Abstract
This position paper considers the inclusion of binary number representation in school curricula. There can be resistance to this because it is seen as a mathematically advanced concept that isn’t explicitly visible in digital technologies, and that there may be better things to spend curriculum time on. We argue that the key concepts are valuable for digitally literate students to understand, they exercise aspects of Computational Thinking, and that it is very easily introduced to young students. Binary digits (abbreviated by Claude Shannon to “bits”) underpin all aspects of digital technology; importantly, they are the digits that make the technology digital, and therefore explain many of the benefits and limitations of digital devices. To reinforce this, we collect examples of where these digits are encountered in our digital society.
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Notes
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The video at https://vimeo.com/342521353 shows students learning the key concepts quickly, and a related approach and full lesson plan can be found here: https://www.csunplugged.org/en/topics/binary-numbers/how-binary-digits-work/.
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See page 40 of the Unplugged activity on information theory at https://classic.csunplugged.org/documents/activities/information-theory/unplugged-05-information_theory.pdf.
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Bell, T., Hickman, H. (2025). Why Teach About Binary Numbers?. In: Fernau, H., Schwank, I., Staub, J. (eds) Creative Mathematical Sciences Communication. CMSC 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15229. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73257-7_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73257-7_10
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