Making computer science tangible for children
From Education Futures by Svenia Busson & Laurent Jolie
May 28, 2026 · 45 min · Season 1 · Episode 46
About this episode
Linda Liukas discusses innovative approaches to teaching computer science to children through storytelling and interactive experiences.
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 about Why, 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…
People in this episode
Host: Svenia Busson
Guest: Linda Liukas
Topics covered
- computer science education
- children's learning
- storytelling
- AI and education
- Finnish education system
- computational playgrounds
Keywords
- computer science
- education
- children
- storytelling
- AI
- playgrounds
- Finnish education
- Reggio Emilia
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Codecademy, Hello Ruby, Reggio Emilia, Finnish education system
Places: Silicon Valley, Helsinki
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