Work in Progress - Women in Computing Honors Course

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Work in Progress - Women in Computing
HonorsCourse

• Yana Kortsarts
• Widener University, Chester, PA

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GOALS

• Design the first cross listed with Womens
  Studies course
• Provide Honors students with valuable
  interdisciplinary experience.
• Design NOT a pure humanities/social science
  course, but rather to provide a journey through
  the world of computing
• Give students an opportunity to explore different
  aspects of computer systems and to learn
  introductory computing through enjoyable hands-on
  activities.

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GOALS

• Build positive attitude toward computing field as
  well as to demonstrate interdisciplinary
  opportunities that opens minor in computer
  science
• The course didnt aim to recruit new computer
  science majors in most cases Honors students
  are very confident with their major choice.

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GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION

• We introduced various computer science concepts
  and linked them to the specific contribution.
• While designing the course we took in account
  that most of the students will be NOT computer
  science and computer information systems majors.
• First iteration FALL 2009
• Eight students 5 females and 3 males.
• 1 Computer Science major, 2 - School of
  Engineering, 2 - School of Business, 3 -
  humanities/social science majors English,
  Sociology, and Psychology.

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COURSE CURRICULUM

• All humanities and social science topics were
  introduced through self-learning and exchange of
  knowledge model.
• For these topics the class was divided into teams
  of two students and each topic was self-learned
  by the team over one-two class periods.
• The active learning process culminated with
  in-class presentation which provided an
  opportunity for all students to learn specific
  topic and exchange knowledge.
• Students presented their work using Power Point
  slides or small website that they learned how to
  create using HTML.
• Constant rotation of the team members allowed
  students from different majors to work together
  at least on one project.

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History of Computing Project

• Four teams
• ancient history-1900
• 1901-1945
• 1946-1980
• 1981-current.
• In-class presentation included the summary of the
  period that was covered by the team, and the list
  of women in computing that worked during that
  time and very brief (one sentence) description of
  their contribution.

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Programming Languages Topic

• Studied contributions by the following women
• Ada Byron
• Grace Hopper
• Barbara Liskov, Mary Allen Wilkes, and Adele
  Goldberg
• ENIAC programmers Kathleen McNulty Mauchly
  Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder
  Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas
  Spence, and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum.
• Each team prepared small website, using
  introductory HTML, and summary of the article
  from ACM digital library related to the specific
• contribution.
• Python, including the graphics library, and JES -
  Jython Environment for Students
• Examples of C and Java introductory programs

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Programming Languages Topic

• The main hands-on activity - ALICE programming
• Learned ALICE thorough the project oriented
  activities
• building an animation for an electronic greeting
  card
• creating one of the following animations
• commercial movie to advertise the original
  product that is related to technology or
  computing,
• animation for the interactive game
• advertisement for the summer camp that explores
  computing field
• Read one research paper related to modern issues
  in computer science and prepared the summary of
  the paper.
• The final presentation also included a short
  personal opinion related to the various
  programming environments that were explored in
  the course.

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Cryptology, ComputerForensics, and Steganography

• Historical issues - self-learning team project
• History of cryptology
• Cryptology and WWII, including ENIGMA and the
  women of Bletchley Park
• Women in computing contribution into cryptology
  field Shafi Goldwasser and Cryptoclub Using
  Mathematics to Make and Break Secret Codes by
  Janet Beissinger, Vera Pless, Daria Tsoupikova
• Women in computing contribution into design and
  analysis of algorithms - Eva Tardos, and women in
  computing contribution into game design Carol
  Shaw and Roberta Williams.

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Cryptology, ComputerForensics, and Steganography

• Introductory symmetric ciphers, such as Cesar,
  shift, and affine ciphers.
• We also discussed computer forensics and
  steganography topics and students learned how to
  work with Invisible Secrets software
• All theoretical material was supported by
  hands-on team activities allowing students to
  apply their knowledge in practice.

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Robotics

• Students were introduced to LEGO mind-storm NXT
  software and had an opportunity to explore some
  introductory features of the programming
  environment and build a few simple robots.

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Course Activities

• Panel presentation by two female alumni - one
  recent graduate without the family and one with
  family that graduated several years ago and
  continued her study to earn master degree.
• The panel provided an opportunity to meet women
  currently working in IT industry and discussed
• declining enrollment of female in CS/CIS
  departments
• how to attract more females to computing
  profession
• challenges of working in somehow male dominated
  industry and the issues that come with this, such
  as salary discrimination, for example.
• Alumni explained their decision to choose
  computing profession, and their experience as a
  female student in computer science department.
• One of the panelists addressed the issue of
  balancing the family with kids and the career.
• Students prepared 2-3 questions for each panelist
  and wrote a short reflection.

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Course Activities

• Students attended the invited talk In the
  beginning Locating Women in History of
  Computing, by Professor Janet Abbate from
  Virginia Tech.
• The guest lecture provided an opportunity to
  enrich course curriculum.

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Summary and Future Plans

• The short post-survey was conducted at the end of
  the semester to assess the course performance.
• The course was very well accepted by all students
  and we received only positive feedbacks.
• Students showed the interest to participate in
  more hands-on activities.
• For future iterations
• More robotics labs
• SCRATCH and Storytelling ALICE.
• Explore the possibility to include
• Introduction to GREENFOOT environment that allows
  designing graphical computer programs, such as
  simulations and games, using Java in relatively
  simple manner.
• Introduction to App Inventor for Android

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

• This work was funded by the Faculty Development
  Grant, College of Arts and Sciences, Honors
  Program, and Performance and Lecture Series
  Mini-Grant at Widener University.

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References

• 1 Egan, M. A., L., "Teaching a "women in
  computer science" course",
• Proceedings of the 12th annual SIGCSE conference
  on Innovation
• and technology in computer science education,
  2007, pp. 216-220
• 2 Cortina, T., J, McKenna, R., "The design of a
  history of computing
• course with a unique perspective, Proceedings of
  the 37th SIGCSE
• technical symposium on Computer science
  education, 2006, pp. 67-71
• 3 Draper, G., M., Kessler, R., R., Riesenfeld,
  R., F., "A history of
• computing course with a technical focus,
  Proceedings of the 40th
• SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science
  education, 2009,
• pp. 458-462
• 4 http//coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-plan/94
• 5 http//www.alice.org
• 6 http// invisiblesecrets.com
• 7 http//scratch.mit.edu/
• 8 http//www.greenfoot.org/
• 9 http//sites.google.com/site/appinventorhelp/