Twenty free videos, from the abacus to AI on your own desk, each with a printable lesson that follows it step by step. Watch a part, pause, talk, try it, then press play again. Lesson 1 is free, so you can try it with your class or at home first.
No payment needed for Lesson 1
Lesson 1: Beads, Pebbles and Dust (the abacus). A 10-page printable PDF: a one-page guide for the grown-up with the exact times to pause the video, key words, four pupil pages (one for each part of the video), a worksheet, the story in four pictures, an 8-question quiz, and all the answers with the sources for every fact. About 45 minutes. You need pencils and about 20 dried beans or counters.
All 20 printable lessons in one download: $129. About a term of lessons at one a week. Bought one by one, lessons 2 to 20 cost $8 each ($152 in total).
Videos free on YouTube · lessons 2-20 $8 each
Bronze gears from a Greek shipwreck, and the first machines that could do sums.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA loom that reads punched cards, Babbage's engines, and Ada Lovelace's notes.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA census that took years to add up, and the machine that read holes in cards with electricity.
$8 · Lesson · WatchAn imaginary machine from 1936, the Enigma puzzle, and the machines built to help solve it.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA computer the size of a room, the women who programmed it, and which computer was first.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA slab of germanium, a prize for three, and a prediction that parts on a chip would keep doubling.
$8 · Lesson · WatchComputers rented by the month, FORTRAN and COBOL, and IBM's System/360 gamble.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA computer for one lab, a space battle game, and a system rewritten in C.
$8 · Lesson · WatchAn order for calculator chips, four engineers, and the Intel 4004.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA kit computer, a club of hobbyists, the 1977 machines and the first spreadsheet program.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA PC built from off-the-shelf parts, an open design, and the compatible machines.
$8 · Lesson · WatchThe mouse, a famous 1968 demonstration, and the road to the Macintosh and Windows.
$8 · Lesson · WatchMessages cut into packets, networks joined into an internet, and the Web from CERN.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA 24-pound portable, a low-power chip from Britain, and the phone that did it all.
$8 · Lesson · WatchGame graphics in the 1990s, many sums at once, and science on graphics chips.
$8 · Lesson · WatchSharing one big computer by turns, a rack of 80 PCs, and renting computing by the hour.
$8 · Lesson · WatchA 1958 machine that learned to sort cards, a library of labelled pictures, and what followed.
$8 · Lesson · WatchThe videos are voiced by an AI host; Kit runs Kitson Workshop and reviews every script. For educational purposes only. Names and trademarks belong to their owners; no endorsement is implied.