Working Document: CPATH II Planning


Please see this link for the Strategic Planning Document as of 12.18.09. It is a work in progress and the next work session is 1/22/10 in FL1-8 from 8am to 12noon.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Aei2hdsuTyDTZG01azVjbV83ODVnaGpnbXdoYg&hl=en


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On Education Inspiration and CT Innovation

Named among the top 5 most inspirational videos on the web by Mashable. It's a great example of immersion on a community scale. We should discuss this approach at length during our work in gap closing actions.

Geoffrey Canada on 60 Minutes: Closing The Achievement Gap through the Harlem Children's Zone.

Having seen the success of the Harlem Children's Zone, in 2009 US President Barack Obama announced plans to replicate the HCZ model in 20 other cities across the nation.

You can view a brief clip below or the full episode by 60 Minutes.



And here is the other mention I made during our meeting today regarding an innovative approach towards providing glasses for the poor.

Designer Focuses on Marketing Adjustable Eyeglasses at $1 a Pair

At least 180 million children could use glasses to help with their schoolwork, according to a report from the Child Vision Conference in Oxford in 2007.

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Prosperity Index





In the December 4 ExecCom meeting, there was a brief discussion about how business, industry and government assess the growth and economic health of the Sacramento region. In a partial answer to this question, I would offer the 2009 Prosperity Index published by the Center for Economic Research. The PDF version of the report linked above is quite interesting, and I think give us a good grounding in how these assessments are made and presented. Take a look!

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Computational Thinking from a Healthcare Perspective: By Jim Eldridge from the CPATH AdCom group

As I sought out inspiring examples of computational thinking, I looked up quite a few articles on computational thinking and watched Dr. Wing’s YahooLabs presentation on the subject. Most were interesting, but still left me without a crystal clear idea of what CT is or what “inspiring examples” of it would be. Rather than be paralyzed in thought or analysis, I decided to just start jotting down my notes and thoughts and see where that takes me. I also decided to focus on HealthCare since that is my identified area of contribution to the group. So here goes:

Dr. Wing’s article identified examples of computational thinking such as robotic surgery, virtual colonoscopies, and electronic health records. I will comment on these and others I think appropriate, but before doing so I would add that I think the opportunities for using CT in healthcare are tremendous for the following reasons:

It is extremely complex. Ethical issues abound in healthcare, and the number of dollars spent at end of life can be staggering for what, in many cases, are inevitable outcomes. Technology has played a huge role in improvement of outcomes but at a huge price tag. Chronic conditions and risk management issues are enormous. I will never forget a visioning session with my staff regarding how the implementation of the electronic medical record was going to change what we do, and we concluded that though we currently manage masses of complex data, in the future would be managing more masses of more complex data.

There is currently a lot of waste. The estimated impact of poor quality or waste in the healthcare industry is staggering. This comes in many different forms, including errors, unnecessary procedures and care, etc.

We have a problem, Houston. Healthcare costs are creating a real problem for American businesses. It is a problem that definitely needs to be solved.

Okay, here are some overall comments on things that I have witnessed relative to computational thinking in healthcare.

1. We have been doing it for a long time. Over 20 years ago we were looking at how we could use computational thinking (I think it could be described as that) to improve patient outcomes. We did this in a lot of ways, but I think one good example (although very simple) was looking at our databases to ensure that diabetics were hooked up with an ophthalmologist. Diabetics have a much higher propensity for eye disease. We did this by looking at prescriptions for insulin and ensuring that anyone who had been prescribed insulin was also seen by an ophthalmologist.

2. Electronic Medical Record. This component is still very early in its implementation, but there have been several findings from it.

· Medication errors were reduced tremendously. The system provides for checks and balances on medications and automatically checks for anything outside of those parameters and requires override to be administered. This has resulted in a big drop in medication errors.

· Some unintended consequences. Redacting medical record data became much more difficult, requiring a lot of work to set up parameters for what really is the record, what should be printed out to share for a variety of sources, i.e. claim and attorney review.

· Not tremendous cost savings—yet. Perhaps that is the great test of how to utilize the data in a manner that will result in savings.


3. Google is better at predicting the flu season than the CDC (Center for Disease Control). Some comments on this are shared below, but I agree that this really opens up the idea at looking at healthcare data and outcomes in a totally different light, and probably indicates a need for expertise outside of the traditional healthcare arena. Google’s experiment in trending flu outbreaks is absolutely – and I mean absolutely – amazing. I’d bet that any professional epidemiologist would cringe at the idea of using non-clinical data to identify disease trends, but this application boggles my mind. Here’s how it works. Google meters its search queries on flu-related topics, figuring that the more that people search on a flu topic, the more likely the flu is occurring in real life. It does not measure anything clinical – nothing about positive throat cultures, visits to emergency departments, or any other traditional sentinel reporting measures. Just search queries. The demo on Google’s own website shows how, using data from the 2007-2008 flu season, it can identify flu trends two weeks ahead of anyone else, including the CDC. The data for this current season – the first full season with the H1N1 virus – confirm that many people are getting sick with the flu already, months before the traditional height of the flu season.

4. Robotic Surgery—da Vinci machines are an example of advances in Robotic surgery and I believe were invented with the intent of enabling the ability for someone across the globe to complete and do a surgery on someone on the other end. It also circumvents current limitations in the design of the human body. For example, the human wrist cannot perform a 360 degree rotation, while the robot can. This allows for a better range of performance and thus, better outcomes. Cost becomes another large issue here as it is very expensive. But the da Vinci robots eliminate two big issues in surgical care:

· Physical location of the surgeon—the surgeon could be across the globe and complete the surgery with the appropriate equipment.

· Physical limitations of the surgeon—i.e., the 360 degree rotation of the wrist.

And from the neither here nor there category, I always find quotes inspiring. I liked the following and found it while I was searching. It does not apply directly to computational thinking, but you get the idea:
“Digital fluency" should mean designing, creating, and remixing, not just browsing, chatting, and interacting.
Mitchel Resnick

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Innovation and Technological Convergence With Our Physical World

I searched high and low for an innovative approach that met the CT requirements of Dr. Peckham's, "...absent the computer...", and Jeannette Wing's, "...way humans, not computers, think, solve problems..." providing a point of reference for our students to become inspired and intrigued in the potential promise of technology, and came across this piece. Enjoy!

CPATH II Proposed Timeline


In preparation for the many months of meaningful work ahead, the Executive Committee has prepared the following proposed (and certainly changeable) timeline for the term of the grant. This will be discussed in detail in subsequent meetings.

In addition to the above calendar, the executive committee is now working with a new proposed group structure. It can be "briefed" as follows:

  • The executive committee (ExecCom for short)is a group of approximately 12 core individuals charged with overall planning, implementation, mentoring and guiding throughout the term of the project. They lead the larger group, establish time lines, and have clearly defined responsibilities (e.g., facilitation, work product development, BLOG management)
  • The task group (TaskCom for short) is made up of additional individuals charged with spearheading development of CT modules and infusion strategies for all segments and disciplines in education. Smaller task groups will be derived from this group with the addition of others, and each will presumably accomplish its task with a slightly different approach.
  • The advisory committee (AdCom for short) is the largest group, and includes potential members from a variety of groups and individuals with an interest in the project. They will provide input to the other groups on the progress of the project through a variety of communication channels. All members of this group will be charged with bringing others to the table, and with spreading the word to colleagues and contacts in the community. This will be the most fluid group, and the one withe the least-defined responsibilities. It will also meet with the least frequency.

Soon, ExeCom will act on codifying this proposed group structure, and will set out schedule for future meetings for each of the three groups.

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On CT Framework and Rebranding CISE

The recent e.mail exchange regarding the unmentionable, "E" and other "scary" CISE terms brought to mind the discussion regarding re-branding of these terms. So I've put together a few thoughts along those lines. The key question being,

"How can we get the student's attention, and interest in CT / CISE subject matter?"

FLC could provide for a cross-disciplinary Managed Information CT Education Framework with coursework that is sufficiently broad based, innovative, and flexible enough (as technology and industry evolves) to act as a clearinghouse between student's career objectives / aspirations / desires and the skilled labor requirements of business in the year 2020, while maintaining overall education goals for a variety of student segments..

We could begin with:

I. An Introduction to (Computational) Thinking - a G.E. prerequisite that is broad based, illustrating problem solving, information management, introduction to industry (and government), future career options and skills required by employers, student interest, and skills development.

The CT General Education (G.E.) Disciplinary framework could provide for:

  1. Personalization & Participation: Offer program tracks that engages their interests (CT tracks).
  2. Speak in their language and the language of industry/business (re branding taxonomy from traditional to modern)
  3. Provide a pathway to jobs and career opportunities.
  4. Show students the opportunities to achieve their aspirational goals via their interests.
  5. "Soft" start through functional disciplines of interest to them and re branding of CS terms (more on that below).
  6. Targeted student segmentation - student focus, attention via broad based CT introductory prerequisites. and career exploration embedded in the course.
  7. Speak to their altruism - Innovation -"Change the world" opportunities - technology in alternative energies, health care, media, entertainment, entrepreneurship, industry, government, education, etc.
II. The framework enables a Student Driven CT Management Program where different "tracks" position the students for different functions in the industry. This would allow the student to self select and direct in the industry based on their interests and choose an academic track defined and validated by the skills requirements of industry.

III. A G.E. Innovation in Information Management Pathways Program (for Services and Industry) that delineates disciplinary functional tracks with some core courses and elective (experimental) disciplinary industry offerings.

Ex: Innovation in Health care; Innovation in (place industry here)

Ex: Innovation in Marketing; Innovation in (place business function here)

The program prepares its students to learn to think critically (CT) in the identification and analysis of complex systems and work with/manipulate abstract conceptual frameworks to derive, create and deliver value for the organization (beyond the G.E. beginning CT course) within the context of a discipline of their interest.

IV. Beyond the Introduction to CT (G.E.) coursework, and its application to a particular discipline, we then engage the students in the possibilities of such thinking by enabling the study of CT in Innovation as an interdisciplinary subject.

Introduction to Innovation in [insert discipline here]; or "Introduction to Next Generation Disciplines"; a hook, to bring in the audience and have them learn to apply CT in an interdisciplinary manner while simultaneously exploring the potential possibilities of many career paths as they work with students from different tracks in the program.

V. Re-branding (and re-engineering) of existing coursework to express the CT objectives within core CISE to facilitate access, integration with the CT program framework, and approachability of computer science and engineering subjects.
  • Programming? "Introduction to Application Development (Software Engineering) and Management"- inclusion of Facebook development for example, may be more compelling than just traditional languages.
  • Database? "Introduction to Information Management"
Terms like Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Database sound dated and give the perception of low level skills. We should "speak" to student's aspirations and inspire them to achieve. So we re brand and re engineer such coursework. Example:

"Introduction to Business or Office Productivity Suites" where assignments can include presenting a marketing campaign (or other industry specific function/discipline), developing and populating database to feed spreadsheets with pivot tables for calculations merging the results with targeted marketing campaign documents that are published on the web (marketing just being an example of a higher value functional area of potential interest for students).

What thoughts do all of you have regarding the development of a multi-level framework - CT basics, CT + discipline, and CT + interdisciplinary, and the re-branding of terms that perhaps alienate the students from pursuits of such CISE disciplines?

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Teaching the Facebook Generation

A call for CT.

Our goal as college professors is to open students minds to new experiences so they can grow intellectually while they mature through the traditional four-year process. But we are also challenged to give students the immediate skills they will need once they graduate so that they can begin their professional careers and move away from the fry-o-later to the cubicle and beyond.

Over the past decade, there has been a sea change in the marketplace demands for graduates. Whereas broad skills used to be sufficient, now our students must demonstrate a set of concrete skills that not long ago were required only of those in highly technical majors. Nowhere has this change created a greater shift than in fields such as marketing and public relations, which traditionally have been viewed as nontechnical but are now demanding a technological competency that is astounding.

The rest of the article can be found here.

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Computational Thinking at work?

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/06/0627_fresh_entrepreneurs/7.htm

Study Less, Remember More

Procuit
Tom Meloche, Gus Mondalek, Eric Justusson, Rich Roberts, and William Cavnar

Companies regularly shell out big bucks for employees to attend professional training seminars. But research shows employees forget 80% of what they learn within a month of the event. Software developer and serial entrepreneur Tom Meloche, 46, a figure within the who has taught corporate seminars since the late 1980s, is trying to change that. Building on clinical research on human cognition, his Ann Arbor (Mich.) company makes software designed to increase knowledge retention by customizing lessons based on an individual user’s responses. Meloche says students who use the software need to study only three to five minutes three to four days a week in order to recall material over an extended period. His team is also writing algorithms meant to determine the most important information for students to learn in the first place.

So far, five-person Procuit, founded in 2007, has created a test app for Facebook (over 10,000 people have used it), landed one commercial customer for custom work, and launched a home-schooling application, HomeSchoolAdvantage.com (which charges $20 per user), in August. Meloche says Procuit recently received a $50,000 unsecured loan from a local incubator to develop and market the home-schooling product. He expects just under $100,000 in revenue in 2009 and around $500,000 in 2010.

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Computer Science Education Week Announced


The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) posted this press release announcing passage of House of Representatives Resolution 558 which designates the week of December 7, in honor of Grace Hopper's birthday, as `National Computer Science Education Week'.

The official title reads, "A resolution supporting the increased understanding of, and interest in, computer science and computing careers among the public and in schools, and to ensure an ample and diverse future technology workforce through the designation of National Computer Science Education Week."

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On Inspiration

We've been seeking to identify potential examples of CT inspiring so that we can market and "pull" demand for CT subject matter.

First, we should note that CT skills have not yet been identified, and thus, any examples would have to be analogous at this stage. The point in those examples being that this is the type of potential CT holds.
Second, what may be inspirational to one segment, may not inspire all, so we should continue to seek out appropriate examples for the corresponding groups - k-12, college, employers.


That said, here is one that may fit the bill.

"But then he started to think about what he'd learned as a tutor. That if he broke things down for students into small increments, if they had a chance to practice and learn, they could inevitably continue. He realized that the same thing was true for him, too. This was John's first "a-ha!" moment. A powerful enough realization that he went on to earn his PhD."



"How powerful is that? Eager to get his revolutionary approach to teaching math into the hands of teachers, John created a not-for-profit organization called JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies). Today, JUMP is getting spectacular results with all kinds of kids. For instance, after working with JUMP, an entire class of Grade 3 students, including so-called slow learners, scored over 90% on a Grade 6 math test. A group of British children who had been written off as too unruly responded so enthusiastically and had such impressive results that the school board adopted the program. I could go on and on."

This example could serve as one in the area of decomposition - taking complex problems and breaking them down for further understanding, practice, and study.

So what's so CT about that? Well, nothing really. Other than how commonly this technique is used in CS to solve complex problems - code modularization, and once modularized those modules need to interact, calls to libraries, iterations between modules, etc.

  • Abstraction
  • Algorithm
  • Data
  • Decomposition
  • Iterations
  • Query
  • Sense & Feedback
  • Systems

Often times it's more about making things simpler to understand, study, explain, practice, and use, as a means to working on complex problems. While it's one of the more basic concepts, it's often overlooked in problem solving.

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Computational Thinking at Bob’s Diner


Here’s a little story about Bob and his diner, “Bob’s Eats”. Bob sells a wide variety of delicious deep fried dishes, from fried russet potatoes, to fried red potatoes. But, Bob is being outsold by his local rival, “Bett’s Diner”, and why? Because Bett understands Computational Thinking and Bob doesn’t!

1) Seeking a powerful characterization of CT
a. Using "Abstraction" as an analogy
b. Balancing Simplicity with Significance
c. Leveraging the power of ubiquitous computing

Comments encouraged!

Dan

CT and Computers

Thanks for the great meeting the other day, folks. There was an abundance of energy, and, as usual, 1.5 hours did not seem like enough. What a great team!

As we look forward to sorting the concept of CT in the coming weeks, I want to remind us all that ours is an interdisciplinary project, with application and meaning far beyond the study and use of computers. Wing's presentation at Yahoo! Labs makes this quite clear, and I think we also understand that if our work remains confined to the CS realm, we will have missed the point. Nevertheless, our discussions may flow that way if we are not vigilant. This may be one of our greatest challenges!

I also was sent a recent NYT opinion article with some interesting comments about our also-ran status as a nation in the world intellectual and financial economy. Let me know what you think!


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Questions for our Subject Matter Expert Interview

In Friday's meeting, Bernard asked me to pose this question to the team. You will recall that the steering committee is planning on identifying and interviewing subject matter expert(s) on computational thinking, the concept. So here's my question:

  • CT clearly requires an interdisciplinary approach to reshaping educational programs to establish and reinforce CT foundational knowledge and skills. Can you imagine ways in which this would be done in a non-computer science domain without directly introducing the vocabulary of computer science or CT? That is, would you consider fifth graders' (or college business students' for that matter) demonstration of the ability to deconstruct a problem or to design a parallel problem solution strategy sufficient evidence of direct impact on educational results?
  • Add your contributions as comments to this post...

Housekeeping Note

In posting this, I am creating a new label (or tag or keyword...consider it a reserved word to be used in moderation) that will help you always find the posts here that require your action, input, comments, etc. General discussion postings are tagged at the discretion of the poster, but these special menu items under construction, begging for your secret sauce will henceforth be labeled "Team To-do". And you will always be able to find them by clicking the Team To-do tag link in the Labels section of the right-hand column. You could even bookmark the link for a regular check, but it would be even better if you subscribed to the blog posts or to just the comments with an rss reader or rss container in your favorite news page. See my earlier post, How to Participate in this Community, for details.

A CT Skills Grid Development Approach

I've been giving some thought on how to proceed from a variety of angles. Thus far much of the discussion has been "top-down", broad, and abstract. The question is whether the education will map to the requirements of industry which historically has not been perceived to be the case.

As we approach CT from various angles to identify and prioritize the CT skills below (list may not be all inclusive) to assist our collective imaginations in creative problem solving, it may be useful for us to work through various methodologies and approaches for the identification of those skills, a mapping of the skills to domains, re-ordering of CT skills for industries, and potential jobs of the future.

  • Abstraction
  • Algorithm
  • Data
  • Decomposition
  • Iterations
  • Query
  • Sense & Feedback
  • Systems
As Bernard has mentioned, we are training students today for jobs that do not yet exist, and as pointed out in his 5 minute video presentation, innovation and technological developments are accelerating. Therefore, this will have to be an ongoing, iterative exercise.

One approach (hopefully among many) would be to extrapolate a bit and explore potential future professions, once identified, decompose the types of CT skills that may be required, and classify that skill.

Admittedly, it's a less abstract approach than a top down methodology, though it might serve us well to have a "bottoms-up" gathering of information.

What dimensions of CT are "timeless"? That is, can we describe not the work (data) itself, but the future job skills (metadata) within "domains", and map to the appropriate CT skills.

Some dimensions of work include integration, scope, time, cost, quality, HR, communications, risk management and procurement.

That is, whether the organizational offerings are products, solutions or services, many if not all of those activities will have to take place. The offering will have to be scoped to be developed, it'll have to be developed within a time frame, cost will be a limitation, components will have to be procured, teams will have to communicate, cross functional personnel will have to be managed (HR) and so on. This will be the case across industries.

For the business sector we may consider strategy, sales, marketing, management, engineering, legal, finance and accounting.

Other industries may have a different list ie. healthcare, government, non-profits, etc.

Naturally, a sub-approach to identify, evaluate, test, etc. of the CT skills may help us focus on key skills.

For example, lets take a look at these top 60 jobs of the future or 10 attributes of next generation IT manager and look at one dimension, time. Deadlines will still exist. What CT skills can we engender within the CT educational curriculum that will lead students to recognize time management / manipulation skills to accelerate completion of the work ie. fast-tracking (parallelism), round-robin, using time zones, crashing (adding resource), etc.

Then we map the CT skill to the dimensions, industry, roles and domains, producing a modular grid of skills we can prioritize within each grid to produce a specific outcome for the corresponding industry and role.

Once complete we can apply to the corresponding coursework in the curriculum for that particular outcome at the college level.

Additionally, the grid should provide insight into a narrower set of "core" CT skills that will be in high demand. Which can then be used as the basis of the K-12 education with an overlay as to the appropriate developmental stage to teach the "core" CT skill.

Your thoughts, comments, suggestions are welcome.

Warmest Regards,

Ray

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CT Problem for the Team: Organizing this Content

Enough tinkering. I spent the last week and a half scheming on how to make this blog more useful and more engaging. So here's where I got...

  1. The basic blog is the same and retains all historic posts. History is in the right column but you might find things quicker by using the search function at the top of the column.
  2. We still need to complete some housekeeping on the accumulated past material so be patient with us. Linda and I will review the historic linked documents and will bucket them by NSF, CPATH I Product, CPATH II Product, Interesting Stuff and ??? Suggestions are welcome...especially from our administrative team and evaluators. This log of our activity needs to work for the developing community and for program administration purposes.
  3. To the center left column I have added Appetizers, a mashup of tidbits I notice out in cyberspace. Anyone wishing to participate in growing the collection should contact me for more info. So far I have been tagging these tidbits with these keywords/concepts: Applications, Data Visualization, Organizing Data, Design, Interviews & Ideas, and Curriculum. As you can imagine, the tagcloud could grow huge. So another place I need some suggestions from you is on the key buckets I need to establish for sorting and filtering all of our content. Right now I am thinking a lot about team understanding of CT concepts and managing content for required grant administration purposes. We will ultimately need to add coverage for specific programs we launch in pursuit of grant expectations. Your thoughts on the big themes are needed. We will develop our own folksonomy in the discussion process but your help with a few over-riding fixed buckets ("controlled vocabulary" for you KM types) is appreciated.
  4. In order to actually participate in this discussion, you will need to acquire a free google account. Please see my earlier post on How to Participate in this Community. The test will be for you to comment on this post. To acknowledge that you have prepared yourself to comment and participate in the ongoing dialogue, post a comment to this blog. I will be handing out grades at the next team get together.
Note: You're not going crazy... I changed the template to better utilize real estate again on 9.30.

Marketing the CT Cafe: Need Delicious Entrees on this Menu

Our marketing plan may be as important as our topical interests. I confess I am somewhat challenged by the difficulty of explaining the big computational thinking concepts to regular folks...people who have not invested themselves in the mission. How to get from where we've been to a more enlightened future is highly dependent on our ability to explain the mission and component concepts. So when Jeannette Wing asks with a straight face why we don't teach the concept "algorithm" in grade school, I immediately cringe and ask myself how many K-8 teachers does she actually know? I don't fault her, I just have reservations about the capacity of the educational pipeline to embrace and deliver new, and in particular, abstract curricular components. We need to concern ourselves with how to make our little cafe appealing. If we want SRO crowds, that menu posted by the door and the accompanying smells wafting out onto the street better be seductive.

It's not exactly as if we haven't been there before. When I was younger, the New Math initiative (interestingly, another NSF project) attempted to deploy widespread understanding of some of the more conceptual domains that academic mathematics employs. Great idea with mixed results. I happened to have New Math delivered by a real mathematics instructor (with a genuine math background...not a PE or History degree) and maybe I was predisposed to math, technology and the AV squad, so it worked for me. But the New Math program failed...in large part because the people in charge of delivery were ill-prepared to convey the subject matter, at least using the packages delivered by the visionaries. Whether teachers were excited, intimidated or ambivalent may not really matter, but the program was eventually reeled in after years of parental confusion and complaints. (Lesson: If the parents are not "getting it" through osmosis and fail to "see the point," resistance will be encountered). So, we need to think long and hard about how to go about this business of "getting the words right" or spicing up the menu as it were.

After listening to Jon Udell's interview of Joan Peckham, I reviewed the Computer Science Unplugged curriculum generated by a team in New Zealand. I like the way they've named their units and lessons. We would do well to learn from their example and, perhaps, use some of their ideas to build a strategy or help explain our quest. I recommend you take a look and start stewing on how we make our mission palatable, even delicious to the customers and the serving staff we will be trying to influence.

Excerpt from Table of Contents of the Computer Science Unplugged curriculum
Data: the raw material—Representing information

  • Count the Dots—Binary Numbers
  • Colour by Numbers—Image Representation
  • etc.
Putting Computers to Work—Algorithms
  • Battleships—Searching Algorithms
  • Lightest and Heaviest—Sorting Algorithms
  • etc
Telling Computers What To Do—Representing Procedures
  • Treasure Hunt—Finite-State Automata
  • Marching Orders—Programming Languages

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Jeanette Wing presentation on Computational Thinking

Here is a recording of her presentation to the Yahoo Big Thinker forum in the Summer of 2009. The pres is aimed at a computer science audience but includes many examples of computational thinking applied to various disciplines. She also approaches some of the practical challenges in pedagogy with respect to embedding CT and STEM in K-80 curricula. Hmmmm. PT

Jeannette Wing: The Computational Thinker

Jeannette Wing: The Computational Thinker (click this link for IEEE article about Jeannette Wing)

See details of her upcoming presentation at the end of July. She will be speaking as one of Yahoo’s 2009 Big Thinkers.

Computational Thinking and Thinking About Computing
Speaker: Jeannette Wing
When: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Santa Clara, CA

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Computational Thinking

I found this fascinating quote today:



Been listening and reading to Jon Udell talk about Computational Thinking. Still need to wrap my head around the whole concept, but wanted to introduce the topic and hope that others would also find this topic interesting.Computational Thinking, May 2009



You should read the whole article.

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Why Choose Engineering or Computer Science?

Please check out the power point presentation with the above title by clicking the link under meeting notes to the right.

Find the answers to these questions:

1) What characteristics are common to engineering and computer science students?
2) Who is hiring engineers and computer scientists?
3) What fuels the current and future needs?
4) Which jobs are in most demand?
5) What are the starting salaries?
6) What does Sacramento State Unversity have to offer?


“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0722172. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

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News from the STEM Equity Pipeline Projects




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Update on the CPATH II Strategy Document
















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Why Choose Engineering or Computer Science?

Hello CPATH friends,

Please see the link under meeting notes entitled "Why Choose Engineering or Computer Science?" to see a power point presentation from Sac State with the answer to that question!


Thanks,

CPATH Team

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CPATH Forges Ahead

Hello CPATH Friends!

The steering committee met last Thursday, February 26, to determine the level of interest/passion for pursuing the next level of CPATH involvement. The vote was nearly unanimous and one quote sums it up, "I can't imagine NOT going forward!" The next step is to apply for the implementation grant, for which the deadline is coming quickly in April.

Please see the document called "CPATH II Concept Development" linked at the right to read some questions to stimulate ideas and post your feedback as a response to this post.

Thank you,

The CPATH Steering Committee

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0722172. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

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Task Force Group Updates

Greetings,

Please see the links to the right under Meeting Notes to read the latest versions of the Task Force Groups Work Sheets.

The CPATH Team

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