Computer Science without a computer (Changelog Interviews #302)

Adam Stacoviak and Jerod Santo talk with Tim Bell, the founder and creator of CS Unplugged, a collection of free teaching material that teaches computer science through engaging games and puzzles. They talk to him about where this program came from him, the need for computer science in today’s K-12 education programs, how CS Unplugged fits in, and how you can get involved.

Join the discussion

Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!

Sponsors:

• Airbrake – Airbrake is an exception reporting service, currently providing error monitoring for 50,000 applications with support for 18 programming languages.
• DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean is simplicity at scale. Whether your business is running one virtual machine or ten thousand, DigitalOcean gets out of your way so your team can build, deploy, and scale faster and more efficiently. New accounts get $100 in credit to use in your first 60 days.
• GoCD – GoCD is an on-premise open source continuous delivery server created by ThoughtWorks that lets you automate and streamline your build-test-release cycle for reliable, continuous delivery of your product.
• Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes, and deploy your code with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.

Featuring:

• Tim Bell – Website, GitHub, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• CS Unplugged
• University of Canterbury Computer Science Education Research
• Tim Bell - Academic Staff - People - Computer Science and Software Engineering - University of Canterbury - New Zealand
• Tim Bell (computer scientist) - Wikipedia
• Modems Unplugged - Computer Science Unplugged
• Data Representation - Computer Science Field Guide
• uccser/cs-unplugged: CS Unplugged is a collection of free teaching material that teaches Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.
• uccser/cs-field-guide: An online interactive resource/textbook for high school students learning about computer science.
• Three ways to get started with computer science and computational thinking
• Topics - CS Unplugged
• Computer Science Education Research Group | University of Canterbury

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!