This course examines how mobile computing is transforming our everyday lives and the society and environment in which we live. In this course the students will engage the mobile ecosystem by inventing apps and solving problems of personal, social, and environmental relevance. Students will learn computational thinking skills and create mobile apps using AppInventor, a free and open source visual blocks-based programming environment. Students will share their creative apps with peers and communities. They will also exercise inclusion, civic engagement, and peer learning in the context of innovating with free and open source software that empower individuals and communities.

Integrates three essential computing competencies: Problem solving, data analysis, and programming. Problems are chosen from data-driven real-world examples such as astronomy, cryptography, environmental simulation, image processing, and video games. Emphasis is on formulating problems, thinking creatively about how computations can solve problems, and expressing solutions clearly and accurately. Using Python, students learn design, implementation, testing, and analysis of algorithms and programs.

This course prepares students for understanding computational complexity; i.e., what makes a given task/problem hard and how hardness is measured. It accomplishes this through the study of algorithms, permutations, combinations, probability, graph theory, and trees.

Data structures and algorithms are fundamental to developing solutions for computational problems. In this course students design and implement data and functional abstractions; analyze and select appropriate data structures to solve computational problems; practice programming and software development techniques to implement computational solutions.