Using gaming devices as a vehicle for teaching computer science

Gaming equipment has become rather mature technology-wise. According hardware devices and software contain a lot of features addressing advanced computer science topics usually being part of academic learning units. In this paper we survey the usage of such devices in these units taking Microsoft´s Kinect as an example. Furthermore, we report on experiences made when featuring the Kinect in learning units of different type at our university. Relationships between the technology of such gaming equipment on one hand and the computer science curricula on the other are drawn and recommendations concerning the definition and execution of respective learning units are given.