Learning the way to the cloud: Big Data Park

Big data and cloud systems are two crucial components of modern computing, but they are also a challenge to learn, as they change the basic assumptions of computing, and as such the mental habits that are proper of classical computing teaching. In other words, beyond a technical revolution, we first and foremost are in the presence of a mental revolution. For this reason, we think it is essential to help students to change their mental habits as early as possible and become familiar with at least the basic notions of distributed storage and cloud computing. In this paper, we introduce the Big Data Park system, which has been developed with an ambitious task in mind: gently introduce K-12 kids to the basics of big data and cloud computing, helping them to be part of this revolution. We report on the creation of the system, the challenges, and also the impact on higher K-18 education. The results, extensively tested in the field with a wide variety of kids and children, have been extremely successful, thanks also to advanced educational techniques like gamification. Moreover, the development and testing of the project have also provided valuable insights for the general problem of education of big data computing.