CS4HS@Sydney

CS4HS@Sydney

Professor David Lowe

Associate Dean (Education) / Professor of Software Eng.Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies

The University of Sydney

CS4HS

Welcome!

› “CS4HS is an initiative sponsored by Google to promote Computer Science and Computational Thinking in high school and middle school curriculum … These workshops incorporate informational talks by industry leaders, and discussions on new and emerging CS curricula at the high school and middle school level.”

- http://www.cs4hs.com/

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CS4HS

› We have:

- Australian UG students enrolled in ICT degrees – declined by 50% over the last decade.

- ICT is one of the bottom two general discipline areas with respect to attracting high achieving school leavers (ATAR > 90) into tertiary study.

- ICT is one of the top two discipline areas with respect to admitting low achieving students (ATAR < 50) into tertiary study.

- Less than 50 per cent of ICT professionals possess a degree level qualification in ICT.

› And yet:

- Australia’s digital economy is valued at over $100 billion

- The ICT industry and profession contributes almost 8 per cent of GDP.

- http://www.acs.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/9302/ACARA-Draft-Shape-of-the-Australian-Curriculum_Technologies_June-2012.pdf

Why is CS / SE / IS / ICT Education Important?

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CS4HS

› Education

- Teacher development:e.g. UK “Teach First” program: Google sponsorship of outstanding ICT graduates to become teachers.

- Curriculum renewal:e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929

- Student motivation:e.g. Raspberry Pi?

- http://acce.edu.au/ict-and-australian-curriculum

- http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/ICT%20and%20CS%20joint%20statement.pdf

What do we do about it?

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CS4HS

Thursday

Visual Programming / Context Free GrammarsInformation Visualization and Winner- take all algorithmNCSS Challenge & Programming in PythonTeaching IT Concepts Through Web ProgrammingComputers are Dumb, People are CreativePhysics and Maths in Programming?Careers Panel

Friday

Computation in the data stream modelMulticore programmingMotif FindingLab Demos: Robots / Tabletops / BiomedSurveyLightning talksWrap-up

Agenda

Online EducationThreat or Opportunity

CEO, The Labshare InstitutePresident, Global Online Laboratory Consortium

General Chair, REV2013 Conference

Professor David Lowe

Associate Dean (Education) / Professor of Software Eng.Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies

The University of Sydney

Are we using technology effectively?

c1350 class(Laurentius de Voltolina)

c2010 class

Education vs Learning

From OED Online…

› Education:

- culture or development of personal knowledge or understanding, growth of character, moral and social qualities, etc., as contrasted with the imparting of knowledge or skill.

- The systematic instruction, teaching, or training in various academic and non-academic subjects given to or received by a child, typically at a school; the course of scholastic instruction a person receives in his or her lifetime. Also: instruction or training given to or received by an adult

› Learning

- The action of receiving instruction or acquiring knowledge; spec. in Psychol., a process which leads to the modification of behaviour or the acquisition of new abilities or responses, and which is additional to natural development by growth or maturation;

- Knowledge, esp. of language or literary or historical science, acquired by systematic study;

What is the difference between e-Learning and online Education?

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Online Education

› Significant area of research

- Loss of analytical skills ?

- Loss of synthesis skills?

- Gain in knowledge integration skills?

- Enhancement in broad knowledge frameworks?

- …

› But where to from here?

Is education changing? Is learning changing?

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Online learning

› Will it affect us? › How will it affect us?

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Horizon report

› Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less

Cloud ComputingCollaborative EnvironmentsMobile AppsSocial Networking

› Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years

Augmented RealityLearning AnalyticsMassively Open Online CoursesPersonal Learning Environments

› Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years

Collective IntelligenceInternet of ThingsNatural User InterfacesWearable Technology

- http://www.nmc.org/publications

Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017

Technology and Labs

For the things we have to learn before we cando them, we learn by doing them: Aristotle

Tell me and I'll forget; Show me and I may remember;Involve me and I'll understand: Chinese Proverb

Secondary school science labs:Constrained access; limited relevance; lack of integration

with learning technologies (Goodrum, Hackling, Rennie. 2001)

Lost Learning Opportunities!

But why Labs (rather than, say, simulations)?They are expensive, cumbersome, inflexible, difficult to evolve, disconnected from reality,

time-consuming, …

Is our lab pedagogy evolving?

c1900 LaboratoryCavendish laboratory

http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/museum/area8/display1.htm

c2010 LaboratoryTypical undergraduate facilities

Example labs

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Remote Labs + New opportunities

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MOOCs

- “A massive open online course (MOOC) is a category of online course where the participants are distributed and course materials also are dispersed across the web. … MOOCs are open and one of their main features has been the level of connection and collaboration by participants online. … They allow for a single teacher to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students. …”

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

› 2011:

- Several course offerings by Stanford University.Artificial Intelligence 160,000 enrolmentsMachine learning 104,000 enrolments

› 2012:

- Coursera: 33+ Universities, 200+ courses, 1.3million students!

- EdX: MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, $90M

- Udacity

Massive Online Open Courses

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MOOCs

› “will only be 10 universities left in the world”: Thrunhttp

://nation.time.com/2012/09/04/mooc-brigade-will-massive-open-online-courses-revolutionize-higher-education/#ixzz27KpW498m

› Enormous repository of rich content!Flexibility, but…

› Content is not learning!

› We still need support (teaching?)

› We still need structure (curriculum?)

- How do we weave these together?

› Blended learning?

Implications

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Thank You