Hey man, hope I can be of assistance.

The best advice one can give you when presenting History is to make sure you cover your bases with the information you are presenting. Where you are getting your facts, your information, your sources, etc. The most important aspect of presenting history, especially for those that aren't particularly history majors, is establishing fact from fiction. Asking question such as: Did I get my source from a random website or an accredited article, paper, thesis, etc.? These are important questions to ask.

Bias is also a particularly slippery fiend when it comes to history. Shoot for the most down to earth basic telling of what you are trying to present. Resorting to information and anecdotal retellings that seem too opinion based you should stay away from.

As far as your specific area of research you are trying to present, the cliche answer is to put together a nice powerpoint, but there are some better ways I think you can present this information. Videos and actual hard evidence everyone loves to see. For example, if you can get your hands on some old computer parts and detail how the evolution of computer technology has come a long way, it would be a efficient way to allow your students to see it from a real perspective. All the while you could still get a chance to present some of the more important figures/events in your area of expertise.

Ultimately, the way you present it is up to you. I would go for the most thought-provoking, and engaging way of presenting the history to your students. As a recent graduate, nothing got me more interested in the history of something than a Professor/Educator that was EXCITED and PASSIONATE about the history he was trying to convey. Hope some of this helps! Good Luck to you!

In addition to the other comments, my personal suggestion and what has worked for me is to treat history as a story. Really try to illustrate it in such a way that you would like to read in any book of fiction. Don't exaggerate, don't misrepresent facts, but believe me: sometimes history is crazier than the imagination, even when it's on something like the history of computers. Find ways to keep it interesting throughout: give anecdotes, quotes, funny rumors or something (make clear they're rumors, don't misrepresent information, this is key!) and have fun with it!

Make it a story, and people will usually like it quite a bit. That's one thing that people have told me on the sub, anyways, and when I talk about history, that they enjoy. I treat history like a story, and while it helps that my specialty reads like a George RR Martin book, it doesn't mean it doesn't work for other areas (which I've also written about in the same fashion).

Good luck!

First off, I youre serious about giving (and particularly writing) an engaging presentation or lecture series, you should really try and read as much matieriel as you can. Through reading, youll absorb a lot of the background information for your topic, youll be well versed in the history of your subject, and youll have a lot of books to choose from if you need to assign or suggest reading (btw, you didnt specifiy at what level youre teaching this class, so Ill assume its college undergrads. So if some of this doesnt apply, just correct me and well go from there). But knowing the matieral will help you reach your audience better, after all its hard to be engaging when your stumbling over the materiel yourself!

But reading how other historians have framed the topic will show you how to frame it. You can say "Well, book A is pretty standard, and kind of boring. But book B approaches the topic from an interesting perspective, and I really like what it says". After you read 2, 5, 10, 100 books on the subject, youll see how people deal with the same topic differently. And you get to cherry pick every approach to make your own!

To build a good reading list, you can try just punching words into Google or Amazon (I cant help, sorry :\ ), but also go back to any Com Sci textbooks you have. Hopefully they have some kind of bibliography or further reading sections. Select some books which sound good, and get a hold of them. Even if those books are bust, you can mine the sources of those books for more books which might help you. (Wikipedia, and especially the references and bibliography section is also good for this, especially as a starting point).

However, you might think Im suggesting you read 20 different iterations of "History of Comp Sci, then and now". A good trick to keep your listeners/readers entertained is to tell interesting stories, anecdotes, or fun facts. Im sure as a teacher youve experienced this yourself, if somebody just stands up there and rattles off facts and reads off a powerpoint slide, nobody is engaged. But if you spice the facts up with personality, color, and flavor, youll keep people interested. Heres and example you might want to use: one early application of mechanical computers was in naval artillery and gun laying. In Defence of Naval Supremacy describes those systems and their development history. It will also make you smash your head in. But thats a really cool and interesting thing that you can talk about, to illustrate the connection between early computers, military engineering, and solving complex mathematical problems.

One final thing Ive been thinking about lately, is the idea that people really care the most about other people. Humans are social creatures by nature, and we relate most to the lives of other humans. By focusing in on the people, their lives, their struggles, their successes, and their failures, you can really bring your topic "to life" (forgive the phrase). Students learn best when they're engaged, I know I did. So if you give them something to relate to, a good story to tell, and are yourself eager and engaged with a topic, then theyll reflect that. If you just stand up at the front of the room and let'um have it, it wont be as fun, for both you and them.

To add to the good points already made; consider your target audience and their current level of understanding and knowledge. Things which may seem like simple general knowledge may be alien concepts to them. Especially with a topic like computing where generations just 10 years apart have grown up with totally different experiences.

For example, would they be familiar with terms like 'analogue', 'magnetic tape' or 'binary' ?

Would they be able to imagine what life was like before computers? The need for business to balance accounts without calculators? The need for government offices to store and efficiently find information when dealing with physical records? How cumbersome this could be and how revolutionary computing was in its early days?

It might be an idea to talk with a select group of students and gauge the existing knowledge base and where the gaps are.

P.S

I'm curious - are you going to teach about LEO my grandma was a Lyons tea Lady during WW2 and I find it quite incongruous to connect that image of her as a waitress in traditional tea-rooms with the history of modern computing!