Integrating Business Education and Computer Science to Prepare Students for the 21 st Century

1. Integrating Business Education and Computer Science to Prepare Students for the 21st Century Barbara Ericson http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/ Advanced Placement CS A Development Committee Director, Computing Outreach, Georgia Tech

2. Who am I? • Member of the Advanced Placement Computer Science Development Committee • Responsible for creating the CS A exam • Co-chair of the NCWIT K-12 Alliance • Trying to get more females in computing • Member of the CSTA Board of Directors • Supporting teachers of computer science • Director of Computing Outreach for Georgia Tech's College of Computing

3. Why Teach CS in High School? • Computer science knowledge is important • Required for many fields: business, math, science • Jobs are plentiful, interesting, and flexible • 5 of the fastest growing jobs • 1.5 million jobs by 2016 • High starting salaries • Students learn 21st century skills • Critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork

4. CS is important for business Walmart Kmart Didn’t update its computer systems Didn’t create a data warehouse with data from all the stores Went bankrupt in 2002 • Has a large data warehouse and uploads the data from each store every night • Knows what products are selling at what stores • Can plan future sales based on past data

5. What is CS? • Computer science is the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their principals, their hardware and software designs, their applications, and their impact on society. (ACM Model Curriculum) • Computer Literacy: using software applications • Educational Technology: The use of computers to support learning

6. CS Includes • Programming • Theory • Artificial Intelligence • Databases • Networking • Information Security • Human-Computer Interfaces • Graphics • Simulations • Software engineering • Web science • Robotics

7. C.S. in U.S. High Schools • Mostly computer literacy classes • Keyboarding and applications • Some web design and networking • Most schools do not offer computer science • 25 states have never had more than 100 students take the CS AP A exam • CS courses are elective • Most teachers have no formal training in computer science

8. AP CS versus other exams: US

9. CS AP A in the US 2009 • Best states by # exams / population • Maryland • Texas • Virginia • New Jersey • Washington D. C. • Connecticut • Massachusetts • Georgia • California • New York

10. C.S. in other countries • Many have rigorous computing classes • Computing is required to graduate from high school • In 20 EU countries plus Bulgaria, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Israel, and Romania • Teachers have formal training in CS • Scotland requires qualifications to teach CS • Israel requires a degree in CS

11. Computing Courses • ACM Model Curriculum for K-12 Education • Level I – K-8 • Level II – 9th or 10th grade • Level III – 10th or 11th grade • Level IV – 11th or 12th grade

12. High School Curriculum ACM Model Curriculum Georgia Curriculum Level 2 (II) Computer Science in the Modern World Level 2 (II) Computing in the Modern World Level 3 (III) Computer Science as Analysis and Design Level 3 (III) Beginning Programming Level 3 (III) Intermediate Programming Level 4 (IV) Topics in CS – Advanced Placement CS Level 4 (IV) Topics in CS – Advanced Placement CS

13. Free Tools • There are many free tools for teaching computer science • Scratch • Alice (2.2 and 3.0) • GridWorld • Greenfoot • CS Unplugged • Kinesthetic Learning Activities

14. Scratch • Free software from MIT for creating 2D animations and games • http://scratch.mit.edu • Teacher website • http://scratched.media.mit.edu/

15. Teaching with Scratch • Sequential Execution • Parallel Execution • Loops • Conditionals • Variables • Handling events • Lists • Design • Testing • Broadcasting and receiving messages

16. Who is using Scratch? • Harvard to introduce programming concepts • http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-computer-science-i • http://www.cs.harvard.edu/malan/scratch/printer.php • Berkeley as a pilot of a new AP CS course: principals • http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs39n/fa09/

17. Alice 2.2 • Free software from CMU for creating 3D movies and games • http://www.alice.org • Teacher website • http://aliceprogramming.net/

18. Alice 3.0 Beta • Free software from CMU for creating 3D movies and games • http://www.alice.org • Includes the Electronic Arts Sims characters • Can import into Netbeans IDE as Java code

19. CS concepts with Alice • Sequential Execution • Parallel Execution • Loops • Conditionals • Variables • Handling events • Lists • Design • Testing • Objects and Classes • Inheritance • Recursion

20. Who is using Alice? • Originally created by Dr. Randy Pausch of the Last Lecture • CMU uses it still • Used at many colleges, universities, and high schools • http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=testimonials • Even used at middle and elementary schools • Storytelling Alice version

21. GridWorld • Advanced Placement Computer Science Case Study • Example of a larger program for students to learn from • Used to teach object-oriented concepts

22. Greenfoot • Free software from the Un. of Kent and Deakin Un. for building 2D simulations and games in Java http://www.greenfoot.org • Can do Karel the Robot and GridWorld in Greenfoot • Teacher site: • http://greenroom.greenfoot.org/door

23. CS Unplugged • Free materials for teaching computing concepts without a computer • http://csunplugged.org/ Binary Numbers Network Deadlocks

24. Kinesthetic Learning Activities • Techniques for teaching using kinesthetic activities from Un of California, Berkeley • http://ws.cs.ubc.ca/~kla/ • Flowchart Hopscotch • Human Binary Tree • Network Routing on Strings

25. More Resources • Dick Baldwin’s online tutorials • Alice - http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm • Scratch - http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocHomeSchool.htm • Videos for learning Alice • http://home.cc.gatech.edu/TeaParty/57 • Videos for learning Scratch • http://learnscratch.org/