Question: What is he best thing on your website

Jo Brodie answered on 3 Mar 2021:

Hi RoryS
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The best bit might just be a whole website for people to download ALL of our computing magazines and booklets, all completely free 🙂 We have some really fun booklets on magic tricks for young magicians who are interested in the links between magic and computer science and we have some mini booklets for younger children too https://cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/
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I really like it when people come up with a simple way to introduce and explain a complex topic. It’s nice when people get that “aha!” moment when they see how understanding the way one thing works can help them think differently about something else. There’s a good example on this page (http://www.cs4fn.org/humanerror/microwaveracing.php) which uses something funny and unexpected (‘microwave racing’) to talk about a more serious thing, which is about medical devices (like the ones we’ve been seeing a lot on the news during Covid) and how good design can make them easier and safer to use.
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There’s another example of taking an ordinary, everyday thing that everyone can quickly understand (people sharing photos of their pet cats on social media) and using that to help them understand more about the privacy settings they might need to activate on their phone. When people share photos they might also be sharing other information too (called ‘metadata’), such as map coordinates that say exactly where the photograph was taken. Sharing that is a bit like giving out your address to strangers, but it’s easy to fix.
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There are lots of people who are probably more interested in pictures of cats than they are in metadata and I liked that someone found a way to make a slightly dry topic a little more interesting, so I wrote about the “I know where your cat lives” project here http://www.cs4fn.org/security/privacy/iknowwhereyourcatlives.php
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Jo