Daniel D. Garcia
Wei Ding
Jeff Gray
ABSTRACT
The recent successes of Computer Science Education Week and code.org's Hour of Code have meant that more K-12 students than ever are being given an authentic, engaging and eye-opening exposure to the wonders of computer science. There are resources aplenty to help high school and college faculty with outreach. These range from easy-to-learn, open-ended programming environments (Scratch, Alice, Snap!), to online coding challenges (code.org, Lite-bot), to non-computer activities with live performances (CS Unplugged, cs4fn), to having the entire outreach experience delivered "in a box", thanks to NCWIT.
We wanted to bring educators together to share experiences with what they've done specifically with a one-day event, given these vast resources. Now that there are so many online coding experiences, it is enough to shuttle young students into a computer room, point their browser at one of these experiences, and answer questions as they come up? Is it important to include hands-on and hands-off (e.g., nifty demos, inspiring talks) components, and if so, in what order? What do different demographics find the most engaging? Is there any chance that we can do "damage", since these highlight-reel experiences might over-simplify how hard some of the problems are, and that not every important result has a flashy payoff? Do some of the early experiences leave students with the impression that computer science is only (say) apps, interactive multimedia programs or solving mazes? Finally, when it's over, what follow-up is appropriate? Participants on the panel will share best practices, common pitfalls, and advice.
- NC-WIT. Outreach-in-a-Box: Discovering IT. September, 2014. www.ncwit.org/resources/outreach-box-discovering-itGoogle Scholar
- Georgia Tech. ICE Distance Learning Site. http://ice-web.cc.gatech.edu/dl/Google Scholar
Index Terms
- One-Day Activities for K-12 Face-to-Face Outreach
Recommendations
How to Plan and Run Summer Computing Camps: Logistics (Abstract Only)
SIGCSE '16: Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science EducationThis workshop will provide details on how to plan and run non-residential, week-long computing summer camps for 4th-12th grade students. Georgia Tech has been offering computing summer camps since 2004. These camps are financially self-sustaining and ...
Getting Started in Teaching and Researching Computer Science in the Elementary Classroom
SIGCSE '15: Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationThe recent growth of interest in computer science has created a movement to more readily introduce computer science in K-12 classrooms. However, little research exists on how to successfully bring computer science to lower grade levels. In this paper, ...
CS Outreach to Inform Secondary School Students' Perceptions of CS: Initial Findings
WiPSCE '23: Proceedings of the 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education ResearchThis study covers a three-year, longitudinal K–12 outreach initiative that promoted computer science in Ireland from 2017–2020. During the first year, 2017–2018, 2900 students participated in a pilot phase. 7320 students participated in the ...
Comments