Engaging Games with the Computer Science Underlying Concepts

Computer Science Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around. This paper concerns the use of games and relatively simple materials to educate young students about computer science fundamentals. It is devoted to the visualization of abstract concepts of the main principles of the computer science through experiential teaching. The activities introduce students to underlying concepts from the distractions and technical details we usually see with computers. We prepare an introduction of how the data are going through the monitor, computer and converter to the Internet. We assume that we need to secure, efficiently organize, search and sort data. The main purpose of this study is to describe a set of learning activities that were found suitable for non-formal learning environments, result of the project granted by national project KomPrax (Competencies for Practice). The main goal was to motivate students actively create a self-knowledge and prepare the informal activities for teaching computer science. The realization of project showed us experiential teaching is an issue that could change the view on the not very popular parts of computer science. All used learning activities could be implemented within the environment of formal institutions such as secondary schools. The quality of suggested learning activities from the methodical point of view is discussed.