If you are looking for some inspiration and/or entertainment for you or your students, check out the Vi Hart’s Blog. Vi is a “recreational mathemusician” (her words, not mine) who creates interesting videos about mathematics and music. They are highly entertaining – perfect for for high school students, but also teach real mathematics and critical thinking. My favorite is the Binary Hand Dance:
http://vihart.com/blog/binary-hand-dance/
which is a fun and catchy way to demonstrate binary numbers. Just watch it, then tell me you weren’t practicing on your own when no one was looking ;-).
Dave Reed
CSTA Board of Directors
I’ve attended quite a few Computer Science conferences over the years including many years of SIGCSE and the past two years of the K-12 Workshop at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Typically, I sift through the big bag of stuff and create piles.
One pile is composed of anything that I can pass off as a generous gift to my own two children. These items include pens, mirrors, pens, travel nail clippers, pens, sticky notes, notebooks, pens, cell phone holders, pens, screen cleaners, lanyards, pens and of course pens.
Another pile is advertising from companies or schools recruiting and desperately trying to convince people to work for them or attend their programs. That stuff is historically the throw-away pile since I’m not the intended audience. Then I had a thought….why not save these pamphlets and prove to parents or guardians and students that there are companies and colleges begging for employees and students?!
Don’t take my word for it, here are examples after examples of major companies like Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Oracle, Yahoo and a ton of others vying for the chance to get your attention.
So, on my latest flight home from Portland to Chicago, I brought these pamphlets along with me to show to my students and their parents or guardians with the hope that these pieces of paper may help show that Computer Science isn’t defined by outsourced tech support centers, but by exciting and innovative companies and educational institutions working collaboratively on the challenges we face today and tomorrow.
Jeff Solin
CSTA Chicago Chapter
Northside College Preparatory High School
Chicago, Illinois [email protected]
What better way is there to kick off CSEdWeek than to hold an open house showcase of great student work and projects? This will answer for my community the age old question, “What is Computer Science?”
The open house is also a celebration of changes in our district. We built a new high school and moved in just in time for the start classes. In addition to opening a new building, we combined two existing high schools into one and closed five other schools. We restructure the building grade levels to K-5, 6-7, 8-9, and a 10-12 high school. Needless to say it has been a challenging start to the school year, but we know how resilient our students can be!
Our open house will confirm that CS education in Mifflin County is doing great things for students.
My programming and web design classes will have displays of their work including websites created using Microsoft Expression Studio and games made with Scratch, Alice, and XNA. The XNA projects were made possible by a donation of 20 Xbox controllers from Microsoft.
Our FIRST Technology Challenge (FTC) team will setup the field and run through some of the missions for the upcoming robotics competition. This is our second year for team competition and we are excited to show our progress to the community.
The success of FTC and my middle school girls’ summer camp encouraged me to start a Fisrt Lego League (FLL) team for students ages 9-14. The FLL team grew from six of my sons friends to over 25 with absolutely no advertising. So many students want to participate that we also have a Junior FLL team for students ages 6-9. Next year we will need to recruit more coaches. But how do you say “no” to a student who wants to learn about robotics, programming, and engineering?
The public will get a chance to talk to my students, see firsthand how much they have learned, and discover why my students enjoy learning in this great project-based learning environment. Maybe someone will volunteer to be a coach!
To see photos, videos, and weekly updates, check out our blog at www.pegfisher.wordpress.com.
The open house is open to the public and you are invited to attend.
6-7:30 Monday December 5
Mifflin County High School
501 Sixth Street, Lewistown, PA
Hope to see you there!
Mrs. Peggy Fisher
STEM Club Advisor
Computer Science Teacher [email protected]
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the CSTA/Anita Borg K-12 Equity Teacher Workshop at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference in Portland, Oregon. It was great to feel energized and inspired by the power of so many computing educators talking about critical equity issues in computer science education.
Along with, Elaine Bromeyer, an Exploring Computer Science teacher from South Gate High School in Los Angeles, I gave a presentation to highlight the contextual and pedagogical elements of teaching computer science. As part of this presentation, we showed a short video of Elaine’s classroom lesson that focused on students’ creation of directions for assembling a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The conversation Elaine and the audience participants had following this video highlighted the particular inquiry-based pedagogy and equity-based practices of Elaine’s classroom. Though I found the entire discussion illuminating, Stanford professor Eric Roberts’ final question has stayed with me as a central pedagogical technique that blends inquiry and equity.
Eric Roberts began with commenting on one of the students’ reflective remarks on the lesson that stated, “I learned that computers shouldn’t make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches”. Eric’s question was, “How can we take student comments like these to look at other things computers aren’t particularly good at?”
By pointing out this teachable moment, Eric highlighted how student-centered instruction can lead to sets of rich discussions about central themes of the utility and tradeoffs of computing in particular social contexts. I believe that this instructional technique of using student reflective comments to drive classroom discussions of related computing topics a great instructional tool for computer science classrooms. Having students write journal reflections on a regular basis is a great way to adopt this approach in your own classroom.
Joanna Goode
CSTA Equity Chair
At the recent CSTA board meeting, a recent paper on the status of computing in several countries (including the USA) was pointed out to me. The paper has Simon Peyton-Jones, a well-known computer scientist now at Microsoft in the United Kingdom, and a number of others (including the CSTA’s Chris Stephenson) as co-authors.
I have been following for some time now the commentary coming from the UK about the situation there. It is cold comfort to know that many of the problems we face here in the US are the same as those faced elsewhere in the world, but the corroboration that our analysis of the situation is the same as others’ analysis does at least suggest that if we are trying to correct the problems we perceive then we are in fact trying to to correct problems that do exist.
What I have seen from the UK sounds familiar. There is discontent from industry about the knowledge and skills that students have and the numbers of students who really know computer science. Students at schools perceive that there is no real content to what they believe to be computer science, bolstered by an institutional bias toward use of technology (which in the UK goes by the name of Information and Communication Technology or ICT). The problems we face in the US with computer science being part of career and technical education and not viewed as a core academic subject are replicated in the UK, with similar results.
Among the issues that seem to be common across several national borders are these:
We must ensure that computer science is treated as its own subject discipline, distinct from the mere use of computers.
We must emphasize that an education in computer science is not just the skills training that ensures substantial benefits in the job market, but a genuine education in how to analyze and solve problems and how to think clearly and critically on any topic of interest.
We must work to increase the number and quality of computer science teachers, and, in part through CSTA, work to make them more successful in a difficult educational situation with a rapidly changing discipline.
As I say, it is cold comfort to have the problems of marketing the discipline that we seem to have. Nonetheless, the fact that our problems are common problems should help us more quickly and clearly focus on remedies that can be effected.
Duncan Buell
CSTA Board of Directors
As the tenth of November approaches (111011), we are again preparing for Picture Me in Computing Day. Picture Me in Computing Day, also referred to as “picmecomp”, began last year in an effort to raise awareness as to how wonderful the computer science and IT professions are for women. We initiated a worldwide digital flash mob, having people tag all of their social interactions with #picmecomp, hoping that the tag would eventually reach teenage and pre-teen females and spark their curiosity.
The first year of the campaign, 2010, happened to coincide with the release of Computer Engineer Barbie ™. Mattel gave us their enthusiastic support and allowed Barbie to serve as our celebrity spokeswoman. The wonderful people at Mattel even arranged for tweets and Facebook posts from Barbie, encouraging people to participate. Hundreds of women around the world tagged and uploaded images of themselves with Computer Engineer Barbie, showing their dedication to women in STEM.
This year, we have decided that instead of focusing on just one vivacious “woman” who ventured into computer science, we would shift our attention to an entire group of women who have chosen to focus on technology. That’s why picmecomp will be broadcasting live this year from the Grace Hopper Celebration in Portland, Oregon! We will continue to ask both women and men to submit images of themselves with technology, but this year we will also be video blogging with women who have made their livelihoods in the industry. To find out more about this year’s activities, follow @picmecomp on Twitter and “like” us on Facebook.
We are inspired by Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper for many reasons, not the least of which was her unrelenting thirst for challenges. In 1944 at the age of 38, when most women would have been consumed with baking and ironing, Hopper was helping to pioneer the field of computer programming by tackling the Harvard Mark I . At the time, electronic computers were new and relatively unexplored, but that didn’t hold her back. She stood up to critics who believed that she was too old for Naval service and made a name for herself as an outstanding computer scientist.
Between the campaign for Picture Me in Computing Day, where we bring STEM to girls of all ages, and Grace Hopper, who showed us that courage is more important than age, we hope to show everyone that you are never too old or too young to consider a career in technology.
Kiki Prottsman
President/CEO
Thinkersmith [email protected]
Having just finished my first full year as a Computer Science (CS) major at the University of Regina, I was surprised to find that my summer job would take me back to high school. Billy Hamilton, another U of R student entering his second year, and I worked on the development of an online version of the Grade 11 Computer Science (CS20) course for the Regina Catholic School Division (RCSD).
My high school offered several computer-related courses so I was able to take CS courses in grades 11 and 12. However, few of my peers at the U of R have been as lucky as I have since relatively few schools offer CS20 and CS30 (the Grade 12 Computer Science course). The online version Billy and I worked on for the RCSD may help solve that problem for some students: online learning allows students to take part in courses, which would otherwise be unavailable, without being in a particular place at a particular time.
Billy and I were hired to write content for this course because, as first year students, we are closer to the target audience for the material. We had ambitious ideas for making this introductory course fun and interesting for students who would be looking into Computer Science for the first time. We thought about what drew us to Computer Science and decided to focus on tools that would allow students to create uncomplicated, graphics-based programs and simple video games. Our goal was to create content that is challenging, engaging, and would be used for years to come.
Our one restriction was that the course needed to follow the Government of Saskatchewan’s existing CS20 curriculum (circa 1999). Although the fundamental concepts of logic, programming and design have not changed much in this time, many of the computer proficiency learning objectives outlined in the curriculum were more appropriate for 11 year olds than Grade 11 students of the current decade. The course definitely needed the facelift that Billy and I were more than happy to provide.
We considered several software development environments for students to use, and chose Build Your Own Blocks (BYOB) from the University of California, Berkeley and Greenfoot from the University of Kent.
BYOB, based on Scratch from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, is a visual programming language. It provides a fun and easy to use interface that allows students to click, drag, drop and snap together blocks, representing pieces of code, in order to build dynamic programs. BYOB allows beginner programmers to get a feel for basic programming concepts such as control structures, and modularity without facing the intimidation of finicky syntax in text-based languages.
Once students are comfortable with the basics, they are able to graduate to Greenfoot. Unlike BYOB, Greenfoot allows students direct access to the code underlying their Greenfoot projects. Using Greenfoot’s API, students write code in the Java programming language to control the behaviour of their projects. The part of our course that uses Greenfoot builds and expands on the skills acquired with BYOB and applies them specifically to Java.
Both environments can be used to generate eye-catching graphical output and entertaining applications that students will enjoy creating. This course provides tools for students to create programs like our Rocket Demo and Pizza Patch games. You can see a demo of these programs at:
We are pleased with the content we have produced and are positive students will enjoy the introduction to CS through this course.
This online course is now open to registrations for students anywhere in Canada. International students are welcome to participate however credits for course completion cannot be issued at this time. For more information, please visit www.rcsd.ca/learningonline or contact Chantal Ounsworth at Regina Catholic Learning Online.
Tori Verlysdonk
Undergraduate, Computer Science
University of Regina
Chantal Ounsworth
Teacher, Regina Catholic Learning Online
Regina Catholic Schools
Phone: (306) 791-7239
Email: [email protected]
CS Ed Week is just around the corner, December 4 through 10, and now is the time to prepare for this week in celebration of Computer Science education and the impact of computing. I am serving on the CS Ed Week outreach committee and am excited to learn of the enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work that is going into making this a successful week.
The first thing you should do is go to the website www.csedweek.org and pledge your support. It’s easy to do, and will help to increase the growing number of pledges on the site. Encourage your students, fellow teachers, and administrators to do the same. The website is full of useful information, well organized according to interest groups: K12 students, K12 teachers, parents and community, colleges and universities, and companies and professionals.
In the works for the site is an event planning toolkit to help you with the logistics of planning an event that week. But it’s not too early to start to think about little things you can do, either within your classes, or within your school, to promote Computer Science education that week. A good place to start is to read the excellent article in the latest issue of the Voice that has ideas for how to participate, organized into length of time commitment.
Last year, my most successful event was a school alumni panel that presented how they use computer science and computational thinking skills in their current position. I put out a generic email to our alumni list and got an overwhelming response, so overwhelming that I could not accommodate all who responded. I even had several alumni on the west coast who were eager to talk to our students in Massachusetts. Everyone who contacted me was very excited about his/her career, how it related to computing, and each person was very enthusiastic about sharing his/her experiences with younger people. And the careers were varied. They included college professor, marketing professional, medical student, and software developer. It helped to make the case that all careers use computing skills and that learning computer science can be useful in so many occupations. I am hoping to make this an even bigger event this year, maybe like a science fair, where students can walk around and have conversations with alumni in there area of interest.
Any other great ideas for how to celebrate CS Ed Week? You can post them here, but post them on the CS Ed Week website too!
Karen Lang
CSTA 9-12 Representative
Last month I was able to attend a regional conference conducted by the National Girls Collaborative Project. The keynote speaker was Dr. Chris Sahley from Purdue University. She is a biology professor and Director of an NSF ADVANCE grant. The purpose of the ADVANCE program is to “increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers, thereby contributing to the development of a more diverse science and engineering workforce.” Thus, her talk focused on the analogy of the still shrinking pipeline to get women into the STEM disciplines with Computer Science being one of them which is heavily hit.
She showed some of the historical data about women in STEM careers and then also showed that the need to increase the pipeline has been a long fought battle, with very little headway being made. She then proposed that perhaps we need a new analogy. The pipeline model may represent the lack of females in the STEM disciplines, but we certainly have not found a way to open that pipeline and clear the path.
So what analogy would you propose? With the rerelease of The Lion King, the natural analogy that came to me was one of the “circle of life.” We raise up these girls who show promise, but when you least expect it, they get devoured by something bigger or unexpected. And the rest of the world goes on the same as it has been before, with little more than a moment’s pause to reflect on the loss of another female who could have been a computer scientist.
Perhaps a bit dramatic? Maybe.
So what analogy would you propose?
Is there an analogy that captures the phenomena better than the pipeline?
Only with full understanding of the problem, can we ever begin to imagine a solution.
Mindy Hart
At-Large Representative
CSEdWeek (December 4 through 10) is quickly approaching. This is an opportunity to spotlight your students and your program. Don’t delay in making some plans and pledging your commitment at www.csedweek.org.
Every effort makes an impact. Activities can big or small, in your school or in the community, involve just a few or hundreds. You will find ideas to fit the time you have in the November issue of the Voice available online now at:
http://csta.acm.org/Communications/sub/CSTAVoice.html
You can participate with a 15 minute task as quick and simple as creating a CSEdWeek e-mail signature. It’s easy! Visit www.csedweek.org and copy the image at the top of the page. Re-size it and add some accompanying text such as: “I support CSEdWeek.org. Ask me how you can support Computer Science education too.”
Do you have 30 minutes? Check out the CS magic tricks.
www.sc4fn.org/magic
You will have fun impressing your students. Or you could create a fun CS student activity. Assign students to learn one of the magic trick on the site and then demonstrate to their friends or family along with an explanation of how it relates to what they are learning in computer science class.
In an hour you could contact your local school or government to ask for their support in having December 4 through 10 declared CSEdWeek or put up a display in the school hallway. Three hours is enough time to guide students in planning a classroom open house for parents or potential students, or organize a field trip.
Have fun planning CSEdWeek events. It is your time to shine!
Pat Phillips
CSTA Voice Editor
