In the two years, CSTA has launched a number of programs to help college and university faculty and staff in their K-12 outreach efforts. One of the most successful of these project was the CSTA/SIGCSE Roadshow Workshop and CSTA is delighted to announce that the videos from several of the workshop presentations are now available for viewing on the CSTA website.
The Roadshow Workshop (funded by NSF under the DUE program) was intended to bring together the community of post-secondary faculty, staff, and students who were organizing and delivering K-12 Roadshows or who were interested in starting Roadshow programs. Our goal was to begin building a community that could share information and resources, and where more experienced sites could mentor programs that were just starting their outreach effort.
The Roadshow Workshop was held at Google headquarters in Mountain View last May and as part of their generous support for the workshop, Google provided staff who videotaped all of the workshop activity. The presentations and panels were then edited and made into individual streaming videos. You can now view these videos on the CSTA website at:
http://csta.acm.org/Communications/sub/Videos.html
Here is a description of the videos you can view:
* 5from5 (Time: 56:10): This video features presenters from five exemplary K-12 CS outreach programs giving a brief synopsis of their outreach programs and presentations. The presenters include Carol Frieze (Carnegie Mellon), Bill Hogan (Cornell University), Katie Siek (University of Colorado Boulder), Sonya Harris (University of Illinois), Suzanne Menzel (Indiana University).
* 5 Minute Madness: Part One (Time: 50:10): In this video, three panelists answer three key questions that every Roadshow organizer must answer. The questions include: “Why should we do a roadshow?”, “How do you find teachers and students?”, and “What kind of outreach activities and materials do you need?”. The panel is facilitated by Katie Siek (University of Colorado Boulder). The panelists are Robb Cutler (Former CSTA President), Suzanne Menzel (Indiana University) and Chris Stephenson (CSTA Executive Director).
* 5 Minute Madness: Part Two (Time: 28:33): In this video, three panelists answer three key questions that every Roadshow organizer must answer. The questions include: “How do you find funding for start up and maintenance?”, “How do you manage roadshow programs for the long term?”, and “How do you build long term relationships?”. The panel is facilitated by Suzanne Menzel (Indiana University). The panelists are Michelle Hutton (The Girl’s Middle School and CSTA President), Tiffany Grady (UT-Austin) and Katie Siek (University of Colorado Boulder).
* What Research Tells Us (Time: 47:08): In this video, Lecia Barker (National Center for Women in Information Technology) discusses research on best practices for outreach to young women and minority students. Lecia looks at the research evidence underlying the choices you need to make when doing a roadshow presentation, specifically why you choose the messages and the activities that you choose.
* Google Tools (Time: 31:13): In this video, Gabriel Cohen (Product, Manager Google Apps Education Division) demonstrates a number of tools that Roadshow organizers (and in fact all educators) can use to make their work much easier. These tools include: Google spreadsheets, Tiny url, Google groups, Google Apps, Google sites, Google calendar, Google docs, and App engine.
We believe that these videos are a great resource for any site that is interested in improving its K-12 outreach and encourage you to check them out.
Chris Stephenson
Executive Director