Aug 25, 2013

Teaching Computer Science

Computer Science is one of the important branches in engineering today.  With vast areas of application and growth of internet has made it a specialized branch in engineering and applications. As far as a computer science student is concerned, if the engineering graduation is taken seriously, it has vast scope to build one's career being Mobile computing, Wireless networks, Network and Cyber Security etc., being the hot topics of today. Whatever is the subject of study, the teacher's role is to create interest in the mind of students by explaining the latest applications used by the students in their daily life. In particular to computer science, the best examples are FaceBook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn type of applications where algorithms, user interfaces, web technologies, etc. are used extensively to improve the features for the user.

The core subjects like Programming, Algorithms, Data Structures, Databases, Networks, etc. can be easily taught using the current social networking applications as examples. But the important issue is that the teachers should also be updated with these technologies and they should also explore the internal working of the applications. Most of the applications are now open source and the world is going by analyzing the tons of data that is moves over internet each and every second. Devices and applications used by the students are the best ways of relating the theoretical concepts with the applications.  This kind of approach will definitely make the students interested in the subject.  This also helps the students to think and improve their creative talents.  The concepts explained and the corresponding applications related should be thought provoking in the student's mind so that mind is driven automatically to the subject.

Most of the students have a wrong notion about programming, data structures, especially algorithms, mathematics courses, networks, compiler design, and other technology courses offered in the final semester.  When they cannot perform in programming in the first year, they lose the interest in the upcoming years. So, it is necessary to make them interested in problem solving thus improve their creativity.
(to be continued)

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