Keynote Address: "Creating Computing Education For Everyone," Mark Guzdial. (11.18.23)

Abstract: The term “computer science” was invented to describe something that should be taught to everyone in order to facilitate learning in other subjects and to reduce the dangers from having a powerful new technology controlled by only a few. Computing education has not become the democratizing and universally empowering force imagined in the 1960’s. Today, computer science has a narrow definition and is mostly about getting a high-paying technology job. If we want to reach the original and more general goal, we have to change how we teach computing and support alternative end-points for computing education. In this talk, I review the history of “computer science” and its earlier purpose. I describe and demonstrate new kinds of languages, courses, and ways of teaching that broaden accessibility to computing education. The goal is for everyone to be able to understand, use, and critique the digital and computational systems that affect their lives.

More about the Koli conference and the award here.

 

Session Presentation: "Identifying the Computing Education Needs of Liberal Arts and Science Students" August Evrard and Mark Guzdial (11.17.23)

Abstract: As a field, computing’s deepest roots lie in liberal arts domains such as philosophy and linguistics. As new technologies rapidly expanded the field, the computer science curricula emerged. The current undergraduate areas of study, including computer science and software engineering, focus on preparing students for careers in the computing industry or academia. The “born digital” students of a modern liberal arts institution need a different, less technology-heavy, form of computing education to support their careers as future scientists, artists, or humanists. At our large, research-focused, US university, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) charged a task force with defining the computing education needs for their students, chaired by the authors. We describe our process, findings and outcomes here with the aim of offering a reference template to faculty at universities that have experienced a similar growth to prominence of computer science in the undergraduate curriculum. The task force identified emergent themes of discovery, expression, and justice that we using to establish a new program, the Program for Computing in the Arts and Sciences (PCAS). Our themes and process may help other liberal arts and sciences programs organize the computing education needs in supportof all their undergraduate students.

An Award Winning Discussion!!

August Evrard and Mark Guzdial earned the Best Discussion Award for their engaging presentation on the foundational work of the Computing Education Task Force and later establishment of the Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences (PCAS) and its two minors: Computing for Expression and Computing for Scientific Discovery.