Binary Beads - Data Representation

Curriculum connections

Number - reinforces phase 2 learning about base 10 numbers by applying this knowledge to a base 2 number system. Although we don’t mention these phrases in our teaching of binary beads, these are the mathematical concepts that underpin binary digits. For students who need more time learning about Place Value, binary digits can support their understanding of place value from a different context. 

The Arts and Technology Learning Area

If you teach this through creating your own paper beads, this becomes a unit of jewellery making. 

This unit gives students another application for their understanding of complimentary colours, cool and warm colours, and the colour wheel.

Literacy

Send hidden messages in binary digits to each other. 

To read more about this: [https://www.csunplugged.org/en/topics/binary-numbers/whats-it-all-about/]

What’s it all about? 

The binary number system plays a central role in how information of all kinds is stored on computers. Understanding binary representation can lift a lot of the mystery from computers, because at a fundamental level they’re really just machines for flipping binary digits on and off. Computers are simple machines, and they need very exact instructions to make them do complex tasks.

Teaching binary numbers as an introduction to computational thinking introduces students to algorithms and decomposition, as they learn to break down the problems of calculating binary numbers and converting between binary and decimal numbers, into step by step processes that they can follow to solve these problems; it also introduces abstraction, as students learn that two different things can be used to represent any and all information. It shows them that a computer isn’t actually that complex, and we use simple concepts in a clever way to make computers do extraordinary things!

Vocabulary Explained

Binary Digits

Each zero or one is called a bit. Bit is an abbreviation for Binary Digit.

Bytes

8 bits grouped together are called a byte, and computers store data in bytes. A byte is a convenient number of bits as it can store things like simple characters, small numbers, and a useful range of colours, although usually information is stored using groups of bytes.

Decomposition

Decomposition is about breaking down problems into smaller, more manageable, parts, and then focusing on solving each of these smaller problems. We can break a complex problem down until the smaller parts are so simple they become easy to solve. The solutions to each of these smaller, and simpler, problems build up to a solution to the big problem we started with. Decomposition helps make large problems much less intimidating!

Decimal numbers

Decimal numbers is a way of representing whole numbers and parts of whole numbers using a number system based on the number ten. 

Each of these activities have been designed to reinforce what students have learnt in Task 1.1 and Task 1.2. They connect to local curriculum, literacy and numeracy. Allow 60 - 90 minutes for each task.