Professional+development

[|**CS&IT 2012 Symposium.**][1] This coming summer's CS&IT Symposium will be held Monday, July 9, and Tuesday, July 10, 2012 in Irvine (Orange County), California. Arrangements have been made for reduced-rate rooms at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Irvine. Many more details will become available in upcoming months. Keep the dates open and make this excellent symposium part of your travel plans. < [] [2] >

[|Scratch@MIT Conference.] [3] Wednesday, July 25, 2012 — Saturday, July 28, 2012 Join educators and researchers from around the world to share experiences and imagine the possibilities of Scratch! With Scratch, everyone can program their own interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations -- and share their creations with one another online. More than 2 million projects have been shared on the Scratch website ( [|http://scratch.mit.edu] [4] ), with thousands of new projects every day. The conference will feature workshops, panels, presentations, demos, and posters on a wide variety of Scratch-related topics, from technologies to pedagogies, from applications to implications. < [] [5] >


 * ISTE Leadership Conference "Focus Forward". ** Come together with education leaders and change agents at the ISTE leadership conference, October 21–23, 2012, in Indianapolis, Indiana. In our first year, we will “focus forward” as we work together to transform learning environments so that all students can reach their creative and intellectual potential. The content of the conference will center on ISTE’s areas of expertise including the NETS and their essential conditions, digital age learning and teaching, and technology skills. For further information and to register please see < [] [6] >

**CSTA Teacher Workshop List**. The CSTA maintains an extensive list of such opportunities for you. You can find them on their site at < [] [7] >.

[|Tapestry Workshop.] [9] Jim and Joanne Cohoon from the University of Virginia started theTapestry workshop series for high school teachers at the University of Virginia. The date for this year's workshop is June 26-28, 2012. Please see < [|http://www.tapestryworkshops.org] > for more information. There will be five satellite workshops in Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan. Information about those should be available before too long at < [|http://www.tagworkshops.org] >. [|Alice Workshops at Carnegie-Mellon U.] [10] There will be three workshops this summer. Info at: < [] >
 * Summer 2012 workshops on AppInventor and Android development in Salt Lake City ** . Take a look at < [|www.tinyurl.com/appinventorclass] > where you'll find information on the AppInventor workshop to be held June 25-27, 2012. The Android development workshop is set for July 16-18, 2012. The cost for either is $100. The actual URL is: < [|http://user.xmission.com/~danicody/CTEC/Presentations/android/index.html] [8] >
 * The first workshop will be focused on Alice 2.2, and will be held June 18-22. Plan on arriving on Sunday, June 17, and departing Friday afternoon, June 22nd. This workshop will explore the Alice 2.2 programming environment as an effective and engaging tool to introduce students from middle school through college level to programming and Computer Science. We will also explore how Alice 2.2 can be used in multi-disciplinary K-12 classrooms.
 * The second workshop will be focused on Alice 3 and will be held June 24 -June 29. Plan on arriving on Sunday, June 24th, and departing Friday afternoon, June 29th. This workshop will explore the Alice 3 programming environment as an effective and engaging tool for students in a Computer Science 1 or Advanced Placement course in Java. Alice 3 will come out of beta this summer and be ready for use in classrooms this fall. This workshop will explore the instructor course materials that are being developed, also for use in fall classes.
 * The third workshop will also be focused on Alice 2.2, but for the first time, we are presenting a workshop for teachers interested in using Alice with a Spanish-speaking population. This workshop will be held June 24 -June 29. Plan on arriving on Sunday, June 24th, and departing Friday afternoon, June 29th. The workshop will be presented primarily in English, though the primary presenter speaks fluent Spanish and will be able to clarify concepts and answer questions in both Spanish and English. Workshop attendees will receive two copies of the latest version of Alice 2.2, one in English and one in Spanish. All instructional materials used in the workshop will have an English and a Spanish version.
 * [|Collaborative Workshop for Computer Science Teachers.] [11] ** The First Bytes outreach program at The University of Texas at Austin announces the creation of the First Bytes Collaborative Workshop for Computer Science Teachers. Now in our fifth year, the workshop will be held July 9-11, 2012 at the UT Austin campus. < [] [12] >

The workshop includes activities that help high school teachers understand the breadth of computer science beyond Java programming. They provide hands-on activities that teachers can use in their classrooms to show their students how to use computational thinking principles to solve problems, explore the use of robots and other software to solve real-world problems, and learn more about the various fields of study within computer science including machine learning and human computer interaction.
 * CS4HS 2012 at CMU. ** The School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University is running their 7th Annual CS4HS (Computer Science for High School teachers) summer workshop at their main campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 1-3, 2012 (pending funding). Registration is now open and seating is limited. More detailed information is at < [] >.

Teachers who wish to attend should apply as soon as possible. A $50 deposit is required to reserve a seat. (This deposit is refunded upon

completion of the workshop.) Free on-campus housing is available for teachers that are accepted into the workshop and most meals will be provided. Registration ends June 25, 2012.


 * Video Game Programming with Algebra. ** Bootstrap < [] [13] > is a standards-based curriculum for middle and high-school students, which teaches them to program their own videogames using purely algebraic and geometric concepts. There's more information in the January 2012 newsletter.
 * National Center for Women and IT ** ( [|www.ncwit.org] )

NCWIT (National Center for Women & Information Technology) is a coalition of over 300 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to increase women's participation in information technology (IT). One of the innovative pre-collegiate projects is the Award for Aspirations for Computing. This year 35 national winners were named out of more than 1100 applicants. You can view the press release at < [] [14] > In addition, there are a large number of state and regional affiliate competitions which will be rewarding several hundred more young ladies over the coming months for the work in computing (for example, the event in Wisconsin happens on April 17). The 2013 Aspirations Competition is set to open in September, 2012. Stay tuned for more information.
 * An Opportunity for High School Girls. **

** [|Computer Science Summer Camp for Girls (Texas only).] [15]** This is a one-week residential program at University of Texas-Austin, June 17-23, 2012. Application deadline is March 23, 2012. First Bytes Summer Camp is a one-week residential camp program for high school girls. It is designed to dispel myths about computer science and intrigue young women with the potential of computing and the excitement of problem solving. ( from editor: I'm listing this to encourage others doing camps for students to tell us about them).

[1] http://csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/CSITConference.html [2] http://csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/CSITConference.html [3] http://events.scratch.mit.edu/conference/ [4] http://scratch.mit.edu [5] http://events.scratch.mit.edu/conference/ [6] http://www.iste.org/conference/LeadershipConference.aspx [7] http://csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/TeacherWorkshops.html [8] http://user.xmission.com/~danicody/CTEC/Presentations/android/index.html [9] http://www.tapestryworkshops.org [10] https://web.campusservices.cmu.edu/conferences/registration.taf?ID=2012alice [11] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/outreach/first-bytes/teachers-workshop [12] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/outreach/first-bytes/teachers-workshop [13] http://www.bootstrapworld.org/ [14] http://ncwit.org/news.press.releases.php?action=display&pressrelease_id=20895 [15] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/outreach/first-bytes