More Teacher Training Opportunities

I've been hearing from more and more people who are offering summer training opportunities for high school computer science teachers. Here are the latest ones I know about. (Descriptions copied from announcements and web sites.)

An AP CS Work Shop

AP CS Work Shop at The College of New Jersey

The 2007 AP Summer Workshop for High School Computer Science Teachers will include a combination of instructional sessions and laboratory time to help you achieve your goals. Emphasis will be placed on teaching computer science, as well as the concepts and technologies involved. Workshop participants will return from the workshop with activities that can be used in their classrooms, an understanding of the new Advanced Placement® Case Study – GridWorld, and many other useful resources.

Our list of focused topics will include, but is not limited to the following.

• The Gridword Case Study – Activities for introduction and mastery by students
• Role playing and kinesthetic learning activities for your classroom
• A sample reading activity to better understand how the AP tests are graded

Depending upon participant interest, other possible topics may include robotics in the computer science classroom, the Alice programming environment, Karel J. Robot, the Greenfoot programming environment, and Java graphics programming.

Where: The Computer Science Department, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ (map)
When: July 16-20, 2007
Costs:

• $350 per participant for the full week (includes lunch each day)
• Optional on-campus housing is available through TCNJ for an additional $300. This includes on-campus breakfast and dinner and a dorm room linen package during your stay

Some Alice workshops

• Learning to Program with Alice

• Alice and Media Computation

Registration Deadline: May 1, 2007

(The workshops are free!)

Led by the experts:

• Dr. Stephen Cooper, Saint Joseph's University
• Dr. Wanda Dann, Ithaca College

Funded by grants from the National Science Foundation these workshops are designed and particularly appropriate for those wishing to:

• Decrease the attrition among computer science students
• Attract students into computer science
• Provide a programming component for a computer literacy course

Appropriate for high school instructors, to aid in AP CS courses

Two three (3) day workshops will be offered on the teaching of Alice and Media Computation together in a CS1 course:

1. July 26-28 on the campus of Roger Williams University, Bristol, Rhode Island
2. August 1-3 on the campus of Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia

This workshop will include (approx) 1 ½ days of instruction in Alice; 1 day instruction in Media Computation; and ½ day instruction on combining the two for teaching CS1.

Learning to Program with Alice workshop will be offered August 8-10 on the campus of California State University, in Dominguez Hills, California. Workshop will include:

• Introduction/review of the Alice environment
• Scene set-up
• Programming constructs, including objects and classes
• Interactivity
• Teaching tips
• Curricular models
• Instructional materials
• Transitioning to Java/C++
• Alice in an existing CS curriculum
• Advanced topics: Arrays and Lists (Visual and Non-Visual)
• Sound
• Camera control
• Presentations by attendees about their experiences.

Registration and questions to Barbara Conover, Project Manager, Center for Visualization (Alice Grants), Saint Joseph's University at bconover@sju.edu.