December Programming Contest Results

Thank you to everyone that participated in, helped out with, or judged the programming competition!

This was our largest turnout to date with 15 schools bringing 43 total teams! Remember that the December contest is your practice for the April contest!!

Contest Winners:

Novice - 1st Place - Lakeside School - Alex Tong, Nat Mayer, Hannah Ruggiero

Novice  - 2nd Place - Garfield High School - Caitlin Rochlin, William Zhou, Lucy Spain

Novice - 3rd Place - Lakeside School - Nikhil Khanna, Aran Khanna

Advanced - 1st Place - Garfield High School - Lane Aasen, Eamon Gaffney, Dylan Swiggett

Advanced - 2nd Place - Garfield High School - Jenny Lin, Grant Bronsdon, Isabel Suhr

Advanced - 3rd Place - Issaquah High School - Jason Walker, Patrick Violette

The rest of the results can be found here.

Contest Problems, Student Data, Judges Data:  Available here

  

And a special thank you to our sponsors: Microsoft and HTC!

 

Microsoft Summer Internship Program for HS Students

Microsoft has announced its summer 2012 internship program for high school students:

Here at Microsoft, high school students just like you will work on cutting-edge technology that will make a real difference in people’s lives all over the world. As an intern, your insider’s look into high-tech professions may give you a little inspiration as you make plans for college. It’ll also give you a head start on building a good resume. You’ll receive a competitive hourly wage plus a bus pass and software discounts. Sure beats scooping ice cream.

It's a great opportunity for current junior or senior students. More info can be found here: Microsoft Summer Internship.

The deadline to apply is March 12, 2012.

And here is a flyer you can download and print out for your classroom: Internship Flyer.

Thanks to Kevin Wang for the info.

Share your Intro to CS course

(Edit: notes posted)

Greetings, all.

This Saturday is our November chapter meeting, back at the usual venue in the UW CSE building, from 1:00 - 3:00 (or so).

The topic this month is introductory courses in CS. We'd like to have a roundtable discussion of goals, topics, syllabi, and languages and systems that people have used for teaching introductory courses in CS.

We invite teachers to sign up for slots to do quick presentations of their courses, and then have some discussion among the group for each one. The idea is about 15-30 minutes for each course.

If you would like to present your course concept and share your experiences or get feedback, please reply or comment to this post or send an email to pscsta-planning@googlegroups.com and we'll organize the agenda.

Thanks!

.andy

Teacher Resources + Nov Meeting

Thanks to Hélène for facilitating Saturday's meeting and to everyone who ventured into the wilds of Fremont. Nice to see some new members joining in. (Hope your day was fun, Stuart: goo.gl/UC3xP !)

I just wanted to remind everyone that on the "Resources" page of this site, various members have provided links to their websites, which are chock full of useful information for all of us. If you have a site you would like added to this list, just send an email to csta.pugetsound at gmail.com and I'll update the list.

Our next meeting is on November 19, back at the UW. The topic is "Intro to CS courses." The idea was to have a round table discussion of what folks are doing in their introductory CS courses. I'll solicit volunteers to present closer to the date.

.andy

CS Pedagogy this Saturday

(Edit: meeting notes now posted)

This is just a reminder that our October meeting is this Saturday, from 1:00 to 3:00 (ok, maybe 4:00 if we want).

The topic is "CS Pedagogy," featuring a discussion of techniques and activities for the CS classroom. Hélène Martin will share some ideas for warmup activities, ball-parking, challenges, etc.

NOTE that we are NOT meeting at the UW this month, due to Husky Stadium Parking Madness. Instead we'll be convening very near the center of the universe, at the Fremont branch of the Seattle Public Library.

Details here: October Meeting.

Sept and Oct meetings

Just a quick note to those who missed the September meeting and were interested in the topic -- Cathy's minutes of the session are posted on the Meeting page.

And our October meeting will feature a discussion of CS pedagogy by Hélène Martin.

Note that we will NOT be meeting at the usual location (UW) that day, due to the Husky Stadium madness. Instead, we'll be convening very near the center of the universe, in the Fremont branch of the Seattle Public Library, quietly ensconced among trolls, rockets, Lenin, and also not far from Theo Chocolates.

NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing

Each year, NCWIT (National Center for Women & Information Technology) recognizes young women across the US for their interest and participation in computing. Last year, the national winner was one of Lauren Bricker's students from Lakeside! We also had several runner-ups from the Puget Sound area. Let's make sure our outstanding Puget Sound girls are recognized again this year!

The award application opens September 15th and will close October 31st. Please encourage your students to apply. The big new thing this year is that there will be a local competition for Washington state. This means that more students around the area will win great prizes including laptops, scholarships and cash.

To promote the award, NCWIT has provided a small poster you can print yourself and an information sheet. You can also request a full-size poster by mail here.

Sept Chapter Meeting, Sat, 9/17

Just a reminder to everyone that our first real chapter meeting of the year is this Saturday, Sept 17, from 1:00 -- 3:00 pm, in the usual place, the 6th Floor Atrium of the Paul Allen Center (CSE building) on the UW campus.

Two specific topics (plus the usual networking chats) are on the agenda:

• Stuart Reges: Issues for constructing quiz and test questions for CS courses.
• Crystal Hess: Discussion of programming contest plans.

Hope to see you all there. Details on the Meetings page.

.andy

2011-12 Meeting Schedule

Dear chapter members,

At our August meeting, we developed a plan for this year's chapter meetings. It promises to be another good year of CS discussions.

As last year, the meetings will be Saturdays, generally the 3rd one of the month, hosted by the UW CSE Department in the lovely 6th Floor Commons room of the Paul Allen Center.

You can find the schedule posted on the chapter website (www.pscsta.org) under the Meetings tab.

The summary version is below. BLUE items are student event days, rather than teacher meetings. (We've abandoned the idea of having teacher workshops in parallel with the student events.)

You can find a Google Calendar version also on the Meetings web page.

Hope to see everyone at the September and other meetings.

Thanks,

.andy

Sep 17, 2011: CS Assessments, Stuart Reges

Oct 15, 2011: CS Pedagogy, Hélène Martin

Nov 19, 2011: Intro to CS Courses, Andy Davidson

Dec 10, 2011: WINTER PROGRAMMING CONTEST, Crystal Hess

Jan 21, 2012: Robotics, Greg Kilpatrick

Feb 18, 2012: STEM Out!, Crystal Hess

Mar 17, 2012: Advanced CS Projects, Lauren Bricker

Apr 28, 2012: SPRING PROGRAMMING CONTEST, Crystal Hess

May 19, 2012: SIGCSE Review, Stuart Reges

Jun 16, 2012: Year-in-Review, All

Registration for ACSL International Contest About to Begin

I wanted to share something I received from the CSTA member listserv, for those that might not yet joined the CSTA. For a FREE membership to the CSTA, click here.

Greg Kilpatrick
#################################

This message is brought to you by the CSTA member listserv.

The American Computer Science League opens registration for this year's contest September 1st.

ACSL is An international computer science competition for grades 6-12 that is way more than just programming!!!

ACSL gives your school the opportunity to:
• Learn about really important computer science concepts
• Engage in creative algorithmic solutions to problems
• Compete against other schools from around the world
• Attend an Invitational All-Star Contest at a common site

There are four contests that are administered at each school monthly. Scores are cumulative. There are four divisions to choose from based upon student ability. Each contest consists of two parts:
• Short Problems – 5 questions on computer science topics that students must be taught before taking the test
• Programming Problem – creatively designed problems that students may solve using a language of their choice

Mention that you are a CSTA member and get a free Contest CD ($20) upon joining.

ACSL is also on approved activities list of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Jerry Tebrow
ACSL
amcompsci@cox.net
############################

Fall Kickoff Meeting: Sat, Aug 20

Greetings, everyone!

Hope you are all having a good summer.

Lauren gave me this analogy the other day: for a teacher, the summer is just a like a weekend. June is like Friday night. July is Saturday. August is Sunday. I'm sure none of you needs an explanation for that rhythm and the mental state that accompanies the trajectory of the weekend.

So, our first meeting of the 2011-12 academic year is this Saturday, August 20. As usual, it will be at 1:00 pm in the 6th floor conference room of the Paul Allen Center (CSE Building) on the UW's Seattle campus. Thanks as always to the CSE department for hosting and sponsoring us.

We have just one item on the schedule for this meeting -- to map out the schedule of meetings and topics for the coming year. The dates of our meetings are set; now we just need to decide what we'll do at each one.

We hope to see everyone Saturday for a good planning session. Bring your ideas, opinions, and desires for the CSTA sessions ahead. If you can't make it, but have any of those, feel free to post them to the group, or in the comments on this post on the blog, or email me.

In addition to content ideas, if you have opinions about the logistics, please let us know also. In particular, if you don't regularly come to the meetings but would like to, what would make you more likely to do so?

Thanks,

See you Saturday.

.andy

Job Opening - Computer Science Teacher

There is an opening at Newport High School in Bellevue, WA for a Career and Technical Education instructor to teach AP COMPUTER SCIENCE, COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY, WEB PUBLISHING and 3D ANIMATION. Check the job posting at https://employment.bsd405.org/JobPosting.aspx?JPID=3066. Let us know if you have questions about how to become a Career and Technical Education instructor. People who have worked in related fields are encourage to check out this opportunity.

Have a great summer!

We decided at the June meeting last week to stick to our existing schedule of monthly meetings. Minutes are posted on the Meetings page, thanks Cathy.

Our next meeting will be in August, where we will map out the schedule of meetings for the 2011-2012 academic year. Stay tuned for details.

Have a great summer, everyone!

June 18 Meeting: Beyond AP CS and beyond

Our last meeting of the year is this Saturday, June 18.

The main topic for the meeting is "Beyond AP CS," with thoughts and discussion about the kinds of topics and projects we can do after the AP exam and course.

We also will talk about the national chapter report that we have to file soon, as well as do some planning for our meeting schedule for next year.

Details are here, the usual -- 1:00 pm in the Paul Allen Center 6th Floor Commons Room: PSCSTA Meetings.

Hope to see you there.

.andy

May 21 Meeting - Show and Tell

Greetings, everyone.

Our next chapter meeting is Saturday, May 21.

For this meeting, we are inviting all members to bring a project, teaching idea, or interesting application of CS and share it with everyone. Possible topics might be robotics, games, mobile apps, etc.

If you would like to sign up for a 30 minute slot on the schedule, just go to PS CSTA Show and Tell - May 2011 and make an entry.

We look forward to seeing you.

Note that we are back to our normal schedule of 1:00 - 4:00 pm for this meeting, in the UW CSE's Paul Allen Center, 6th Floor Commons.

Details here: PS CSTA Meeting Info.

CS4HS workshop this summer at the UW

The University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering department is running a workshop this summer targeted at high school or middle school teachers of math, science and computer science, and we'd love to have you join us!

The workshop's goal is to give teachers the knowledge and resources to incorporate computational thinking elements into their regular curricula, while giving them the opportunity to earn two University of Washington credits or 20 clock hours from WSTA.

Specifically, the CS4HS workshop aims to:

• Let you earn either 20 clock hours OR 2 university credits.
• Expose you to exciting examples of computer science operating in close relationships with other disciplines.
• Teach you the basics of computational problem solving and give you the vocabulary to relate these concepts to your students and your own subject material.
• Give you hands-on experience with visual and physical programming environments (No programming experience necessary)
• Broaden your view of computer science and the way it is shaping Washington's communities and people--and those of the entire world.
• Explore opportunities for you to help broaden your students' interest in computer science and dispel myths about what computer science is and is not.

We would love to welcome you to the workshop August 10th-12th. More details can be found at: http://cs4hs.cs.washington.edu/ and below.

Thank you for your interest--if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Workshop detail:

• When:  August 10-12th, 2011 (Wednesday-Friday approximately 830am - 5pm)
• Where:  UW campus (Seattle)
• Cost:  $35 registration includes lunch for three days, light breakfast, reception, parking, housing for out of town participants,  clock hours or university credit
• Credit:  Two university credits granted by the University of Washington or 20 clock hours
• Who:  Teachers of high school and middle school math, science, or computer science classes.
• What:  Learn what the field of computer science has to offer and take home some ideas of how to incorporate computational thinking into your classes

Crystal Eney
Academic Advisor - Lead
Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington - Seattle
cs4hs@cs.washington.edu

April Programming Contest Results

First, thanks again so, so much to Amazon.com for being our official sponsor! Thanks to their support we were able to give away 10 gift cards ranging from $10-$50 as well as 4 kindles! Plus every participant got a tshirt and slap bracelet!

RESULTS OF THE CONTEST:

1st Place Overall: Garfield HS - Eamon Gaffney, Michael Rosenberger (programming in Python)
2nd Place Overall: Tahoma HS - Colin Wallace, Ashton Ohms (programming in Python)
3rd Place Overall: Garfield HS - Seth Vanderwilt, King Xia (programming in Python)

1st Place Novice: Garfield HS - Evan Barley-Greenfield, Nicky Kaman, Joel Jacobs (programming in Java)
2nd Place Novice: Kamiak HS - Tom Overton, Jarret Gaddy (programming in Java)
3rd Place Novice: Issaquah HS - Jeremy Tickman, Matthew Lam, Steven Yang (programming in Java)

At the contest, I accidentally announced 3rd Place Novice incorrectly :( I am very sorry about this mistake. Issaquah HS actually took 3rd Place scoring the same number of points as the Tahoma team I announced; however, Issaquah earned their points 15 mins faster than the Tahoma team.

Here are the detailed results for all teams

Links:
- Contest packets and data files
- Sample solutions [in python] [in java]

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to participate, judge, or support the contest. Hopefully we'll see you back next year for our December 2011 and April 2012 contests!

Programming Contest - April 16, 2011

April's programming contest is just around the corner! We are pleased to announce that Amazon.com will be sponsoring this contest!!

Amazon's sponsorship will include an Amazon speaker before the contest, a t-shirt for each participant, and kindles and gift cards for the raffle. Cost for this contest is the same as before ($30/team) and students will still be provided with donuts/juice for breakfast (sponsored by UW), pizza/snacks/drinks for lunch, and medals for the top three teams in both the novice and overall divisions. WHAT A STEAL!

• Registration will be open until April 8th (deadline for payment as well)



• You can use December's contest as practice problems, but note that April's contest will not have a division in novice and advanced problems. Both divisions will receive the same problem packets

site updates

Cleaning up some backlogged work on our site, I updated the Resources page with links to websites of some members who have recently shared this information. I also posted some minutes of recent meetings on the Meetings page.

Thanks to Cathy for all for that info!

Next Meeting: Sat, April 16 -- Arduino/Processing

Greetings, all.

In addition to the Spring Programming Contest that Crystal Hess is organizing on the date of our April meeting (Saturday, the 16th), we are scheduled to have a workshop, by me, on Arduino and Processing.

If you're not familiar with Arduino, it is an open-source hardware/software platform (a small, inexpensive micro-controller) for prototyping electronics projects. Processing is a related open-source software environment for teaching computing and making interactive graphics, art, and much more.

For this workshop, I would like to get RSVPs to gauge both interest and intention to attend and participate. I'll have to round up enough hardware and other assorted electronics parts and sensors for everyone to have a hands-on experience.

So please send me an email or leave a comment on this PSCSTA.org blog post if you intend to be there.

Also, if you are interested in OSPI clock hours for the workshop (3 hours), please let me. I won't bother doing the registration paperwork if no one needs it.

Many thanks.

.andy
ad _at_ goldensection -dot- cc

Next Meeting: Sat, Mar 19 -- Functional Programming

Greetings everyone.

This is a reminder that our next chapter meeting will be this coming Saturday, March 19, at the usual time and place (1:00 - 4:00 pm at the UW Paul Allen Center).

At this meeting, Mark Engleberg will discuss functional programming. He's going to be talking about the award-winning "Program by Design" curriculum.

Mark will discuss the specifics of how he implements the curriculum using the DrRacket IDE and the graphics and animation teachpacks. He will describe functional programming, and make a case for teaching functional programming first with beginning students.

But more importantly, Mark will explain the philosophical principles that underlie the curriculum. Even if you have no interest in teaching Racket or teaching functional programming, his goal is to change the way you think about teaching computer science, and leave you with concrete ideas that you can incorporate into your existing curriculum to achieve better results with your students.

Hope to see everyone there.

See this page for the full schedule of chapter meetings.

STEM Out! and Scratch Workshop this Saturday

Greetings all.

This is just a reminder that our February meeting is this Saturday, February 12. There are two events scheduled:

• STEM Out! Girl's Event: Crystal Hess has organized a day just for girls to hear stories from women in STEM careers, participate in hands-on activities, network with women peers and mentors, and have fun!
• Scratch Programming Workshop: Lauren Bricker is giving a workshop for teachers on the fundamentals of the Scratch visual programming environment.

The STEM Out! event goes from 9:30 to 2:30 in the UW Paul Allen Center Atrium and is free, including lunch. Registration is still open, so if you have young women students who might be interested, please encourage them to come!

Lauren's workshop, also free, is from 10:30 to 1:30, so teachers attending can still hang with their students. It is in the 6th Floor Commons Room of the Allen Center. We had been planning to offer 3 OSPI clock hours for this, but due to a planning error (OK, I messed up on the paperwork deadline), this will likely not happen in time. If you do want the clock hours, you could bring a check for $10, on the off chance a bureaucratic miracle occurs. Extreme apologies for this.

For the Scratch workshop, please bring a laptop with Scratch installed on it. We won't be in a computer lab for this session. You can get Scratch here: Scratch download.

Thanks. See you Saturday.

PS CSTA Meeting - Saturday, January 15

Just a reminder that the Puget Sound Computer Science Teachers Assocation will be holding its January meeting this Saturday. Parking is free on campus after Noon (including the garage) unless a Husky event is going on. Please check our web site for more details and our meeting schedule: http://www.pscsta.org.

Meeting Details

• Topic: Computer Science Pedagogy, Stuart Reges
  Review of recent papers and theories in CS pedagogy
• Date: Saturday, January 15, 2011
• Time: 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
• Place: UW Seattle Campus, Paul Allen Center for CSE, Sixth Floor Commons Room

STEM Out! Girls' Event

Information about the upcoming STEM Out! (previously "Girl's Puzzlehunt") event is now up, as well as registration. Please pass on the word! We'd like to see even more girls get involved than last year.

Information/Registration page can be found here.