Teaching Information Technology Without the Technology: An Unplugged Approach to Introducing IT Concepts to First-Year Students

This chapter discusses activities designed to introduce fundamental concepts of an introductory information technology course to first-year students or students taking the course as an elective. The activities are shaped by the Computer Science Unplugged area of research and pedagogy (Bell, Vahrenhold, CS unplugged—how is it used, and does it work? Adventures between lower bounds and higher altitudes: essays dedicated to Juraj Hromkovič on the occasion of his 60th birthday, 497–521, 2018). Across the chapter, activity topics include social network analysis and data visualization, cryptography, algorithms, and the binary number system. Each activity is explained, then the activity is connected to the curriculum of the course, and finally there are additional notes for how other instructors might use the activities in their classes. The chapter concludes by calling for further development and testing of this type of activity as a way of recruiting more diverse students into the field.