brief note on computer science and computer skill

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMPUTER SCENCE AND COMPUTER SKILLS: COMPUTER SCIENCE: Computer science (abbreviated CS or CompSci) is the scientific and practical approach to computation and its applications. It is the systematic study of the feasibility, structure, expression, and mechanization of the methodical processes (or algorithms) that underlie the acquisition, representation, processing, storage, communication of, and access to information, whether such information is encoded in bits and bytes in a computer memory or transcribed engines and protein structures in a human cell. A computer scientist specializes in the theory of computation and the design of computational systems. SUBFIELDS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE: Its subfields can be divided into a variety of theoretical and practical disciplines. Some fields, such as computational complexity theory (which explores the fundamental properties of Computational and intractable problems), are highly abstract, while fields such as computer graphics emphasize real-world visual applications. Still other fields focus on the challenges in implementing computation. For example, programming language theory considers various approaches to the description of computation, whilst the study of computer programming itself investigates various aspects of the use of programming language and complex systems. Human-computer interaction considers the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to humans. CATEGORIES OF COMPUTER SCIENCE: The arguments for computer science education fall into two main categories: Learning essential tools for the internet age, and learning to understand the world by understanding media. The former category is not about learning specific programs; one should not to decide the value of a course based a programming language. The main skill is learning how to think about process. Computer Science at its core is largely about the formalization of process. This way of thinking has caused massive changes in areas like operations research, economics, and even mathematics: the discipline from which computer science emerged. I'm hoping to help it also shape more thinking about education, and other disciplines where it has untapped potential. The key insight is that learning computer science will teach you how to present thoughts, ideas or instructions using structure as a tool to avoid ambiguity. This sounds simple, but it's valuable, try and remember the last time you dealt with ambiguous instructions and how much time you wasted because of that lack of clarity. Computer science helps one learn to organize thoughts to avoid ambiguity; this also helps recognize ambiguities to clarify them. For many, that saved time and gain in communication skills alone is worth taking a university half course, but it remains to address the value of media. IMPORTANCE OF COMPUTER SCIENCE: Computer science today is about learning to understand the media we use every day. This idea for computer science has been around since at least the early 1960's but is most accesible through the well known and highly regarded McLuhan statement "The medium is the message." Today, in the era of web 2.0, you are quite likely to think of social media, texting, and e-mail as common media you use frequently. How well do you understand how these communications work? Are you ever intimidated by them? Understanding media is empowering; it enables one to find comfort in communications: Knowing how something works enables both better communication and better choice of how to communicate. For instance, knowing what makes up a picture, a sound file or a video, provides comfort with sharing them. Understanding how such files can be manipulated or what be embedded in them changes how one reacts, for the better. An important example is the case of digital editing of images in print media to present a certain unrealistic, and flawed notion of beauty. In recent examples, editing has become so extreme that even paid models are complaining about the presentation of their bodies. It's one thing to know that images are heavily edited, another to actually write code that edits an image, understand the underlying encoding and know what can be done to any image at all through this learning. In this case, the media is a digital encoding, even though it's natural to think of it as print because of how it appears. This topic can be difficult for many, and there is no requirement in any course I teach to work on specific images. However, editing any images at all, and understanding the basic encoding behind images leads to accepting that all images can have this level of editing, making one question where the image comes from and what the motives of that source are. Another important example is understanding social networks. Knowing what form to communicate an idea in, and which media to use comes from understanding those media and their effects on other people. Which methods of communicating on your social network are most tied to you? Which are associated with your friends accounts? What level of privacy and security do each of these posts provide? When should you take a discussion to a more private media? These questions are all connected to understanding social media, the structure and organization, and the current level of law on social media. Understanding before you post that you should be thinking about questions like "Will my employer be able to view this?" and "Is this a profile that my employer or potential employer will be able to legally request viewing?", is something that comes from this understanding. While some of this is far from classical computer science, entire courses in my department are dedicated to computers and the law. I am planning on introducing a single lecture approach to this topic as part of understanding media, given that I teach a course where most students expect to take exactly one computer science course and I think most individuals benefit greatly from this information. Understanding can also shape activism and change. In a lot of cases, legal rulings appear to misunderstand technology or apply inconsistent levels of protection. For example, protection on facebook profiles is far weaker than on e-mail accounts, or instant messanger accounts. This is despite the fact that facebook offers as a subset of the services an integrated tool that is basically a combination of these two communications media. My understanding of this ruling is that the main issue is that publications even to only facebook "friends" are public communications associated with your name and hence your employer so under some conditions they are allowed to see your profile. Unfortunately, seeing your profile also includes seeing your built in messenger/"e-mail" exchanges. My hope is that digital literacy will provide a tool to encourage the courts to limit access to profiles to the specific activities on those profiles that the legal requirement is based on. I also think that if the future activists learn about all these complications of social media and how their inherent nature affects privacy they'll recognize that social media can be used as a tool to form more private mailing lists, and understand the importance of doing the extra work to protect their membership. This is very far from computer science, but it's not a common offering for many programs that firmly believe in grassroots offering and it's something that can be provided in a CS course for the arts subject to the demand for it. Now I shall discuss about computer skills to show the differences between computer skills and computer science...: COMPUTER SKILLS: Computer skills can be defined as the knowledge of solving computer problems or the expertise of assembling a computer machine. It also implies the ability to employ the latest computer products that are available in the market. IMPORTANCE OF COMPUTER SKILLS: Two years ago, if you ask a person what do they think is the most important skill to be successful in the world, you will get a variety of answers. If you ask a person who is about my age the same question, persumably, eight out of ten will give the same answer as mine -computer skill is the most important skill a person should learn. Why I think computer skill is the most important skill? First, computer skills such as operating a word processing software or typing are convenient and efficient. For example, I am writing this essay by using a computer. If I do not have computer skill, I can not make a composition as quickly as possible; maybe I can only write on paper. Another vivid example is that many colleges is offering online classes for student to choose, which means the students can study in the comfort of their homes and acquire their knowledge by means of using computer at home. Secondly, computers is an important tool for teaching and communicating between teachers and students. Recently, school teachers have an increasingly demand on students to turning in their papers or school works, and the teachers can score on line. If the teacher has a assignment, they just send an e-mail to the students. In addtion, many young people use computers to communicate with each other. They use online chat rooms, ICQs and messengers. They even play online games through the internet. Therefore computer skills are important for students to communicate with their teachers and fellow students. Last but not least, computer skill help a person to find a good job after they graduate. As we open newspapers and search for a good job, we can find that computer skill is a required skill for nearly every job. Indeed, whether you work as a receptionest, salesperson, warehouse manager and office clerk, you have to operate a computer and therefore computer skills is absolutely neccessary for these jobs and most others.