Abstract
This work started as a protest against the view that popular education about computers has to be watered down versions of computer science. The author took it upon himself to investigate other possibilities. Starting from first principles the idea of Computer Awareness was developed and implemented for schools. The following account is a brief resume of the processes developed to achieve this. Computer Awareness is defined as "The possession of sufficient knowledge to enable inferences, general and social, to be made on the basis of what is seen or heard about computers". The three main challenges thrown at the author through the early period of his effort were: (i) You cannot define Computer Awareness in terms suitable for teaching practice. (ii) Even if you can define it so, you cannot develop suitable material to teach it, and (iii) Even if you develop the material, you cannot be sure that you have succeeded. The account of how the author attempted to meet these three challenges is given in the three parts of the thesis, the Definition, the Implementation, and the Evaluation of a course for Computer Awareness.