Making Computer Science Fun
I don’t talk much about computer science on unraveled, but a recent lecture I heard by UCLIC director Harold Thimbleby got me thinking.
His lecture started off by describing science as generally boring. However, there are many ways to make it interesting. For example, to make chemistry interesting, you can create flashy chemical experiments. To make physics interesting, you can pull out the Van de Graaf generator and play with static electricity. But how can we make computer science fun? It’s not common to demonstrate computer science in the same way that we see more established sciences such as chemistry and physics demonstrated, but there are ways to do it. And it’s extremely important that we start doing it more often.
We’re surrounded by technology, but very few really understand it. Because computers are generally difficult to use, training often ends up accommodating poor design. This only leads to a misunderstanding of what’s going on and continued poor design.
So how do we create a better public understanding of computer science? Harold suggests that we stop trying to understand computers by using them. Instead we should unplug them, discuss the key principles involved and participate in hands-on activities to discover how they work.
A simple example that he included in his lecture was Count the Dots (PDF). In the activity, the participants learn the basics of binary numbers by using a series of cards with dots on them. It’s an easy demonstration that shows you don’t need a degree in computer science to understand how computers represent and store information.
This is just one example activity; there are many more available from the Computer Science Unplugged project that Harold referenced. I think it’s a project whose time has come. So let’s stop using computers for a moment and start understanding them. In turn, we’ll design a better future for everyone.
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Comments
Jim Blinn said at his keynote address to SIGGRAPH a few years ago, “One of the characteristics of a true science is that it doesn’t have ‘Science’ in its name.”
Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen on 21 Oct 03
Computers were made to be plugged in and hacked until one hack produces a better hack and so on. I think this is the essence of Computer Science
Jay Mule on 24 Oct 03
Computer science is in itself in my terms an Art, I think more than science it’s a creative field where you explore unimaginable things that normallly we would have visuallized or created.
Hence I strongly belive it’s not a science but an art form which is sophisticated enough for us to clutter it with science.
keyword on 20 Nov 03