The Search for Computer Science Concepts in Coding Animated Narratives: Tensions and Opportunities

"Computer Science (CS) Unplugged" is an educational method for introducing non-specialists to concepts of CS through hands-on activities that don't require the use of a computer. Often the deeper concepts of CS have been considered as being too difficult for elementary and middle school students, and many educators teaching "IT" are not even aware of the richness of the topic. CS Unplugged methods have been used successfully with students of a wide range of ages. In this paper, we analyze the structure of CS Unplugged activities to identify the elements that make them work well. Based on the analysis, we propose a design pattern which will be useful as a guideline for developing new activities, and to revise existing ones. We also describe our experience developing original teaching material, using the pattern as a benchmark for evaluation.

Integrating computer science (CS) into school curricula has become a worldwide preoccupation. Therefore, we present a CS and Robotics integration model and its validation through a large-scale pilot study in the administrative region of the Canton Vaud in Switzerland. Approximately 350 primary school teachers followed a mandatory CS continuing professional development program (CPD) of adapted format with a curriculum scaffolded by instruction modality. This included CS Unplugged activities that aim to teach CS concepts without the use of screens, and Robotics Unplugged activities that employed physical robots, without screens, to learn about robotics and CS concepts. Teachers evaluated positively the CPD and their representation of CS improved. Voluntary adoption rates reached 97% during the CPD and 80% the following year. These results combined with the underpinning literature support the generalisability of the model to other contexts.

The rapid rate of the development of computer technology raises the issue of how to reform Computer Science education in elementary and middle schools. In Korea the government has taken this issue seriously, and the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development has announced substantial revisions to its computing curricula, leading to a new curriculum in Informatics to be introduced for middle schools in 2010, and for high schools in 2011. There is a proposal that the elementary school curriculum will be linked to these, and with a stronger focus on not just learning how to operate computers and software, but understanding the methods and algorithms behind Computer Science. Research on identifying effective teaching methods for CS topics at the elementary level is critical at the moment, as the content of the developing curriculum will be influenced by information about which topics are able to be taught effectively at this level. We are particularly interested to establish how these topics can be covered effectively without having to reduce them to a comfortable re-working of the status quo driven by a lack of background on teaching these new topics. Hence it is important to have experience with teaching such topics so that they can be considered for widespread use in the curriculum. As in most countries, Korean elementary school teachers are generalists, and therefore the Informatics curriculum needs to be presented in a way that a generalist can engage with it, as well as engage their students. One approach that avoids the difficulties and distraction of computers in the elementary school classroom is the use of offline activities: activities that work with Computer Science concepts, but are not done at the computer. These aim to educate students about abstract and challenging concepts behind algorithms, but without using a computer. It is our belief that computer science fundamentals can be taught without the help of computers; many key concepts predate the modern computer, and many demonstrations are available for a wide range of concepts. Currently the existing work on offline activities is not directly aimed at teaching CS to elementary-age children. Much of the published work is aimed primarily at tertiary level students, and is generally intended for motivated students in a university classroom. Most of the kinesthetic material developed for elementary school material is aimed at enthusing students about CS; they explicitly do not presume to teach ideas , but simply inform students about the kind of thinking and problem solving that is required for CS, and therefore make students better informed about choosing a career in the field. In particular, assessment is an important component of teaching, and current resources are not strong in this area. With the opportunity for CS topics to be taught to students, we have experimented with using kinesthetic approaches in the classroom. In addition to needing to provide assessment, we have identified that a particular issue is that elementary level teachers are usually non-specialists, and we report on work to enable such teachers to adopt CS teaching material effectively. An important component of this is providing background information about how the topic is used in practice. The poster summarises our experiences and feedback from teachers in making this material accessible for elementary school students.

As one component of a college-wide redesign of its introductory engineering courses, a project-based introduction to computer science is being developed using open-source software running under the GNU/Linux operating system. The course components include hardware assembly, operating system and software installation, basic system administration, and a working introduction to the engineering design process through the completion of several collaborative projects involving content-based graphic design and computer animation. Through the three semesters, the course has gravitated away from a module-based survey of fundamental concepts in computer science and engineering toward greater student exploration of fewer topics most relevant to the projects. Continuing assessment of each phase of the course provides formative and summative feedback and has played an important role in the maturation of the course.

Visualization of VHDL-based simulations as a pedagogical tool for supporting computer science education

The mutual exclusion scheduling problem for permutation and comparability graphs

Diversity has become increasingly relevant in computer science and technology development, both in terms of inclusive design teams and as a concept used to design “diversity-aware” technologies. The latter part has received less attention and notions of diversity leveraged to design technologies remain understudied. This paper critically examines diversity concepts employed by computer scientists and designers by reviewing 120 articles in two subfields of computer science: personalized recommendations and human–computer interaction. Drawing on Black feminism and critical race theory-inspired literature, I offer a critique of demographic and cultural user representations and underscore the shortcomings of diversity as a strategy to increase user satisfaction and fairness. Particularly concerning is the unreflected use of binary, static, and individual-level diversity concepts in the design of technologies. Such concepts render structural inequalities between and within groups of users invisible and thereby risk reinforcing existing injustices. The paper closes with considerations on whether and how diversity concepts can be leveraged by designers in a social justice–oriented manner.

Natural language processing (NLP) is the study of mathematical and computational modeling of various aspects of language and the development of a wide range of systems. These include spoken language systems that integrate speech and natural language; cooperative interfaces to databases and knowledge bases that model aspects of human-human interaction; multilingual interfaces; machine translation; and message-understanding systems, among others. Research in NLP is highly interdisciplinary, involving concepts in computer science, linguistics, logic, and psychology. NLP has a special role in computer science because many aspects of the field deal with linguistic features of computation and NLP seeks to model language computationally.

Natural language processing (NLP) is the study of mathematical and computational modeling of various aspects of language and the development of a wide range of systems. These include spoken language systems that integrate speech and natural language; cooperative interfaces to databases and knowledge bases that model aspects of human-human interaction; multilingual interfaces; machine translation; and message-understanding systems, among others. Research in NLP is highly interdisciplinary, involving concepts in computer science, linguistics, logic, and psychology. NLP has a special role in computer science because many aspects of the field deal with linguistic features ofcomputation and NLP seeks to model language computationally.

A variety of approaches exist to teach computer science concepts to students from K-12 to graduate school. One such approach involves using the mass appeal of game design and creation to introduce students to programming and computational thinking. Specifically, Scalable Game Design enables students with varying levels of expertise to learn important concepts relative to their experience. This paper presents our observations using Scalable Game Design over multiple years to teach middle school students, college level students, graduate students, and even middle school teachers fundamental to complex computer science and education concepts. Results indicate that Scalable Game Design appeals broadly to students, regardless of background, and is a powerful teaching tool in getting students of all ages exposed and interested in computer science. Furthermore, it is observed that many student projects exhibit transfer enabling their games to explain complex ideas, from all disciplines, to the general public.

By following the idea of not using computers at all, Computer Science Unplugged has set the course for many interactive, social, and hands-on activities dealing with concepts and problems of Computer Science Education. Through recent developments in immersive media, technologies like Virtual and Augmented Reality could enhance such activities or even enable new ones. When providing immersive educational media that induce a sense of presence in the virtual environment, the illusion of unmediated learning experience can be delivered. Hence, the concept ofComputer Science can benefit from the affordances that Computer Science Unplugged thrives on while facilitating or enabling activities that might be impossible, dangerous, or expensive to carry out in reality. In order to foster research and activities associated with the Computer Science Replugged approach, this paper concludes with research questions for using immersive media in Computer Science Education.

Currently, robots are being used as teaching tools and can be found in K-12 and college classrooms. The primary appeal associated with employing robots is that they tend to capture the attention of the target audience and thereby facilitate the learning process. While there are numerous robotic kits on the market today, few can be used to teach both high-level concepts in computer science and engineering as well as low-level concepts in a K-12 environment and those that are capable, are more expensive. In this paper we propose an affordable setup of a basic software and hardware framework to accomplish this interaction. Specifically, the overall system architecture, low-cost robot, Web service and mobile device software will be the topics of interest in this paper.

Equilibrium analysis of the distribution of information in human society

Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science

As cloud computing emerges as the next novel concept in computer science, it becomes clear that the model applied in large data storage systems used to resolve issues coming forth from an increasing demand, could also be used to resolve the very high bandwidth requirements on access networks, core network equipment and long communication paths between users and servers in the today's cellular networks. Also, today's with the development of wireless access technologies (3/4 G, LTE and WiMAX), the standard for wireless communication of high speed data for mobile phones and data terminals, are set to power the cloud computing world as well and will see the emergence of a combine that will power business operations. This Paper gives a survey of applying the cloud computing model in mobile devices MCC, and LTE-based cellular systems architecture which helps have an overview of cloud computing, MCC and LTE architecture including the definition, architecture, and applications. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of MCC are discussed.