The objective of this course is to introduce students to computers and technology. Rather than rote learning of how to do things, the student will learn to understand how things work and will therefore be able to continue growing skills beyond the course. As a Quantitative Reasoning (QR) course, a key objective of this course is to teach the student how to analyze problems and attack them in a logical sequence of steps. This is a skill that will be worked on throughout the semester.
The primary technologies that will be taught are web page development and spreadsheets.
The software used in this class is either open source software or software available to all students. The open source software has the advantage that you will be able to continue using it after you finish school. The other software used is Microsoft Office. This software is available to all students based on your payment of student fees. Any student, whether they purchased their computer at UNC or not, can go to an ITS Response Center location and have any Microsoft product they have available installed on their computer at no cost. This includes Microsoft Excel, the application that we will be using. You can get Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows and Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac OS X. You are REQUIRED to use the identified software.
