TITLE: SIGCSE Day 1 -- Innovative Approaches for Introducing CS
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 09, 2011 11:31 PM
DESC: 
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<IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/conferences/sigcse2011.png"
     ALT="SIGCSE 2011 in Dallas, Texas"
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I'm in Dallas for a couple of days for SIGCSE 2011.  I owe my
presence to Jeff Forbes and Owen Astrachan, who organized a
pre-conference workshop on
<A HREF="http://harambeenet.org/sigcse11/">
   innovative approaches for introducing computer science</A>
and provided support for its participants, courtesy of their
NSF projects.

The Sheraton Dallas is a big place, and I managed to get lost
on the way to the workshop this morning.  As I entered the
room fifteen minutes late, Owen was just finishing up talking
about something called the Jinghui Rule.  I still don't know
what it is, but I assume it had something to do with us not
being able to use our laptops during much of the day.  This
saves you from reading a super-long breakdown of the day,
which is just as well.  The group will produce a report soon,
and I'm sure Jeff and Owen will do more complete job than I
might -- not least of which because we all produced summaries
of our discussion throughout the day, presented them to the
group as a whole, and submitted them to our leaders for their
use.

The topics we discussed were familiar ones, including problems,
interdisciplinary approaches, integrative approaches, motivating
students, and pedagogical issues.  Even still, the discussions
were often fresh, as most everyone in the room wrestles with
these topics in the trenches and is constantly trying new
things.

I did take a few notes the old-fashioned way about some things
that stood out to me:
<UL>
<LI> Owen captured the distinction between "interdisciplinary"
     and "integrative" well; here is my take.
     Interdisciplinary approaches pull ideas from other areas
     of study into our CS courses as a way to illustrate or
     motivate ideas.  Integrative approaches push CS techniques
     out into courses in other areas of study where they become
     a native part of how people in those disciplines work.  </LI>

<LI> Several times during the day people mentioned the need to
     "document best practices" of various sorts.  Joe Bergin
     was surely weeping gently somewhere.  We need more than
     disconnected best practices; we need a pattern language
     or two for designing certain kinds of courses and learning
     experiences.  </LI>

<LI> Several times during the day talk turned to what one
     participant termed <B>student-driven discovery learning</B>.
     Alan Kay's
     <A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-11.html#e2004-11-06T21_03_42.htm">
        dream of an Exploratorium</A>
     never strays far from my mind, especially when we talk
     about
     <A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-03.html#e2005-03-14T14_47_54.htm">
        problem-driven learning</A>.
     We seem to know what we need to do!  </LI>

<LI> A group of us discussed problems and big data in a "blue
     sky" session, but the talk was decidedly down-to-earth:
     the need to format, sanitize, and package data sets for
     use in the classroom.  </LI>

<LI> One of the biggest challenges we face is the <B>invisibility</B>
     of computing today.  Most everyone at the workshop today
     views computing's ubiquity as a great opportunity, and I
     often feel the same way.  But I fear the reality is that,
     for most everyone else, computing has disappeared into the
     background noise of life.  Convincing them that it is
     cool to understand how, say, Facebook works may be a tougher
     task than we realize.  </A>
</UL>

Finally,
<A HREF="https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~ge/">
   Ge Wang</A>
demoed some of the cool things you can do with an iPhone using
apps like those from
<A HREF="http://www.smule.com/">
   Smule</A>.
Wow.  That was cool.
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