The Beauty and Joy of Computing

The Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) is an introductory computer science curriculum developed at the University of California, Berkeley, intended for non-CS majors at the high school junior through undergraduate freshman level. It was one of the five initial pilot programs for the AP CS Principles course being developed by the College Board and the National Science Foundation. We offer it as CS 10 at Berkeley.

This web site is the repository for materials to help teachers who have adopted or are considering adopting the BJC curriculum.

Skip ahead to links to materials.

		SIGCSE 2012 Activities:
Thurs 1 Mar, 5:10–6pm	—	"AP CS Principles and the 'Beauty and Joy of Computing' Curriculum" BOF, rm. 302A
Fri 2 Mar, 12:10–1:35pm	—	Free SNAP! lunch, rm. 301AB
Fri 2 Mar, 3–4:30pm	—	FRABJOUS CS: Framing a Rigorous Approach to Beauty and Joy for Outreach to Underrepresented
		Students in Computing at Scale, CNS-CE21C, NSF showcase, Exhibit Hall A
Fri 2 Mar, 7–10pm	—	Workshop 20: "AP CS Principles and The Beauty and Joy of Computing Curriculum," rm. 302B
		(free for high school teachers)
Sat 3 Mar, 3–6pm	—	Workshop 28: "Snap! (Build Your Own Blocks)," rm. 301A

Computing has changed the world in profound ways. It has opened up wonderful new ways for people to connect, design, research, play, create, and express themselves. However, just using a computer is only a small part of the picture. The real transformative and empowering experience comes when one learns how to program the computer, to translate ideas into code. This course teaches students how to do exactly that, using SNAP! (based on Scratch), one of the friendliest programming languages ever invented. It's purely graphical, which means programming involves simply dragging blocks around, and building bigger blocks out of smaller blocks.

But this course is far more than just learning to program. We focus on some of the "Big Ideas" of computing, such as abstraction, design, recursion, concurrency, simulations, and the limits of computation. We show some beautiful applications of computing that have changed the world, talk about the history of computing, and where it will go in the future. Throughout the course, relevance is emphasized: relevance to the student and to society. As an example, the final project is completely of the students' choosing, on a topic most interesting to them. The overarching theme is to expose students to the beauty and joy of computing. We are especially excited about bringing computing (through this course) to traditionally under-represented groups in computing, i.e., women and ethnic minorities.

• The live "generic" (UCB references removed) Moodle curriculum units.
• The same generic Moodle course zipped (big download).
• The web page for SNAP!, the visual programming language used in the course.
• The web page for Blown to Bits, the course textbook.
• Rate and comment on every learning module in the BJC curriculum.
• Colleen Lewis's middle school Scratch curriculum as a Moodle backup (big download). Please email colleenlewis at Google's mail service if you plan to teach using these materials.
• STARS 2011 BYOB Workshop (Zip file download)

  Berkeley's CS 10, "The Beauty and Joy of Computing":
  The CS 10 course overview page with links to lecture notes, readings, etc.
  The CS 10 Moodle (lab-based) SNAP! programming curriculum (log in as guest).
  High-Definition CS 10 lecture videos from fall 2010 (embedded below)

• Videos of Dan going meta about CS Principles in the big scheme of things, and Brian trying to teach recursion and higher order functions but actually mostly fighting with really really bad teleconferencing software. (Try the video lectures above instead.)