Join this free online course and have some fun while learning about media computation – a new way to learn general purpose programming by playing with the ingredients of your favorite pictures, music, movies, and books.
Ever wanted to turn your own voice into a musical instrument? Ever wished for your sunset pics to be more awesome than your holidays? Ever wondered how to engage your students with “Big Data” and “higher-order functions”? Join us for the bright side of computer science!
Media Computation is a new way to learn general purpose programming by playing with the ingredients of our favorite pictures, music, movies and books.
And the good news is: Once we’ve had all the fun in the world, we already know everything we need to dive into the funky stuff of data science!
In this 4-week course you’ll learn how to analyze, transform, and generate multi-media content using a programming language rather than a word processor, photo editor, or music mixer. And then you just use it on data. The very same strategies, programming concepts, and notional models that are useful for hacking media are also useful for other programming tasks and can even be directly applied to data sets from other sources and contexts. This course aims to bridge the gap from introductory programming to more advanced computational competencies.
Here is what some participants are saying about the course:
I have to admit, that I probably spent far too much time tweaking some of the content presented in the course, But it was definitely worthwhile, or as somebody would have called it: Hard Fun! read the original post
I want to thank you for your entushiasm: the videos were very fun to watch especially when you were experimenting with sounds and creating visual effects while giving us examples from our daily lives... read the original post
I wish this course could go on forever. The lecture videos were informative, clear, active, thoughtful constructed and fun...read the original post
Week 1: Examine – Building Blocks of Media
Week 2: Enumerate – Numbers Are Everywhere
Week 3: Transform – Higher-Order Functions
Week 4: Transfer – It's All Just Data
Week 5: Final Exam
For this course you need a modern web browser like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari. If you have an unstable internet connection, you might want to download Snap! here: https://snap.berkeley.edu/offline
You can access all graded assignments and earn a Record of Achievement with openSAP, course reactivation option. Learn more or
This course was rated with 4.56 stars in average from 133 votes.
Find out more in the certificate guidelines.
Originally a biologist, Jadga discovered her interest in computer science while building a small connected greenhouse. Since then, she has become a Snap! enthusiast and is eager to share her excitement with everyone. Jadga works for SAP’s Snap! team and develops, among other things, learning material like this course.
Jens is the Snap! lead developer and makes interactive programming languages at SAP. Ever since he helped make Scratch Jens has fallen in love with live, blocks-based computing. So much, that he quit his career as a lawyer to become a researcher and designer of such software environments. Jens wants everyone to get a chance to discover the beauty and joy of computing. In his spare time, Jens plays the guitar and mandolin.