One of the topics I explored with 10 interested attendees was entitled “Resources Supporting Computer Science and Information Technology” with the description “In recent years, many useful resources have become available to both support schools developing computer science curricula and for teachers to teach these courses. We’ll explore materials available from CSTA, NCWIT, ACM, ISTE and other groups. The resources address a range of activities including creating a program, recruiting students and supporting and enhancing quality curriculum for high schools

My intent was to talk about resources from the four groups mentioned and then move into more specific resources including languages, language environments, curricula available, videos, mobile app development and a bunch of other stuff.  As it turns out we spent nearly all of the time on the NCWIT and CSTA resources.  Fortunately, I had a number of the resources to give to the attendees. I have a wiki on which I have all of the highlighted resources referenced with links.  At the top of the wiki I also have the set of slides I pulled together for this part as well as the second part.  If you go to http://ncwitcstaresources.pbworks.com you can get both parts of the presentation and the set of links.  This will also lead you to the second part http://csitresources.pbworks.com for all of the many items I culled from the monthly newsletter I write for ISTE/SIGCT (SIG for Computing Teachers).  Actually, if you want to get at those issues, you can click here http://sigct.iste.wikispaces.net and find not only the issues to this school year but a link to the previous 5 years of newsletters.

How’s that for unabashed self-promotion.  All free all of the time.

The next day I did a session with the more evocative title  “A National Crisis: The State of Computer Science and Information Technology in Schools and Future Workforce Projections”.  The description for the session was “This session will explore the trends in the workforce for computing specialists as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor, and look at the pipeline to fill the nearly 1.5 million positions that will be coming available over the next six to eight years. Then we’ll look at approaches to deal with this problem along with resources available.”

I opened the session with the slides developed by Cameron Wilson from ACM which highlight the incredible needs for Computing Specialist (US Dept of Labor term) individuals and the continued bad though slightly improving state of CS in middle and high schools (again I had about 10 attendees, some from the previous session, others new).

Aside from raising some eyebrows with the information, part way into this session I asked the attendees to sit in pairs and either take one of the CSTA posters available for them and come up with a lesson around the poster; or they could take the policy brochure and begin planning an advocacy event for a parents’ council or school board meeting.  During that time I heard and shared some incredible stores of schools just eliminating all CS courses because they thought it was enough for the students to learn to use Word and PowerPoint and, oh by the way, most programming jobs are overseas anyway!!!

Hard to believe that we still hear those kinds of statements and beliefs, but I guess that only means we have a bunch more work to do.  As an anecdote to ponder, I did point out that I sit on an IT Advisory Board for a large community college and one of the large employers of software developers announced that they’re moving all of the mobile app development back here from overseas because of much higher cost than earlier thought.  More of that is coming.

If you’re interested in the presentation slides and the wiki, you can go to http://expandingcswisconsin.pbworks.com  for that information right at the top of the wiki.  There’s other stuff there too which you might find interesting.

Onward and Upward!

Yesterday I made a rare trip downtown for a work-related meeting.  Normally December is a time spent with quietly writing away in my home office since our quarter system does not have regular classes between Thanksgiving and the start of the new year.  But a technology company in Chicago is interested in recruiting students from the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul, and the staff member who handles employer relations likes to have a subject-matter expert with her.  I left the meeting with a lot of new information, but two pieces stand out to me: 1. Employers are desperate to hire computer science graduates and 2. technology companies are most interested in people who blend into the (somewhat unique) culture of their workplace.

I then spent today reading most of the latest issue of ACM Inroads, for a paper I’m writing on diversity in gaming.  There are many fascinating articles in that issue, but one theme stood out to me.  Computer scientists have put, and continue to put, a lot of energy into improving diversity in the field.  From college-level initiatives like those at Harvey Mudd College, to NSF-funded programs to improve access to computing among the disabled, to a transformation of the high-school curriculum, computer scientists are deeply interested in seeing women and underrepresented minorities participate at higher numbers.  The hope, of course, is that these projects and programs will succeed, resulting in a transformation of computing into a field where gender parity is within reach.  In that process and with that goal, I think that computer science is serving as a model for other technology-focused disciplines.

The interaction I had with the employer-relations staff member after our visit yesterday made me wonder if technology companies are ready for this change, should it actually occur.  She and I started discussing the need that technology companies have for employees to fit their culture, and how their culture can be very different from other industries.  In response she told me a story about a visit she paid to a large technology company based on the West Coast (that will remain anonymous for reasons about to become obvious).  A representative for this company emphasized that adapting to the culture was important, causing the DePaul staff member to ask how the representative would describe the culture.  The response: The average employee age was 26 and the culture was like a “frat house”.  (Note that this company has been around for at least 8 years, so this is not a small start-up).  I rolled my eyes when I learned this and commented that I certainly would not be recommending the company to any of my female students.  She countered that this company was particularly interested in hiring female graduates.  We noted that the lack of reflection on this situation was intriguing.

Now I understand many technology companies are encouraging of and enthusiastic about the goal of broadening diversity in computer science.  But I think it takes more than a diversity initiative, which I know that the company described above has, to make the workplace welcoming.  It particularly remains unclear to me whether technology companies are ready to deal with the changes that would come from a pipeline that begins to approach gender parity.  On the other hand, technology companies are nothing if not adaptable, so maybe they would surprise me.