Over 1000 computer science educators gathered in Portland Oregon for the 2008 ACM SIGCSE conference. The 39th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education provided a wide selection of technical sessions and opportunities for teachers to network and to learn. The topics ranged from innovative strategies for increasing classroom diversity to hands-on techniques with applications and curriculum.
I love the excitement of SIGCSE, especially the opportunities to catch up with friends and the discovery of new and innovative teaching strategies. I managed to catch up with some of the presenters and participants who I thought you wouldd value hearing from.
Please listen in on the following CSTA Snipits podcasts.
A GridWorld Quickstart with Ann Shen
Medium: MP3
Listening Time: 9 min.
Interview Location: ACM SIGCSE 2008 Portland, Oregon
Interview Date: March 2008
Ann Shen, The Bishop Strachan School:
Case studies expose students to large programs, enabling them to understand the importance of design and good programming style while encouraging teamwork and active learning. The AP GridWorld case study provides a graphical environment in which students can experiment with different types of objects and observe how programming changes will affect the behavior of those objects. It is significant that the test results show a smaller score difference between males and females on the case study questions than non-case study questions. In our visit, Ann describes this learning tool, compares and contrasts it to the previous AP case study, and gives teachers suggestions for using it in their computer science classroom.
CyberCivics with Jeanna Matthews and James Owens
Medium: MP3
Listening Time: 8.5 min.
Interview Location: ACM SIGCSE 2008 Portland, Oregon
Interview Date: March 2008
Jeanna Matthews and James Owens, Clarkson University
CyberCivics was developed as a novel computer science outreach program, designed to introduce diverse groups of talented high school students to hands-on activities that reflect the myriad ways in which computing technologies directly impact their everyday lives. The cyberCivics program integrates hands-on computing experiences with the study of contemporary social and political issues. One such curriculum, focused on electronic voting and was used with a high school AP Government course. Jeanna Matthews and James Owens describe the philosophy behind this approach and give suggestions of how to implement in the classroom. They are pleased with how it reaches a larger, more diverse and more academically prepared group of students. The materials are available at:
www.clarkson.edu/projects/cybercivics.
Listen to these and many more Snipits podcasts at:
http://csta.acm.org/Resources/sub/Podcasts.html
Pat Phillips
Editor, CSTA Voice