What is Computer Science?
Computer science is a very large subject with lots of applications. Computer scientists design new software, solve computing problems and develop different ways to use technology.
But, whatever they are doing, all computer scientists rely on 'computational thinking'.
Computational thinking involves looking at a problem and working out a way a computer might be able to help you solve it.
To do this, you need to understand how a computer processes information.
A programmer, coder or software engineer is someone who designs and makes computer programs.
They might use one type of computer language or many. They use computational thinking all the time
and are often logical thinkers and problem-solvers; They look at problems and try to come up with different ways of solving them.
Who teaches DITCS (Computer Science) at Tawa College?
Tawa College has a range of staff who teach digital technology to all year groups, and in year 11 and above, this group is split into two groups to help students focus on a certain career path (DDIT, DITCS).
Head of Department is Mr Foulds, with Mr Hall and Mrs Ellix also teaching classes within the department.
What is taught in this course?
This course covered many widely used and helpful languages and skills to help you start your IT career:
Python
Widely used general-purpose, high-level programming language.
HTML5
This website was created using HTML5, a very useful language to be able to understand and recognise, as it is used every single day by almost everyone in NZ. It is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web.
CSS3
Style sheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in a markup language. Works together with HTML to add color, shapes, sizes and even animations to the sites produced with HTML5.
As well as languages and skills such as MYSQL, jQUERY, and PHP which are only present in the Year 12 and 13 courses, and are the most advanced courses available at Tawa College. They set up students for university and help them create very professional websites and programs.
What do I gain from this course?
- Year 11 students have 18 achievement standard credits available to them from the DITCS101 course.
- Year 12 students have 20 achievement standard credits available to them from the DITCS201 course.
- Year 13 students have 20 achievement standard credits available to them from the DITCS301 course.
You also gain efficency in the programs used in the course, such as Adobe Photoshop as well as other Adobe products, and will become faster at solving logical problems and navigating Windows.
This is a computer science student enjoying his DITCS lesson at Tawa College.