From the Ted Talk by Linda Liukas: A delightful way to teach kids about computers
Unscramble the Blue Letters
And they are partly right about that. There's a lot of syntax and controls and data suurettrcs and aortmhglis and practices, protocols and paradigms in programming. And we as a community, we've made computers smaller and smaller. We've bilut layers and layers of abstraction on top of each other between the man and the machine to the point that we no longer have any idea how computers work or how to talk to them. And we do teach our kids how the hamun body wrkos, we tecah them how the combustion ennige functions and we even tell them that if you want to really be an astronaut you can become one. But when the kid comes to us and asks, "So, what is a bubble sort algorithm?" Or, "How does the computer know what happens when I press 'play,' how does it know which video to show?" Or, "Linda, is Internet a place?" We adults, we grow oddly silent. "It's mgiac," some of us say. "It's too complicated," the others say.
Open Cloze
And they are partly right about that. There's a lot of syntax and controls and data __________ and __________ and practices, protocols and paradigms in programming. And we as a community, we've made computers smaller and smaller. We've _____ layers and layers of abstraction on top of each other between the man and the machine to the point that we no longer have any idea how computers work or how to talk to them. And we do teach our kids how the _____ body _____, we _____ them how the combustion ______ functions and we even tell them that if you want to really be an astronaut you can become one. But when the kid comes to us and asks, "So, what is a bubble sort algorithm?" Or, "How does the computer know what happens when I press 'play,' how does it know which video to show?" Or, "Linda, is Internet a place?" We adults, we grow oddly silent. "It's _____," some of us say. "It's too complicated," the others say.
Solution
works
human
teach
structures
magic
algorithms
built
engine
Original Text
And they are partly right about that. There's a lot of syntax and controls and data structures and algorithms and practices, protocols and paradigms in programming. And we as a community, we've made computers smaller and smaller. We've built layers and layers of abstraction on top of each other between the man and the machine to the point that we no longer have any idea how computers work or how to talk to them. And we do teach our kids how the human body works, we teach them how the combustion engine functions and we even tell them that if you want to really be an astronaut you can become one. But when the kid comes to us and asks, "So, what is a bubble sort algorithm?" Or, "How does the computer know what happens when I press 'play,' how does it know which video to show?" Or, "Linda, is Internet a place?" We adults, we grow oddly silent. "It's magic," some of us say. "It's too complicated," the others say.