A Computing by Design symposium aimed at helping educators weave computer science principles throughout the K-12 curriculum will be held Monday, Sept. 28, at the STEM-focused Timberline PK-8, 233 E. Mountain View Ave., in Longmont.
The symposium will help teachers, counselors, librarians, administrators and STEM coordinators focus on a shared vision for introducing computer science across the curriculum, from preschool to 12th grade. It also builds upon the recent collaboration between CU-Boulder’s Engaging Computer Science in Traditional Education (ECSITE) Project and St. Vrain Valley School educators and is an important next step as SVVSD continues to develop a K-12 computer science framework.
Topics include “computational thinking” and why it’s an essential skill in the 21st century for all disciplines and integral to STEM professions; ways to incorporate computing into most any academic subject; and new computer science courses, along with college and career pathways.
The day will conclude with teams from participating schools developing an action plan for implementing and further developing computer science education at their schools.
“Computing is becoming more and more important to more and more things people are doing, from commerce to healthcare to entertainment,” said Clayton Lewis, co-principal investigator of the ECSITE Project and computer science professor at CU-Boulder. “It’s exciting to see how schools are developing new ways to help students understand and participate in these trends.”
The daylong symposium is hosted by the ECSITE Project (pronounced “excite”), the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools and the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).
Along with an array of visual, hands-on activities, a handful of notable speakers will talk about the importance of computer science across the curriculum.
Speakers include:
- Ruthe Farmer, chief strategy and growth officer for NCWIT and head of its K-12 Alliance. She is the driving force behind Aspirations in Computing talent development initiative, designed the NCWIT AspireIT outreach program to engage 10,000 girls in computing by 2018, and launched the NCWIT Latinas in Technology campaign and initiative in January 2015.
- Leysia Palen, computer science professor and founding chair of the Department of Information Science at CU-Boulder. Palen is a leader in the area of crisis informatics, an area she forged with her graduate students and colleagues at CU-Boulder. She brings her training in human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work and social computing to bear on understanding and advancing socio-technical issues of societal import.
- Shaun Kane, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at CU-Boulder. Kane directs the Superhuman Computing Lab. His primary research interests are accessible user interfaces and mobile human-computer interaction. His work explores ways to make mobile devices easier to use, especially for people with disabilities and people in distracting environments.
Find registration information at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/computing-by-design-empowering-students-in-a-changing-world-tickets-18457594161.
Contact:
Debra Goldberg, Engaging Computer Science in Traditional Education (ECSITE)
debra@colorado.edu
Axel Reitzig, St. Vrain Valley School District, 303-775-1962
reitzig_axel@svvsd.org
Julie Poppen, CU-Boulder media relations, (O) 303-492-4007 (M) 720-503-4922
julie.poppen@colorado.edu
