The Computer Science Field Guide is an online resource for teaching Computer Science to students. It is a New Zealand based project, providing  content in the form of text (both for students and guidance for teachers), images and interactives.  The project was formed because people often confuse computer science with programming. “Computer science is about tools and techniques for designing and building applications that are very fast, have great interfaces, are reliable, secure and helpful” (source). Whereas, programming “is the tool that computer scientists use to bring great ideas to life, but just knowing how to give programmed instructions to a computer isn’t enough to create software that delights and empowers people” (source).

The website is organised into chapters which are located on the left hand side. Each chapter begins with a section about the “big picture” (why the topic is useful for understanding and designing computer systems), and what can be achieved using the main ideas in the chapter. Then, each chapter consists of concepts, applications and activities. The guide is free for you to copy, share and even modify and is currently available online, and as a downloadable PDF file.

I highly recommend this resources for upper primary and secondary teachers. Why? Well, we’re educating the children of the future aren’t we?