the start of the semester that that's exactly what your fears are
and confirming those.
But the reality is, I actually think this
is pretty empowering, to use these first few minutes of the class,
and empower students to actually understand
something they've probably heard about.
Ones and zeros and binary.
And really just open that--
take the hood off and look inside and understand, oh,
it's really just like my grade school based ten system.
DOUG LLOYD: Exactly, you bring them right back to something
that they're really familiar with.
Ones place, tens place, hundreds place and extrapolate
that to ones, twos, and fours and suddenly
five minutes into their first computer science class, possibly students
are capable of conversing in binary.
DAVID J. MALAN: Yeah, no absolutely.
And the fact that it is so relatively simple, just the arithmetic behind it,
I think is also pretty reassuring.
Like, oh OK, this makes sense, especially
if you bring it back to a topic with which they've long been familiar.
It really isn't as new or as scary as they've perhaps thought.
DOUG LLOYD: Yeah, exactly.