Hello again! It's time to start Day 2 of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing!
Before I talk about today, I want to mention last night! We had a nice dinner and awards banquet, which recognized the technical leaders attending this conference. Gloria and I received some great news: one of my fellow students, Erin Donahue, was awarded a Pass-It-Along (On? you know what I mean) grant for us to use for our WiCS group at DePauw! We are very excited to win this award because it gives us the opportunity to do so much more than we could've before.
Enough about last night..
At this morning's welcome session, we were given some general announcements, followed by a video preview of the Keystone Resort outside of Denver, Colorado, which is the location for the 2008 GHC! I have never been west of St. Louis before, so I am very much hoping that I will be able to attend next year's GHC. The resort looks fabulous; it's in the mountains and it has a very cozy look to it. We'll see what happens! I've really enjoyed my first conference thus far, so I'm hoping I can make attending GHC a tradition! Next year's theme is "Building a Better World," which should be very interesting!
This morning's keynote speaker was Maria Klawe, who is the president of Harvey Mudd College. I was fortunate enough to hear her speak during the awards banquet at Richard Tapia. The title of her talk was "Best Time Ever for Women in Computing." I agreed with her when she said that it is really great to be at a place where I don't have to be afraid to say, "I love AI," or "I love HCI." It's a pretty good feeling to be able to let out my inner nerdiness! :) So, why is it the best time ever to be a woman in computing? According to Klawe, industry and academia are beginning to realize that women have a lot of talent and that it's important to have more of them! Also, there are better CS courses available and CS is attracting a broader range of interests. Another thing I really love about computing is the fact that computing can change the world - anyone can see the role of computers in areas such as healthcare.
Klawe also discussed why the numbers of undergrads in CS are decreasing. Some reasons include the myth about IT jobs disappearing, the image of computing jobs (being a "code monkey'), and the perception that CS classes are only about programming. I've encountered these issue in my daily life! She also explained how important outreach is to attract girls to CS before they even start college. We're hoping to do this during our high school day.
Overall, this welcome session was very fun and informative and I'm looking forward to my other sessions today! I'm especially looking forward to attend tonight's Platinum Sponsor Night! :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Challenges Faced When Forming a New "Women in Computing" Group
Although the WICS group at DePauw has existed for some time, our group did not provide the kind of support our majors and minors needed. I decided we needed a change! So, we obtained the designation of a recognized organization by DePauw's student government. Therefore, we are very much akin to a new 'Women in Computing' group! I was excited to see a session about this because it is difficult to start a group. Since I am the chair of this new group (and the one who spurred all of this change!), I feel a lot of obligation to improve our group so we can improve the future of female computer scientists at DPU.
Challenges faced when creating a new group:
-What kinds of events should we have? Should we have lunches, meetings, guests speakers, or fun activities?
-How do we convince people to come to our meetings?
-How should we publicize WiCS?
-What is the goal of our group? How do we convey that goal to our members?
-How do we keep participation and membership up?
Some of these questions still haven't been answered. We are still looking for new PR opportunities and creative activities. A few ideas we came with included a hardware workshop, a mentoring program, and a high school preview/roadshow day at DePauw. We're also looking to sustain or improve our numbers. Near the end of the 06-07 school year, we would only have four or five females show up. Fortunately, at our first meeting of the year this year, we had 15-20 students and faculty attend, which was really exciting (considering we do not have large numbers of female majors in the department).
If anyone has any ideas for our WiCS group, please share them in the comments area or e-mail me at brittanymccullar_2009@depauw.edu!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Challenges faced when creating a new group:
-What kinds of events should we have? Should we have lunches, meetings, guests speakers, or fun activities?
-How do we convince people to come to our meetings?
-How should we publicize WiCS?
-What is the goal of our group? How do we convey that goal to our members?
-How do we keep participation and membership up?
Some of these questions still haven't been answered. We are still looking for new PR opportunities and creative activities. A few ideas we came with included a hardware workshop, a mentoring program, and a high school preview/roadshow day at DePauw. We're also looking to sustain or improve our numbers. Near the end of the 06-07 school year, we would only have four or five females show up. Fortunately, at our first meeting of the year this year, we had 15-20 students and faculty attend, which was really exciting (considering we do not have large numbers of female majors in the department).
If anyone has any ideas for our WiCS group, please share them in the comments area or e-mail me at brittanymccullar_2009@depauw.edu!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Pursuing Graduate School and the Computer Science Research Career
Oh, the idea of grad school is a bit scary to me. Where will I apply? Will I be accepted? What should my focus be? Ahh.. all of the unanswered questions!
So, because of all of these questions, I chose to attend a session all about graduate schools. The panelists provided a lot of great insight and information about grad school.
Some reasons why the presenters attended grad school:
-to do research
-to pursue teaching and mentoring
-to have independence
-to work with passionate, intelligent people
-to continually learn new things
I still don't know where I should apply to in a year though... any ideas? :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
So, because of all of these questions, I chose to attend a session all about graduate schools. The panelists provided a lot of great insight and information about grad school.
Some reasons why the presenters attended grad school:
-to do research
-to pursue teaching and mentoring
-to have independence
-to work with passionate, intelligent people
-to continually learn new things
I still don't know where I should apply to in a year though... any ideas? :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Girl Geeks in High School - Technical Experiences of Future Inventors
After attending this session, I really wish I had had the opportunities the four panelists had when I was in high school! Unfortunately, I did not plan on being a CS major when I was in high school. I was always supposed to be Dr. McCullar (in the medical sense). Hopefully, with any luck, I will still be Dr. McCullar someday! :)
In this informal session, the students (3 of which are still in high school, and 1 is a college freshman) answered prepared questions and questions posed by the audience. I even asked a question: Since we are planning a high school day at DePauw for local girls, what kinds of things would be good to do? What would be interesting? Here are the suggestions I was given:
-Attempt to provide something interesting and hands-on, like robots.
-Let them play around with simple programs and code.
-Make sure everything is interactive!
-Spread the message that it's possible for you to be a computer scientist.
-Help them understand what CS is and the opportunities that are available.
Their suggestions were very helpful, and I'm very much looking forward to having our college day!
The girls also answered questions about laptop usage, internet security, and student perceptions of female computer scientists. That particular question made me think: what really is the perception? A lot of my friends think I fix their computers, but what do my classmates think of me? I honestly think it depends on the situation and the student in question. I am a very take-charge type of person, so when I work on a project with a partner or group, I immediately like to contribute, so I think I have been able to prove myself. Should I have to prove myself because I'm a woman? It's issues like these that make me feel very grateful to be attending GHC.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
In this informal session, the students (3 of which are still in high school, and 1 is a college freshman) answered prepared questions and questions posed by the audience. I even asked a question: Since we are planning a high school day at DePauw for local girls, what kinds of things would be good to do? What would be interesting? Here are the suggestions I was given:
-Attempt to provide something interesting and hands-on, like robots.
-Let them play around with simple programs and code.
-Make sure everything is interactive!
-Spread the message that it's possible for you to be a computer scientist.
-Help them understand what CS is and the opportunities that are available.
Their suggestions were very helpful, and I'm very much looking forward to having our college day!
The girls also answered questions about laptop usage, internet security, and student perceptions of female computer scientists. That particular question made me think: what really is the perception? A lot of my friends think I fix their computers, but what do my classmates think of me? I honestly think it depends on the situation and the student in question. I am a very take-charge type of person, so when I work on a project with a partner or group, I immediately like to contribute, so I think I have been able to prove myself. Should I have to prove myself because I'm a woman? It's issues like these that make me feel very grateful to be attending GHC.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Retaining Women CS Majors Using Research-Based Initiatives
Hello again! I just attended a talk given by Maureen Biggers and Joanne McGrath Cohoon called "Retaining Women CS Majors Using Research-Based Initiatives." As I've mentioned before, I'm studying ways to keep women in computer science. At DPU, women are definitely a minority, and I would love to see our numbers rise before I graduate!
The presenters discussed five major ideas:
-routinely facilitating academic success
-promote community
-maintain interest through curriculum
-support students
-monitor outcomes
These ideas were discussed in detail, and I found them to be very intriguing. Certain ideas had never occurred to me before, and I believe many of the potential changes discussed could've impacted my first two years as an undergrad. Some of these ideas include:
-Monitoring student outcomes through certain practices, including minute papers. Minute papers involve having students take a minute at the end of class to write down what the major topic they learned about was, and what major question he or she still has about what was discussed. I believe this could be easily implemented at DPU because we have the convenience of the application DyKnow (for those who don't know, DyKnow is an instructional application developed at DePauw which is like an interactive version of Microsoft Powerpoint, in which students can anonymously submit homework problems, questions, etc to their professor).
-Promoting community through the use of groups such as ACM and WICS. This has been a major goal of mine this year by further developing our WICS group to be more of a fun support system for female majors.
-Maintaining interest through student curriculum by breaking the stereotype of the "code monkey." Some students who take CS1 think that their only career path will lead them to a cubicle where they will spend hours away digging through intensive code. There are so many opportunities out there with CS, and I think it's really important to make that clear to all students.
This was a very helpful and informative session, and I think a lot of the ideas that were given to us could be applicable to many institutions, regardless of size. If you would like more information about this, I took pretty extensive notes, so leave a comment and I will be glad to provide those! :)
In the ties of computing, :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
The presenters discussed five major ideas:
-routinely facilitating academic success
-promote community
-maintain interest through curriculum
-support students
-monitor outcomes
These ideas were discussed in detail, and I found them to be very intriguing. Certain ideas had never occurred to me before, and I believe many of the potential changes discussed could've impacted my first two years as an undergrad. Some of these ideas include:
-Monitoring student outcomes through certain practices, including minute papers. Minute papers involve having students take a minute at the end of class to write down what the major topic they learned about was, and what major question he or she still has about what was discussed. I believe this could be easily implemented at DPU because we have the convenience of the application DyKnow (for those who don't know, DyKnow is an instructional application developed at DePauw which is like an interactive version of Microsoft Powerpoint, in which students can anonymously submit homework problems, questions, etc to their professor).
-Promoting community through the use of groups such as ACM and WICS. This has been a major goal of mine this year by further developing our WICS group to be more of a fun support system for female majors.
-Maintaining interest through student curriculum by breaking the stereotype of the "code monkey." Some students who take CS1 think that their only career path will lead them to a cubicle where they will spend hours away digging through intensive code. There are so many opportunities out there with CS, and I think it's really important to make that clear to all students.
This was a very helpful and informative session, and I think a lot of the ideas that were given to us could be applicable to many institutions, regardless of size. If you would like more information about this, I took pretty extensive notes, so leave a comment and I will be glad to provide those! :)
In the ties of computing, :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Promising Practices in CS1
During the 07-08 school year, I am working with my advisor, Gloria Townsend, to find ways to attract more students to CS1. As a part of that, I would also like to find ways to improve retention rates from CS1 to CS2. I have just attended a session called "Promising Practices in CS1," which included presentations by faculty from various universities. The presenters spoke about the ways they are trying to improve or create CS courses that will be more interesting to potential majors and non-majors alike.
Some of the ideas included using robots as a way to teach basic CS1 concepts. I thought this idea was so cool! The robots are simple by robotics standards, but they also include pretty interesting parts, such as LED lights, IR sensors, and Bluetooth technology to allow students to program the robot in such a way that it can perform simple tasks, such as turning right if there is an obstacle to the left. At DePauw, we are looking at the possibility of having a road show or high school day. The use of robots has piqued our interests, and now I'm very much looking forward to pursuing this!
Another idea was using 3D graphics to teach CS1 concepts using an application called Alice. It allows students to use a "drag-and-drop" editor to create code to work with 3D graphics. The editor prevents syntax errors, which is a great idea! Syntax errors can be such a deterrent to students (trust me - been there, done that!). I believe that it is important for students to learn the concepts and then learn the bigger details, including syntax errors. There is a later version of Alice, Alice 3.0, which allows for the use of Eclipse to edit code. This application seems like a really interesting way for students to really get involved in computer science and realize how cool CS is!
I'm really looking forward to pursuing this ideas for use at DePauw or for use at our WICS-sponsored high school day or road show! It's really remarkable to see how CS can be altered to improve the amount of student interest and student retention. I hope to see CS classes of the future use more of these techniques.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Some of the ideas included using robots as a way to teach basic CS1 concepts. I thought this idea was so cool! The robots are simple by robotics standards, but they also include pretty interesting parts, such as LED lights, IR sensors, and Bluetooth technology to allow students to program the robot in such a way that it can perform simple tasks, such as turning right if there is an obstacle to the left. At DePauw, we are looking at the possibility of having a road show or high school day. The use of robots has piqued our interests, and now I'm very much looking forward to pursuing this!
Another idea was using 3D graphics to teach CS1 concepts using an application called Alice. It allows students to use a "drag-and-drop" editor to create code to work with 3D graphics. The editor prevents syntax errors, which is a great idea! Syntax errors can be such a deterrent to students (trust me - been there, done that!). I believe that it is important for students to learn the concepts and then learn the bigger details, including syntax errors. There is a later version of Alice, Alice 3.0, which allows for the use of Eclipse to edit code. This application seems like a really interesting way for students to really get involved in computer science and realize how cool CS is!
I'm really looking forward to pursuing this ideas for use at DePauw or for use at our WICS-sponsored high school day or road show! It's really remarkable to see how CS can be altered to improve the amount of student interest and student retention. I hope to see CS classes of the future use more of these techniques.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Richard Tapia/Bridge Day
Hello everyone! I've spent the last two days having a really amazing time in Orlando! On Tuesday, I was able to attend the second day of the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing. I learned a lot of helpful, interesting things, especially at a panel about improving CS retention rates. We discussed a lot great ideas that I plan to take back to DePauw, including ways to break the standard CS stereotype at DPU (that CS is either a typical high school computing class involving word processing or that CS majors are learning how to fix computers!) and the idea to make CS "sexy" again. By "sexy," we mean interesting, fascinating, and applicable to the real world. I feel it's very important to show potential students and majors how the things they learn in class are used in business and industry. Thankfully, I feel that my CS1 professor, Gloria Townsend, definitely tried to stress this point to our class as much as possible. I also heard some other great speakers at Richard Tapia, including the president of Harvey Mudd College, Maria Klawe. Also, after speaking to Ph.D. students and other leaders in academia, I do plan on going to grad school after I graduate in May 2009! Yes, I have been that inspired! :)
Yesterday, I attended Bridge Day activities at Disney World. We were given a technical tour of Epcot, which was fascinating. Their use of IR technologies was intriguing. They have a product now called "Pal Mickey," which is a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal which has an IR sensor in its nose; the toy gives all kinds of information about the park, including ride wait times, where characters are appearing, the data and time, and all kinds of other things. It's a ingenious way to help families use their time wisely while at Disney. We also were given a tour of the Magic Kingdom. We also attended a session about Disney internship possibilities. It was a rather fun day, and thankfully, I am not sunburnt! :)
Posts are coming soon about the first day at Grace Hopper!
Until next time,
Brit
Yesterday, I attended Bridge Day activities at Disney World. We were given a technical tour of Epcot, which was fascinating. Their use of IR technologies was intriguing. They have a product now called "Pal Mickey," which is a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal which has an IR sensor in its nose; the toy gives all kinds of information about the park, including ride wait times, where characters are appearing, the data and time, and all kinds of other things. It's a ingenious way to help families use their time wisely while at Disney. We also were given a tour of the Magic Kingdom. We also attended a session about Disney internship possibilities. It was a rather fun day, and thankfully, I am not sunburnt! :)
Posts are coming soon about the first day at Grace Hopper!
Until next time,
Brit
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