Removing the Walls Around Visual Educational Programming Environments

Broll, Brian; Lédeczi, Ákos; Stein, Gordon; Jean, Devin; Brady, Conor; Grover, Shuchi; Cateté, Veronica; Barnes, Tiffany

doi:10.1109/vl/hcc51201.2021.9576399

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…This includes both the use of first-class, heterogeneous lists as the only structured data type and functional programming concepts such as custom block types and closures as first-class types. NetsBlox in turn adds an additional set of computer science concepts on top of Snap!, providing distributed computing features such as message passing and remote procedure calls, along with access to external web services (Broll et al, 2021).…”

Section: Netsbloxmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While students have now largely returned to in-person instruction, demand for distance education tools remains and is expected to continue (Siegel et al, 2021). This need to integrate the web in the modality of CS learning actually presents an opportunity to bring to the foreground internet-connected and distributed computing systems in the content of CS Education (Broll et al, 2021). As the number of Internet of Things devices continues to grow, students are expected to be equipped with relevant knowledge in computer science, distributed computing, and other related topics (Abichandani et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Browser-based simulation for novice-friendly classroom robotics

Stein

Jean

Brady

et al. 2023

Front. Comput. Sci.

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Robots are a popular and engaging educational tool for teaching computational thinking, but they often have significant costs and limitations for classroom use. Switching to a simulated environment can eliminate many of these difficulties. By also providing students with a block-based programming environment, the barrier to entry can be further reduced. This paper presents a networked virtual robotics platform designed to create an environment which is highly accessible for novice students and their teachers alike, along with components of a curriculum designed to teach computational thinking skills through robotics programming challenges, including autonomous challenges and in-class competitions. Students access this platform through an extension of the same web interface used for programming their robots, which allows students to collaborate on code and view a shared simulated virtual space. Previously, this virtual robotics platform was used only to facilitate distance education. This paper demonstrates its use in an in-person class during the Spring 2022 semester, illustrating the affordances of a virtual robotics environment for face-to-face learning contexts as well. Students' computational thinking skills were evaluated with assessments both before and after the class, along with surveys and interviews given to determine their opinions and outlooks regarding computer science. The results show that students had a significant improvement in both attitudes and aptitudes.

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Section: Netsbloxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Browser-based simulation for novice-friendly classroom robotics

Stein

Jean

Brady

et al. 2023

Front. Comput. Sci.

Self Cite

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“…Connecting real world experiences that make an impact with diverse female experts for support and inspiration can provide girls with authentic STEM opportunities that promote sustained engagement (Chapman and Vivian 2017). Some existing advanced topic curricula, following this goal of engaging young women in the field of computer science, are based on the subjects of Distributed Computing and the Internet of Things (Grover et al 2020), (Broll et al 2021). For our curriculum framework, we wanted to implement an AI and ML module with the same goal.…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper details the design and initial testing process of our artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) module of the CS Frontiers (CSF) curriculum. The CSF project focuses on curriculum development of a new high school course designed to introduce students who have completed the U.S. College Board's Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles course to cutting-edge computing technologies and applications (Broll et al 2021). Due to the decreasing trend of female students showing interest in the field of computer science over the last several decades, the CSF curriculum focuses on engaging female students (Seneviratne 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Socially Relevant Focused AI Curriculum Designed for Female High School Students

Alvarez

Gransbury

Cateté

et al. 2022

AAAI

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Historically, female students have shown low interest in the field of computer science. Previous computer science curricula have failed to address the lack of female-centered computer science activities, such as socially relevant and real-life applications. Our new summer camp curriculum introduces the topics of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and other real-world subjects to engage high school girls in computing by connecting lessons to relevant and cutting edge technologies. Topics range from social media bots, sentiment of natural language in different media, and the role of AI in criminal justice, and focus on programming activities in the NetsBlox and Python programming languages. Summer camp teachers were prepared in a week-long pedagogy and peer-teaching centered professional development program where they concurrently learned and practiced teaching the curriculum to one another. Then, pairs of teachers led students in learning through hands-on AI and ML activities in a half-day, two-week summer camp. In this paper, we discuss the curriculum development and implementation, as well as survey feedback from both teachers and students.

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“…After previously piloting three innovative computer science modules developed specifically for high school audiences, we drew from our prior findings to develop and implement the fourth module, Software Engineering (SE) [1] [2]. For our module design framework, we used project-based learning and expansive framing in order to situate software engineering in a meaningful context for the desired audience [3] [4] [5] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Board 243: CS Frontiers: Module 4—A Software Engineering Curriculum for High School Females

Catete,

Gransbury,

Hill

et al.

2023 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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Computer Science (CS) Frontiers is a 4-module curriculum, 9 weeks each, designed to bring the frontiers of computing to high school girls for exploration and development. Our prior work has showcased the work in developing and piloting our first three modules, Distributed Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). During the summer of 2022, we piloted the completed curricula, including the new Software Engineering module, with 56 high school camp attendees. This poster reports on the newly developed software engineering module, the experiences of 7 teachers and 11 students using the module, and our plans for improving this module prior to its release in formal high school classrooms. Initial survey and interview data indicate that teachers became comfortable with facilitating the open-endedness of the final projects and that students appreciated the connections to socially relevant topics and the ability of their projects to help with real-world problems such as flood prevention and wheelchair accessibility. The CS Frontiers curriculum has been added to course offerings in Tennessee and adoption through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is currently underway. Teachers from Tennessee, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York have piloted the materials. Together with researchers, we are working to package the course and curricula for widespread adoption as additional support to students as they try out computing courses in their high school pathways. Our aim is to increase the interest and career awareness of CS for high school girls so they may have an equitable footing to choose CS as a potential major or career.

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Removing the Walls Around Visual Educational Programming Environments

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

Browser-based simulation for novice-friendly classroom robotics

Browser-based simulation for novice-friendly classroom robotics

A Socially Relevant Focused AI Curriculum Designed for Female High School Students

Board 243: CS Frontiers: Module 4—A Software Engineering Curriculum for High School Females

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