Hands-On Computing:Looking Under the Hood of Your Everyday Computing

Project Challenge, Spring 2012

Project Challenge is a program in the winter months that brings area high school students to campus on Saturday mornings for 5 weeks to study a course of their choice. For the seventh year, a course is being offered in the Clarkson University Internet Teaching Laboratory (ITL) called "Hands-On Computing: Looking Under the Hood of Your Everyday Computing". This year's course will be taught by Clarkson compuer science professor Jeanna Matthews with some help from Ph.D. student Eli Dow.

Official Course Description

• Class Topics
  
  
  • Day 1 - Computer Programming
  • Day 2 - More Programming, Computer Networking
  • Day 3 - Tour Clarkson Data Center, PC Hardware, Using Live CDs, Explore the BIOS, Computer Security, Anatomy of a URL
  • Day 4 - Build Your Own Web Page (Basic HTML, Backgrounds, Images, Links, Special Effects), Stylesheets, Burning LiveCDs, VirtualBox
  • Day 5 - Databases, Computer Careers
  
  
• Day 1 - Computer Programming, Source Code, Programming Languages, Open Source Software
  
  Wikipedia: Source Code
  Wikipedia: Hello World Program
  Linux Kernel Source
  Mozilla Source
  Wikipedia: GNU General Public License
  OpenOffice
  

• Day 2 - Network Trace Analysis, Network Protocols, Network Paths
  The students will learn about network trace analysis and simple network protocols. We will connect to a webserver via telnet and learn a little about the HTTP protocol and explore the interface of a wireless access point.

  Ethereal/Wireshark

  IP addresses and DNS, HTTP vs. HTTPS, RFCs
  Useful tools: Wireshark,ping, traceroute, netstat, nslookup
  

• Day 3 - Security, Wireless
  Computer Viruses
  Auditing your computer, establishing a "baseline"/looking for suspicious differences
  Useful tools: netstat -an
  
  
• Day 4 - Build Your Own Web Page, Simple HTML, Burn LiveCDs/LiceDVDs
  Some useful HTML links :
  Getting Started with HTML (Dave Raggett)
  Advanced HTML Features (Dave Raggett)
  HTML tutorial at W3Schools (Good reference)
  
  We may show how to create HTML forms and how to edit pictures using the GIMP.
  LiveCDs: Ubuntu (current), Fedora

• Day 5 - Databases and SQL, Computing Careers
  The students will learn about organizing data and designing, implementing, and querying databases.
  
  SQLzoo.net
  Database Privacy
  

  Occupational Outlook Handbook
  Fastest growing occupations A Bachelors Degree in Computer Science would prepare you for 5 of the top 30!
  Money Magazine's Best Jobs in America 2010