Cameron Wilson announced CS Education Week in his blog post October 22, 2009. You’ve had a month to think about it, so what are you going to do to celebrate this week?
My school celebrates everything. In fact, we are just wrapping up Foreign Language Week. Teachers wore buttons announcing which languages they had studied, students made posters, each day celebrated a different language offered by including a tasty morsel of information about that language in the daily announcements, and of course, each foreign language day enjoyed a “cultural experience” (secret code for food) as part of their lesson. So how do Computer Science Teachers compete with this?
Computers and computing are ubiquitous. Can you separate these thinking machines from everyday life? No! So, embrace our deep embedding in our students’ lives, and have some fun exploring computing. Here’s my plan.
First, hold a poster competition and let the faculty choose the winning posters for a computer related prize. Post those posters throughout the school so everyone can enjoy them.
Second, find some interesting trivia about the evolution of our discipline and get that question of the day on the announcements.
Third, find out which faculty members have taken a computer course. Organize a scavenger hunt that includes faculty members as well as other sources (Google) to involve the students.
Fourth, hold a show and tell day during lunch. My Alice students are completing their first major project, a self-designed Halloween video. I plan to show them during lunch.
Fifth, celebrate Grace Hopper. Her birthday is December 9. Do something really special on that day (can you say Birthday Party) to celebrate her contributions as well as others in our field.
We claim that Computer Science is a creative discipline. Use your imagination to demonstrate that computer science is more than just writing java code.
John Harrison
CSTA At-Large Board Member