Introduction

Begin by recapping the last two lessons. Ask the class:

• What does a computer look like?
• What did we find out last week?
• Can you give me an example of something that we didn’t think was a computer at first but we later learned that it is?

 

In the last lesson we found out that a computer can be many shapes and sizes and found in many different machines, it doesn’t always look the same. 

Introduce the objectives at this point.

Let’s have a look and think about some of the more common and familiar types of computers and see what the students know about them. 

 

Types of computers

Ask the students, what are the differences between a desktop and laptop computer?

 

Desktop

Many people use desktop computers at work, home, school, or the library. They can be small, medium, or large in style, and they usually sit on a desk. Once you add a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, you have what is typically known as a desktop computer.

Most desktop computers are easy to upgrade and expand or add new parts. Another benefit of desktop computers is their cost. If you compare a desktop and laptop with the same features, you will most likely find that the desktop is less expensive.

 

Laptop

The second type of computer you may be familiar with is a laptop computer, or a laptop. Laptops are battery- or AC-powered personal computers that are more portable than desktop computers, allowing you to use them almost anywhere.

Because a laptop is smaller than a desktop, it's more difficult to access its internal components. This means you may not be able to upgrade them as easily as a desktop.

 

Tablet

Tablets have been around for a long time, but the first iPad launched them to a mass market in 2010. Sales of all tablets grew rapidly and caught up to PC sales until 2015  where tablet sales dropped.

Ask the students to discuss with their partner or group:

• How are they different to PCs?
• Why do you think tablets are so popular? 
• Do you have a tablet in your home? How is it used?
• Why do you think tablet sales are slowing down?

 

Tablets can't necessarily do everything a laptop or a desktop can do, and aren’t usually as powerful, so some people still want a desktop or laptop to run more complex programs. More casual consumption activities are common on tablets in the home, such as playing games, checking email and social media, or streaming music and videos. Their versatility (with so many apps and built in camera), battery life and portability is also making them popular devices in education and business. 

The boundaries between laptops and tablets are also starting to blur with the release of more powerful tablets such as Apple’s iPad pro and Microsoft’s Surface Pro X, which give the option of an add-on keyboard, stylus and offer better multi-tasking, but they’re expensive!

The sudden and unexpected decline in sales has shocked many people in the industry, but it is being put down to a few things; 

• The lifetime of tablets is being extended - they are shared out amongst family members and software upgrades, especially for iOS devices, keep the tablets current. 
• There is a lack of innovation in hardware which stops consumers from upgrading, more people own one now and can’t afford to keep upgrading to a new model for the sake of small improvements in the technology.
• Phablets (smartphones with larger screens) are becoming more common and are eating into the tablet market as people don’t have the need for both devices.

 

Servers

Ask the students:

• What do you know already about servers? 
• What job do they do?
• How are they different to normal PCs?

 

A server is a computer that serves up information to other computers on a network. Your school and many businesses will have a file server that pupils and employees can use to store and share files. A server can look like a regular desktop computer, or it can be much larger. 

All the computers in a building can connect to the server, this is called a network, so information can be saved to and read from the server instead of each individual computer. This is what lets you log onto any computer in your school and still see all your saved work.

Servers also play an important role in making the Internet work: They are where web pages are stored. When you use your browser to click a link, a web server delivers the page you requested, often sending the data over thousands of miles through cables and through the air (WiFi) in seconds. 

Large web companies like Google have enormous buildings full of servers that house all our data and let us access it over the internet wherever we are in the world.

 

Inside one of Google’s data centres:

They have a lot of servers!

 

Their data centres are HUGE like aircraft hangers!

(images courtesy of: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/)

 

Hardware Vs Software

All computers have hardware and software, but what are they and what’s the difference?

Hardware is any part of your computer that has a physical structure, such as the keyboard, monitor or mouse. It also includes all of the computer's internal parts. 

Software is any set of instructions that tells the hardware what to do. It is what guides the hardware and tells it how to accomplish each task. Some examples of software include web browsers, games, word processors, video or sound editors and coding programs like Scratch. 

Everything you do on your computer relies on both hardware and software. For example, right now you may be viewing this plan in a web browser (software) and using your mouse or trackpad (hardware) to move from page to page. 

But let’s focus on hardware and what’s inside a normal PC or laptop. In lesson 1 we took a brief look inside a PC and noticed that it was made up of lots of different parts. Today we are going to find out a bit more about those parts and the jobs they do. 

 

 

Main task

There are lots of links below to the brilliant techterms.com, a brilliant reference guide for all thing tech. we'd highly recommend it if you want to find out even more. The resources in this activity come from the fantastic Hello Ruby, give it a look for more ideas for getting young children into computer science. 

 

 

 

 Capture your students working with lots of photos and videos of them explaining their computer and what all the components do! 

 

Give each student a copy of helloruby.com’s First Computer worksheet, (ideally in colour and printed onto thin card) we’re going to use this to build our own version of a laptop. 

They will also need a pair of scissors, a glue stick, a pencil and colours and, if you could only print the sheets onto paper, some card (stick the parts onto the card to give the model a bit more strength if needed).

 

 

Ask the students to start by cutting out the computer case and then keyboard, following the lines. Be careful and precise! 

 

Components

Next, cut out the components, does anyone know what any of these are?

 

 

Let’s find out what these important parts are, stick each one into your computer’s motherboard as we go (the large dark purple part of your computer case). The motherboard is your computer’s main circuit board. It’s made of silicon and is what links all the parts of your computer, letting them work together.

 

CPU = The microprocessor, (also called the Central Processing Unit), is the brain of the computer. It deals with inputs, thinks what to do with them using information stored in the computer’s memory, and then sends commands to the outputs of the computer.  It is very smart and fast at calculating things, most processors will deal with millions of instructions per second. But all that hard work makes them get hot (bad for computers!) so the CPU usually has its own fan and heatsink to help keep it cool. Other factors come into it as well, but a better, faster CPU will help your computer run faster and let it carry out more tasks at the same time. 

 

Hard Drive = The hard drive is what stores all your data. It houses the hard disk, where all your files and folders are physically located. Traditional hard drive are only slightly larger than your hand, yet can hold huge amounts of data. The data is stored on a stack of disks that are mounted inside a solid encasement. These disks spin extremely fast (typically at either 5400 or 7200 RPM) so that data can be accessed immediately from anywhere on the drive.

Newer computers, smartphones and tablets use Solid State Drives (SSD) where there are no spinning disks and moving parts. Instead they use flash memory. This makes them much faster in accessing data (which is why they boot up and shut down so fast). It also makes them quieter and cooler (as they don’t need a fan) and more reliable as they don’t have any moving parts that might break.

 

RAM = This stands for Random Access Memory. It’s the computer’s short term memory where things can be held for very quick access. It remembers all immediate things the computer does and runs between the CPU and the Hard Drive but it forgets everything once the computer is shut down. Adding more RAM to your computer can have a big impact on speeding it up as the more RAM you have, the more data can be loaded from the hard drive into the RAM (for very fast access). When your RAM gets full your computer will slow down and sometimes freeze and crash.

 

ROM = ROM stands for ‘Read Only Memory’. It is memory containing hardwired instructions that the computer uses when it boots up, before the system software (operating system) loads. In PCs, the instructions are read from a small program in the ROM, called the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). This data still remains even when the computer is shut down or unplugged as it has its own small battery built into the system.

If needed, this BBC Bitesize animation explains the difference between RAM and ROM nicely.

 

GPU = GPU Stands for "Graphics Processing Unit", like the CPU it is a single-chip processor. The GPU is used for computing graphics (screen images). This includes things such as lighting effects, object transformations, and 3D motion. Because these types of calculations are rather taxing on the CPU, the GPU can help the computer run more efficiently by doing this work for it, especially if it’s part of an external graphics card (not built into the motherboard) as these can have their own RAM as well.

In a laptop, all of these parts live under the keyboard. Ask the students to place that over the top  of the motherboard when all your components are in place and hold it in place with a single strip of sticky tape (or careful gluing) just along it’s top edge (so you can lift it like a hinge to still see what’s inside.)

 

 

Operating systems

Next cut out the operating systems, files and website. 

 

 

What is an operating system (OS)? Does anyone know any examples of an OS?

The operating system is software that communicates with the hardware and allows other programs to run. It consists of system software, or the fundamental files your computer needs to boot up and function. Every desktop computer, tablet, and smartphone includes an operating system that provides basic functionality for the device. Common desktop and laptop operating systems are:

 

Microsoft’s ‘Windows’

 

Apple’s ‘OS X’ or ‘macOS’

 

The free open source OS ‘Linux’

 

Other popular OSs for mobile and desktop devices are Google’s ‘Android’ and ‘Chrome OS’, Apple’s ‘iOS’ and ‘iPad OS’ and Microsoft’s ‘Windows Phone’.

Choose which operating system you’d like your computer to run and put it on the case somewhere.

 

Software and websites

Now you can design your own software or website. Maybe for a shop, a game, a music or video site or a movie app? You could also design an operating system and put the files on your desktop. (But beware of the virus file!)

 

 

Finally, if you want to, decorate your computer with the stickers to personalise your machine! 

 

Plenary

Recap what the key components in the computer are with the students, asking them to explain what each one is.

If you have any old laptops or PCs that you can carefully open up, encourage them to come and look inside and see if they can identify any of the parts discussed in the lesson.

If you don’t you can use this photo of the inside of a PC in the teacher presentation. 

 

 

As follow up work, you might also ask your students to mount their laptop onto another sheet of paper and write their own labels around the edge for a great 3D display. For added interactivity, get them to make a short video explaining all the parts of their laptop, put it online (Seesaw or Google Drive work great for this - set the view permissions to ‘anyone with the link’) and make a QR code link to the video so people can scan your work to see your video. This is also great for assessing the students’ understanding.