Computer Science & AI · Foundation

Digital Literacy

Most people use a computer the way you might drive a car you could not open the bonnet of: it works until it does not, and then there is nothing to do but ask someone. This course takes the lid off. It covers where a file really is and why it goes missing, what happens between typing an address and a page appearing, how to run a command at a terminal and read what it says back, how to install software without inviting something in with it, and the handful of security habits that account for most of the difference between people who get compromised and people who do not. It assumes nothing, it is the same on Windows, macOS and Linux where that matters, and it says which of the advice you have heard is evidence-based and which is folklore that survived because it sounds careful. It teaches the desktop and laptop model of a computer, and says in its first lesson why that model is worth having even if most of your screen time is a phone.

What you'll learn

• Say where a file is, write its address as an absolute or a relative path, and diagnose a file that "disappeared" against the handful of causes that actually explain it
• Say what a file extension does and does not determine, and produce plain text when a program needs plain text
• Open a terminal on your own machine, installing one first if you are on Windows, and say where it is standing and what that changes about every command you type
• Read a command as a grammar rather than a spell, and say from an error message alone whether the fault is the location, the program name, or the program
• Combine commands with pipes and redirection to answer a question about your own files that you could not answer by clicking
• Describe what happens between typing a web address and seeing a page, and work out from a symptom which step failed
• Say what HTTPS, a virtual private network and a private browsing window each hide, from whom and where, and which of your own worries none of them touches
• Install software from a source you have reason to trust, naming every party in the chain and saying what an administrator password actually grants
• Judge a password against the current guidance, place an account on the ladder from nothing to a passkey, and check the recovery path that most advice forgets
• Recognise a con by its structure rather than by a list of current scams, and work through the first ten minutes after clicking something you should not have
• Keep your own data alive: say what makes a copy a backup, tell sync from backup, and restore a file you have actually practised restoring
• Read what a service keeps about you from its own export and activity record, and weigh convenience against exposure against your own threat model rather than a slogan