Building A Thriving CS Program In A Small Liberal Arts College

In this paper we describe several techniques that have helped increase enrollment in the computer science program from 23 computer science majors in 2008 to 42 computer science majors in 2010 – an increase of 82.6%. We discuss issues related to curriculum, programming assignments, and professor-student interactions that have made the discipline more attractive and manageable to a variety of students within the setting of a small liberal arts college

An investigation into the role of a wiki in supporting collaborative learning activities

Providing students with learning opportunities based on real-life situations has beenfound to enhance student learning. With this aim, two Open University post-graduatecourses introduced collaborative activities modelled on workplace situations. Theactivities employed wikis: a lightweight, web-based collaborative authoringenvironment. The purpose of this research has been to investigate the role of a wiki insupporting the collaborative learning activities, and to assess how the wiki influencedstudent engagement with the activities.The dissertation draws data from the three presentations of Open University courses’56 wikis produced by almost 240 students. The base data includes wiki content andstudent discussions. Issues identified in the base data were further explored throughpost-course questionnaires and interviews. An iterative inductive qualitative analysiswas applied to analyse students' perceptions and experiences with the wikis. Activitytheory was used to place these within the context of the activities.The wikis enabled all student groups to author collaboratively the documents requiredby their courses. Writing the documents benefited the students because it prompteddiscussion and personal reflection; both of which many students reported as enhancingtheir learning. The students particularly valued the wiki’s role as a central repositorythat helped them achieve these two benefits. The research shows that wikis cansupport collaborative activities among students and lead to enhanced learningopportunities. The key findings suggest that a wiki’s simplicity enabled students toengage easily with the collaborative learning activities. However, a wiki’s lack ofinherent structure hindered their progress until they had worked out how to organisetheir use of the wiki. The insights from the research are presented as guidelines for educators intending toincorporate wiki supported collaborative learning activities into their courses. Theguidelines have two aims: first, to help educators facilitate speedy induction andparticipation of the students in the collaborative activities; second, to ensure the wiki isused effectively by students to increase their collaborative learning opportunities

A Qualitative and Evaluative Study on Recruiting and Retaining Students in College Computer Science Programs

Computer science is a discipline that is increasing in importance and value in our society, yet we are still failing to graduate a sufficient number of students to keep up with the demand required in the United States economy. We research several ways to retain students. We also discuss ways to increase students’ interest in the major, i.e., those who normally would not know about computer science. We discuss ways to increase female participation as well as overall participation in the major

Specialised Languages and Multimedia. Linguistic and Cross-cultural Issues

none2noThis book collects academic works focusing on scientific and technical discourse and on the ways in which this type of discourse appears in or is shaped by multimedia products. The originality of this book is to be seen in the variety of approaches used and of the specialised languages investigated in relation to multimodal and multimedia genres. Contributions will particularly focus on new multimodal or multimedia forms of specialised discourse (in institutional, academic, technical, scientific, social or popular settings), linguistic features of specialised discourse in multimodal or multimedia genres, the popularisation of specialised knowledge in multimodal or multimedia genres, the impact of multimodality and multimediality on the construction of scientific and technical discourse, the impact of multimodality/multimediality in the practice and teaching of language, the impact of multimodality/multimediality in the practice and teaching of translation, new multimedia modes of knowledge dissemination, the translation/adaptation of scientific discourse in multimedia products. This volume contributes to the theory and practice of multimodal studies and translation, with a specific focus on specialized discourse.Rivista di Classe A - Volume specialeopenManca E., Bianchi F.Manca, E.; Bianchi, F

Participatory Design for sustainable social innovation in developing countries: Design experiments towards a model to deploy interventions with marginalised youth

An increasing number of practitioners are engaging in the consideration of Participatory Design (PD) as a strategic modus operandi to attain socially progressive ends among marginalised communities in developing countries. However, the structures, methods and objectives of this type of work constitute an ongoing debate. A scattered body of resources in this area tend to focus on either theory (such as journal papers) or practice (such as design toolkits). To fill this gap, this research develops a model of practice that links these two dimensions through a collection of elements drawn upon contemporary approaches to design and development. The model considers three layers of ethos, methods and outputs to guide the design and undertaking of social-entrepreneurially oriented PD interventions with a focus on problem identification. Two case studies are undertaken with communities of marginalised youth in South Africa to evaluate the model and its inherent flexibility respectively. The evaluation found that the model enabled the researcher to build capacity and empower participants to gain leadership and ownership over the intervention, ultimately developing their sense of activism and aspiration for change. On this basis, a final version of the model is put forward to help prepare and guide design practitioners to deploy PD interventions with marginalised youth in developing countries for responsible and sustainable social innovation. In addition, the research reflects on the various roles that design practitioners take on while deploying the intervention and on the use of a cross-paradigm to undertake the type of design research approached in this thesis