Making computer science tangible for children

Linda Liukas spent her early career surrounded by engineers in Silicon Valley, working at Codecademy and dreaming of a different kind of computer science education — one that felt tangible, joyful, and human. In 2014, she launched a Kickstarter for Hello Ruby, a children's storybook teaching the big ideas of computer science through characters and storytelling. She asked for $10,000. She got nearly $400,000 — and a community of 10,000 believers.Since then, Linda has been doing exactly that: making computer science accessible to children through picture books, drawing workshops, and — most recently — computational playgrounds. The first one, a six-meter-tall computer you can actually crawl through, opened in Helsinki two years ago. More are being built across Europe, each one locally designed, intensely participative, and built to last 20 years.In this episode, Linda and Svenia discuss:Why "learn to code was never about learning to code" — and what it was really aboutWhy, in the age of AI, teaching the foundations of computer science matters more than ever (not prompting, not tools — the underlying ideas)How she designs computational playgrounds that make technology learnable through the bodyThe Reggio Emilia philosophy — and why she turns to it whenever she feels lost in the noise around AILessons from the Finnish education system — its rise, its PISA scores, and the worrying trends (Pasi Sahlberg's work for those who want to go deeper)What three things the French education system is teaching her son that will serve him well in the age of AILinda also recommends a future guest: Annabel Blake, an Australian researcher who has done fascinating PhD work on young people and AI companions — neither pessimist nor optimist, but deeply nuanced: https://www.annabelblake.com/If you missed it, we also refer to our Episode 37 with philosopher Alex Montag on Socratic dialogue — well worth a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/socratic-dialogue-in-the-age-of-ai/id1847420474?i=1000767131871