LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 

Zeichick's Take: Rebooting computer science, part 2


By Alan Zeichick
Email    print   
January 26, 2009 —  Computer science has an image problem. That’s one of the conclusions drawn at the Rebooting Computing Summit, which I attended a couple of weeks ago.

Last week, I wrote about some of the challenges facing computer science in my Take, “Rebooting computer science.” I covered what we discussed in the first day of discussions, which was the overall issue of attracting more young people into the field.

The second day revolved around various loosely directed brainstorming activities (under the unfortunate label of “Appreciative Inquiry,” or AI). The task at hand was to determine a set of concrete actions that the conference attendees—and, potentially, larger groups like the ACM or IEEE Computer Society—would undertake to make computer science appear more inviting, relevant, engaging and appealing to young people.

The summit attendees did a lot of work creating over a hundred potential projects. Those were submitted to the organizers, who somehow weeded them down and combined them into a dozen projects. As you can see, many are focused on primary and secondary education. Here's my description of those 12 projects:

• Redefine the public’s image of what computing means
• Create learning communities around computer science
• Create a national curriculum for multi-disciplinary collaboration
• Clearly define computing with a field model and field guide
• Create tools to demonstrate the fun and beauty in computer science
• Promote computing as an essential subject in K-12 education
• Teach computing fundamentals in K-8 education
• Hire and train 10,000 new computing teaching teachers by 2018

• Create a repository of open artifacts for use in K-16
• Promote problem-based learning in grades 7-14
• Create socially relevant computer science projects
• Promote initiatives to orient computer science around multicore

To be honest, I’m not sure that the effort was entirely successful. Many of the projects were loose, and in some cases they were conflicting. There was little effort to define what success would actually look like, and with few exceptions, the set of concrete actions appeared to be goals to aspire to instead of real projects.

With that said, it was good that the discussion took place, and I was honored to be part of it—and to work with such an impressive group of people. The big question is, what happens next? I wish I knew.

What do you think about all this? Write me at feedback@bzmedia.com.

Alan Zeichick is editorial director of SD Times. Read his blog at ztrek.blogspot.com.




Share this link: http://sdt.bz/33214
 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists
Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter


Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
Loading




close
NEXT ARTICLE
Computer science tops list of best major for jobs
However, the industry as a whole is struggling to find people to fill those positions Read More...
 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?


 
blogs tab
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST

 
Events calendar tab
Cloud Connect
2/13/2012 to 2/16/2012
Santa Clara
TechWeb

SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conf.
2/26/2012 to 2/29/2012
San Francisco
BZ Media

RSA Conf.
2/27/2012 to 3/2/2012
San Francisco
RSA

IBM Pulse Conf.
3/4/2012 to 3/7/2012
Las Vegas
IBM Tivoli

Game Developer Conf.
3/5/2012 to 3/9/2012
San Francisco
TechWeb