1. By the end of this session you should be able to... Understand what is meant by ‘thinking logically’ including: Identify the points in a solution where a decision has to be taken. Determine the logical conditions that affect the outcome of a decision. Determine how decisions affect flow through a program.

2. Good Practice Write the date at the top of a new page at the start of every lesson When you see the pen symbol, copy down what is on the board (you can put it into your own words). Your book will be checked regularly, it must be presentable. When you see the book symbol with a page number, you should turn to that page in your text book. Page: 00

3. Task Define the computer terms: – Branching – Repetition Give examples of each, you may draw diagrams if you wish.

4. Branching Branching is the cause and effect action of a decision. Usually this is represented as an IF, Then statement in programing. Example:

5. Repetition Repetition is the repeating of a section of code until the condition is met to stop the repetition. We usually see this represented as a Repeat or a While loop. Example: What will be the output for this code?

6. Decisions Read the following: “Every morning Mr Lewis gets out of bed, gets dressed and walks his dog. He then returns home to wash and shower. After getting dressed into appropriate work clothes Mr Lewis eats his breakfast, does his hair and saying goodbye to his child, wife and dog. He then leaves the house to catch the train. On the train Mr Lewis sits and read the paper before exiting the train to walk 15 minutes to his place of work. At work Mr Lewis makes a cup of tea and considers what he needs to do for the day.”

7. Task Within the previous monolog identify the possible decisions Mr Lewis had to take to get to his place of work. This is similar to abstraction we have covered before. A list will be enough at this stage. Try to arrange the list in a logical order from the moment Mr Lewis wakes up to the moment he gets to work. Please do this task on the computer. It is worth noting at this stage that we should understand the problem to be how can Mr Lewis get to work and the solution is presented in the text. We are simply representing the decisions that are present within a workable solution. Page: 30

8. Task Continued Highlight every main decision in a different colour. Highlight sub-decisions in a lighter shade of their main decision. For Example: – Walk the dog or don’t walk the dog Turn left out of the house or turn right Pick up dog poo or don’t pick up dog poo You are welcome to add in more sub-decisions as we are now understanding the needs of the task.

9. Task Continued Looking at your list of possible decisions identify possible conditions that will influence those decisions. For Example; – Pick up dog poo or don’t pick up dog poo – has Mr Lewis got dog poo bags in his pocket? When identifying conditions please underline them as exampled above.

10. Task Continued You now have a long list of decisions, sub-decisions and conditions. Imagine Mr Lewis is running late for work, what could be from his morning routine and what could be made more efficient? Try re-writing your list of decisions to represent the efficiency you have identified. It is important at this stage to identify dependency. For example; is it essential that Mr Lewis cleans his teeth to walk his dog?

11. Task Continued Using your original or updated list of decisions represent the solution in the form of a flow diagram. We will be looking at flow diagrams in more depth in the future but this is a good time to have a go at one. The symbols you need are within PowerPoint (which is handy)

12. Flow chart symbols

13. Project Tasks Going back to your project for the childcare service consider decisions, sub-decisions and conditions for the overall project. At this stage it is not as important to consider the programming side as it is to consider the logical steps your computer solution will take to enable staff, parents and managers to share data about the children at the day care centre. The minimum expected at this stage is a flowchart, like you have already practiced, but showing decisions. Please note this flowchart is similar to your previous data flow diagram but we are now expanded the model to represent a more detailed view of the problem. The only problem is the more we think about it the more we have to do and change!