Next Meeting, Sat 11/15: User Centered Design: Mini Hack-a-thon

• Topic: User Centered Design: Mini Hack-a-thon 
• Date: Saturday, November 15th, 2014, 10 am - 12 noon 
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE, room 691 (Directions & Parking)

Every wonder what it's like to participate in a Hack-A-Thon? Join us for a whirl wind 2 hour experience during November's PSCSTA meeting where we will host a speed dating version of a Hack-A-Thon.  Bring your laptop, your creative coder hats and an open mind, and maybe an idea or two (don't worry if you're stuck, we'll have a few ideas for you as well). We'll provide mobile devices and instruction on low-fidelity prototyping and rapid development for mobile devices using MIT's App Inventor. 

Bring your own computer and if you have an Android Device, bring that too.  All you will need is a Google Account to use App Inventor.

Parking is provided free of charge.  If you do not receive parking details, please e-mail outreach@cs.washington.edu.

Next Meeting, Sat 10/18: Computer Science Ed Week Events and Preparation

• Topic: CS Ed Week Events and Preparation
• Date: Saturday, Octover 18th, 2014, 10 am - 12 noon, followed by socializing and networking noon - 1pm.
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE, room 691 (Directions & Parking)

What do you have planned for Computer Education Week, December 8 - 14th?  Learn about activities and events to increase interest and knowledge in computer science for your students and entire school.  We will have members present what has worked well in the past and their latest plans for this year, including how to get your Math and Science teachers more involved with opportunities like the Hour of Code.  Our round table discussion will be facilitated by Alec McTavish and will draw on the insightful experience of our members. 

+ We will also have a check in on the latest details for the December Programming Contest (Dec 13th) as part of these activities.  And we will hold elections for our officers. Hope to see you there!

Meeting Notes Here

Parking is provided free of charge.  If you do not receive parking details, please e-mail outreach@cs.washington.edu. 

Next meeting Sat, 9/27: Hacking and Security in CS Teaching

• Topic: Hacking and Security in CS Teaching
• Date: Saturday, September 27th, 2014, 10 am - 12 noon 
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE, room 691 (Directions & Parking)

Rarely a week goes by without a security-related topic appearing in the news headlines. Whether it be viruses, worms, identity theft, phishing, or hacking, security is often on the minds of computing professionals and everyday users. In computer science classes, we can introduce the basic principles and practices of computer security and even use security issues and hacking activities to draw students into computer science. Ken Hang from Green River Community College will share two high school level security/hacking competitions designed to inspire students, Cyberpatriot and PicoCTF. The University of Washington security group will share hands-on security activities that can be done even without computers!
      Notes:
           - Ken's Computer Security Education Presentation: PPTX / PDF

Parking is provided free of charge.  If you did not receive parking details, please e-mail outreach@cs.washington.edu.

Next meeting Sat, 6/21: End of Year Wrap Up & Social

Edit: notes posted

• Topic: End of Year Wrap Up & Social
• Date: Saturday, June 21, 2014, 10 am - 12 noon 
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE, room 691 (Directions & Parking)

Join us to celebrate the completion of another school year and to discuss opportunities and plans for the summer!  We will also put together a preliminary meeting schedule for 2014-2015 and hold annual officer elections - you need not be present to be elected ;-)

Parking is provided free of charge.  If you did not receive parking details, please e-mail outreach@cs.washington.edu.

Next PSCSTA Meeting Sat, 5/17: State of CS Education

Edit: notes posted

• Topic: State of CS Education hosted by Stuart Reges
• Date: Saturday, May 17, 2014, 10 am - 12 noon followed by socializing and networking 12 − 1 pm
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE, room 691 (Directions & Parking)

In this session, we will discuss important trends in CS education including MOOCs, cloud computing and the proposed AP CS Principles course.  We will learn about the topics discussed at recent conferences including SIGCSE.

Two clock hours will be provided for the workshop portion.  Parking is provided free of charge.  If you did not receive parking details, please e-mail outreach@cs.washington.edu.

Spring 2014 Programming Contest Report

We had about 145 students in 50 teams representing 22 schools join us Saturday for our programming contest hosted and sponsored by the Living Computer Museum!   We had 5 schools registered with 5 Teams each: Cleveland, Garfield, Interlake, Kamiak & Tahoma High Schools and 4 Teams from Roosevelt HS.  Thank you to all the teachers who helped promote and coordinate students for our event.  The contest was exciting and close with only 15 points and 16 minutes separating our 3rd and 4th place Novice and Advanced teams, respectively.

Congratulations to all of our participants!  Here are our top winners:

• Advanced 1st: William, Rowan & Nathan of Garfield HS''s team Dawgbotics
• Advanced 2nd: Cillian & Emma of Roosevelt HS's team '); DROP TABLE TeamNames;--
• Advanced 3rd: Tianyi Cao of Hazen HS team 21st

Advanced 1st

Advanced 2nd

Advanced 3rd

• Novice 1st: Devan, Danny & Evan of Kamiak HS team Helm's Deep
• Novice 2nd: Jason, Novin, & Mark of Meadowvale HS's "Most Significant Team"
• Novice 3rd: Parker, Sudharsan, & Arjun Narayan of Skyline HS' team Megatron

Novice 1st

Novice 2nd

Novice 3rd

Having the contest at the Living Computer Museum was real treat, allowing students to check out working computers from the past 50 years.  The LCM made accommodations for our teams well and generously provided great snacks, pizza lunch, T-Shirts & Sweatshirts, plus incredible raffle prizes (including an X-Box One) for our students - much thanks to their staff, coordinated by Justin Spielman.

Special thanks to our precision volunteer judges from local computer companies, fearlessly led by Ebe Janchivdorj, and our incredible speaker, Maya Cakmak of UW’s Human-Robot Interaction department. Key members of the PSCSTA made the contest possible: Lauren Bricker coordinating team registration, Brett Wortzman assembling the contest questions & judges, Andy Davidson as our photographer & arranging our speaker, Susan Evans helping with set up, recycling, redesigning our PSCSTA website, plus several members helping out during the day.  All of these contributions were invaluable to making this event a huge success.  Again thank you all so much.

Please share results and pictures with your students!
- Contest Results PDF
- Photos! (on Flickr, by Andrew Davidson)
- Contest Problems & Data: Spring 2014 Contest Problems.zip

FYI: Part 2 of the Paul Allen Computing Challenge notices have been sent out to individual teams and their teachers.

Cheers,
Earl Bergquist
PSCSTA Vice President & Spring Contest Coordinator

Programming Contest Registration Opens Monday March 24th at 9:15am.

Registration will open Monday, March 24th at 9:15am for our April 26th Programming Contest.

We are planning for 50 teams this Spring, so only the first 50 registered teams will be guaranteed attendance, we will do our best to allow additional teams attend: any thereafter will be notified and placed on a wait list in case the first teams have not paid by Tuesday, April 8th - after that wait list teams will be invited accordingly.  

Mark your calendar and prepare your students for registration, which now asks for T-Shirt size this year.  There will also be a required CSTA permission slip this year for all students with emergency contact information.  Cost is still $30 per team, and a number of need-based scholarships are available.  We are excited to have the contest hosted at the Living Computer Museum this Spring.  The latest details and the registration link will appear on our Programming Contest tab .

Last Saturday's Meeting Notes:

For those who attended or are interested in notes from last Saturday's App Inventor presentation, I have updated a few of the samples and resources, but the links remain the same:

- App Inventor 2.0 Tutorials & Resources

- The Youth Apps Challenge and here's my webpage of details.

- House Apps Challenge (see your local representative's website for your specific details) 

Thanks to all who attended, good questions and discussions, next time I will schedule 6 hours to present more.

Next PSCSTA Meeting Sat, 3/15: App Inventor

• Topic: App Inventor hosted by Earl Bergquist
• Date: Saturday, March 15, 2014, 10 am - 12 noon followed by socializing and networking 12 − 1 pm (final details on our Spring Programming Contest will be discussed)
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE, room 006 - downstairs labs where we previously did Scratch lab (Directions & Parking)

Everyone is building Apps, and they really appeals to our students.  MIT's App Inventor is a visual programming language for developing applications for devices that run the Android operating system.  In this workshop, Earl will lead us through several hands-on activities that show the power of App Inventor, provide us with ideas on how to incorporate App building into our courses, and present the local App Contest opportunities for our students.  Karen Manual from the Technology Alliance will be present to reveal the latest on their Student App Challenge.

Bring your laptop if you like or use the UW computers - App Inventor runs in the Browser, so there is no software to install; you only need a Google account.  There will be Android Tablets available to test your project or if you have an Android device of your own, simply install the "MIT AI2 Companion" from the Google Play Store ( complete instructions ).  

If you want a preview, here's Earl's App Inventor Pages:
- App Inventor 2.0 Tutorials & Resources
- Garfield HS's Summer Apps Class pages (trial of Apps for Good)
- App Inventor 1 Instructions (now outdated, but project ideas are good)

STEM Out! 2014, Feb 8 from 9:45am-2:30pm

PSCSTA is hosting the 5th annual STEM Out! Girl's Event on Saturday, February 8, 2014 from 9:45am-2:30pm, sponsored and led by Amazon.com's Women in Engineering.

This event is to encourage girls from grades 7-12 to explore Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math careers! It's a FREE event and more information/registration can be found here:

pscsta.org/p/stem-out.html

Please help us spread the word and encourage your girls to participate!!

Download a PDF flyer by clicking: Stem Out 2014 Flyer.

Next meeting: Sat, 1/11 : APCS A Labs

Lab materials

• Topic: APCS A Labs hosted by Hélène Martin
• Date: Saturday, January 11, 2014, 10 am - 12 noon followed by socializing and networking 12 − 1 pm
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE, room 203 (Directions & Parking)

Starting in the 2014-2015 school year, AP CS A will no longer include a case study such as Gridworld.  Instead, teachers will be responsible for including a significant lab component in their courses but students will not be tested on their knowledge of specific pieces of code.  The College Board is in the process of developing three sample labs.

Join us to discuss the implications of the lab requirement, to look over the provided samples and to try some of the suggested exercises for yourself.

We will be meeting in room 203 on the 2nd floor.

Two clock hours will be provided for the workshop portion.

Paul Allen Computing Challenge

Kate Starbird, a professor in the UW Human Centered Design and Engineering department, gave a terrific keynote on "data science" at last Saturday's contest.  At the end of her talk, she announced the Paul Allen Computing Challenge.  This exciting challenge will act as a bridge between our December and April contests.  Students will analyze real Twitter data related to Cyclone Phailin which hit India in mid-October 2013.  Participants who complete the challenge will receive great prizes including a Kindle pre-loaded with Paul Allen’s Memoir Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft.

Please post this flyer in your classrooms and encourage your students to participate!

We encourage students to involve their friends who are not currently taking CS courses -- most of the challenges in Part 1 of the challenge can be completed with Excel or other non-programming tools.

Contest information and registration details can be found here.  The PACC is organized by a team of local groups that work with data science led by the Living Computer Museum and the PSCSTA.  Questions?  E-mail Justin Spielmann, Living Computer Museum Education Coordinator at justinS@ livingcomputermuseum.org

December 2013 Contest Results

246 students in 91 teams representing 24 schools joined us on Saturday, December 14th for a programming competition jointly hosted with UW CSE's DawgBytes program!  The event was generously sponsored by Microsoft.

Dozens of teachers and industry volunteers made this event possible.  All of your contributions were invaluable to making this event a success.  Thank you!

Congratulations to all of our participants!  Please share the results and pictures with your students.

Top represented schools were Kamiak and Issaquah with 11 teams each.

Download the contest materials zip file for the contest packet and sample data.

December 14th Programming Contest Registration Open

Registration is now open for the December 14th programming contest!  See the programming contests page for the registration form and more details.

The event, generously sponsored by TEALS and Microsoft, will take place at the University of Washington Paul Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering.  Check-in starts at 8:30am and the award ceremony will finish at around 2:30pm.  Students will solve programming problems in teams of 3 using the programming language of their choice.  They will also hear a brief talk by UW professor Kate Starbird.

The registration cost is $30 which includes lunch and snacks.  Need-based scholarships are available.

Registration closes when we reach 85 teams or on 12/9, whichever comes first.

Flyer

Next PSCSTA Meeting Sat, 11/16: Nifty Lessons

• Topic: Nifty Lessons hosted by Greg Kilpatrick
• Date: Saturday, November 16, 2013, 10 am - 12 n followed by socializing and networking 12 − 1 pm
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE  (Directions & Parking)

Resources/Notes:

• Create an animal logic puzzle program (Mark E’s idea) - http://mamialmo.com/AnimaLogic/Animalogic.htm
• Animalogic Rules
• Cryptography (from Mark: http://www.amazon.com/The-Cryptoclub-Using-Mathematics-Secret/dp/156881223X, andhttp://www.cryptoclub.org/)
• Fibbonacci flowers (http://www.susanrevans.com/blog/2012/01/16/, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0, http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/2277214)
• Handouts (.ZIP)

This month’s meeting is about Nifty Lessons — lessons that you think teach a CS or CS-related concept and actively engage students.  WE NEED YOU to make this session a success.  We are looking for volunteers to share a nifty lesson.  Some topic suggestions are:

• A cool Java program you build with the class in an AP-type course (examples: ball falling or roulette programs from CSE 142 or using Facebook API in 143)
• A CS Unplugged mini-lesson (it could be straight from CS Unplugged -- seeing it done is different from reading about it!)
• Something on an advanced topic like software engineering or HCI (design exercise)
• Something from a CS Principles type of course
• A fun activity that's peripherally related to CS (puzzles, ballparking, rubic's cubes)

Two clock hours will be provided for the workshop portion.

Contact Greg Kilpatrick if you are interested in sharing something nifty! 

Next meeting: Sat, 10/19 : Physical Computing Lab

Edit: workshop notes and resources posted.

Next PSCSTA Meeting: 

• Topic: Physical Computing Lab with Arduino hosted by Andy Davidson
• Date: Saturday, October 19, 2013
  10 am - 12 n followed by socializing and networking 12 − 1 pm
• Place: UW, Sieg Hall, Room 233 (Map)

This month’s meeting is about physical computing — the blending of computer software and electronics hardware to create interactive systems. We’ll explore the Arduino platform, a small, open-source, inexpensive but powerful micro-controller that is used by artists, designers, engineers, hobbyists, and students for prototyping many different kinds of interactive systems and environments.

No prior electronics experience is necessary, and novice as well as expert programmers should find something fun and interesting. In a hands-on session, you’ll learn to create basic Arduino applications and see how it might be used in K-12 environments. I’ll have some beginner as well as advanced projects to work on.

PLEASE RSVP: If you intend to participate, please RSVP to adavid7@uw.edu. Since this workshop involves hardware, I want to make sure I have enough systems for everyone. Please bring your own laptop to use and (if you have time) download and install the Arduino software on it before the workshop (it’s free!).

LOCATION: Note that we are NOT meeting in the usual location this month, but will be in Sieg Hall, which is very close to the CSE building.

Two clock hours will be provided for the workshop portion.

NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing

As many of you know, the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing honors young women who are active and interested in computing and encourages them to pursue their passions. Award recipients receive cool prizes as well as access to scholarships, internships, and a community of like-minded, technical young women. Girls with all levels of experience are encouraged to apply: the award recognizes aspirations as well as accomplishments!

Educators who endorse their student's applications are eligible to win the NCWIT Educator Award (Paul Osborne and Sam Procopio are past winners in Washington). Educator Award winners receive up to $1000 toward professional development. This year, educators also will be entered into a drawing for each student they endorse. The more students you encourage to apply, the more likely you are to win a laptop or tablet!

The award application at http://ncwit.org/awardWA/ is now open and will close October 31st. Please encourage girls you know to apply and pass on this message to parent newsletters, teachers and other groups who work with girls.

You can use this flyer and small poster to advertise.

Here are a few reasons you should encourage girls to apply:
- the application process gets girls thinking about the role of computing in their futures
- schools and school boards pay attention to courses that result in students getting awards
- the prizes are substantial
- 20 girls will be recognized in Washington state so there are a lot of awards to go around
- nominators become eligible for the educator award
- UW CSE will be hosting the award ceremony again and we'll use the opportunity to expose winners to more cool computer science

9/21: September meeting - Scratch 2.0

Edit: workshop notes and resources posted

Next PSCSTA Meeting:

• Topic: Scratch 2.0 hosted by Hélène Martin
• Date: Saturday, September 21st, 2013
  10am - noon followed by socializing and networking noon - 1pm
• Place: UW, Paul Allen Center for CSE  (Directions & Parking)

Scratch 2.0 offers several valuable improvements over prior versions.  Join us to learn about making programs more interactive with video and sound and to see how building new blocks can help students learn about abstraction.  Prior experience with Scratch is not required.  If you are an experienced Scratch teacher, please bring some assignment ideas to share with the group!  Teachers of all disciplines are invited -- bring your colleagues!

Two clock hours will be provided for the workshop portion.

This is a football game day so there may be extra traffic on campus.  Parking is provided free of charge by UW.  Please e-mail us if you did not receive parking instructions through the PSCSTA mailing list.

Upcoming events:

• NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing registration opens 9/18 and closes 10/31.  Encourage all tech-savvy high school girls you know to apply.
• Counselors for Computing on Friday October 11th 8:30am - 3pm.  Details and registration here.

10/11 at UW: Counselors for Computing

What: A conference for middle and high school counselors about computing.
When: Friday, October 11th 8:30am - 3pm
Where: UW Paul Allen Center for CSE
Why: More and more students are interested in computing and this is a great opportunity for counselors to learn how to guide them.
Registration

Please, please share this letter to counselors and this letter to administrators in your school or with your kids' schools!

Dear PSCSTA Members:

Greetings from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). I manage the Counselors for Computing program, which brings professional development to counselors in places where changes in CS education have implications for guidance. We are presenting a program at UW in conjunction with the UW Computer Science and Engineering department and the Washington School Counselor Association on October 11, 2013 and would appreciate your help in getting get the word out to counselors in your school.

In addition, if you as a CS teacher feel moved to speak to counselors (or if you can recommend someone else), let me know and we'll send an invitation along.

Regards,

Jane Krauss
NCWIT Counselors for Computing
jane.krauss@ncwit.org
www.ncwit.org

2013-2014 calendar posted

Our meeting schedule for the year is now live!  We have an exciting series of hands-on workshops, fun discussions and students events lined up.

Meetings will continue to be held from 10am to noon on Saturdays in the 6th floor Commons of the Paul Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering.  Socializing and networking will occur noon to 1pm.

Clock hours will be provided for the workshop portion!

Our first meeting is coming up on September 21st.  We will send out another reminder as well as parking instructions next week.

The detailed schedule is posted at http://www.pscsta.org/p/meetings.html.

Here is a preview of meeting dates and topics covered (blue events are for students):
Sep 21, 2013 Scratch 2.0
Oct 19, 2013 Physical Computing Lab
Nov 16, 2013 Nifty Lessons
Dec 14, 2013 WINTER PROGRAMMING CONTEST 
Jan 11, 2014 AP CS Labs
Feb  8, 2014 STEM OUT!
Mar 15, 2014 AppInventor Lab
Apr ??, 2014 SPRING PROGRAMMING CONTEST 
May 17, 2014 State of CS Education
Jun 21, 2014 End of Year Wrap Up & Social  

We will discuss the date of the April contest during our September meeting.  Thanks to all of you who have provided feedback through the member survey.

We encourage you to add the PSCSTA meeting calendar to your own calendar by following the instructions at http://www.pscsta.org/p/meetings.html#add_calendar

Online Practice Problem Resources

The following list of online resources for student practice problems have been added to the PSCSTA.org Resources page.  I was aware of Coding.bat and PracticeIT, but found Programr.com today and thought I would make sure these were shared with all.

• http://www.programmr.com/ (Java, C#, C++, Android, Python, Processing, HTML, and many others)
• http://practiceit.cs.washington.edu/index.jsp (Java)
• http://codingbat.com/ (Java and Python)

If you are aware of other such resources, please share and I will update our listing.

Greg Kilpatrick