Data Representation

Computers represent information in many different ways. You can view, listen, create, and edit information. You can watch videos, view images, listen to sounds, analyse spreadsheets or databases. All of this doesn’t really exist except as information inside a computer’s memory and displayed on a screen. This is data representation.

It describes how data is represented and structured symbolically for storage and communication, by people and in digital systems. This core concept is much broader than talking about how just data is represented, it also talks about how humans represent information. It is a foundational key understanding that affects all others.

Computers store lots of different types of information like discrete and continuous. Discrete information refers to things like numbers and letters, while continuous information refers to things like sounds and images. This information is stored and transmitted in a series of zeroes and ones known as binary code.

At its core, data representation expresses or refers to something without using the thing itself.

To do this, everything is represented using just two values. These being; 0 and 1. The idea that EVERYTHING stored or transmitted in our digital world is represented using just two values might seem a little far fetched. But it is true! It’s kind of a bit like the Matrix!

Every file you save, every picture you make, every download, digital recording, web page you visit is just a whole lot of bits.

These bits are what make digital technology digital.

Why is it called Bits? The short word for binary digit is made by taking the first two letters and the last letter – a bit is just a digit that can have two values.

So why only have two values?
Digital devices almost always use just two values for the simple reason that computer disks and memory can be made cheaper and smaller if they only need to be able to distinguish between two values.

Since there are only two digits, the system is called binary. Maybe you have heard of binary coding, well this is where it fits in.

This key concept is found in all levels of digital technologies, and within both Computational Thinking and Designing & Developing learning areas. Because binary code can be quite overwhelming, teachers in Preschool to 2nd Grade might substitute the binary code for a made up code. Like an emoji code, where each emoji represents a letter.