Canadian Computing Education Day (Feb 21): encouraging people to share why computing is important (for Canada)
Contributed by
Daryl Hepting, February 17, 2014
Last year at this time, I was writing about Scratch Day Canada that was planned to coincide with Canadian Computing Education Day. I continue to be a big fan of Scratch. For our summer computing camp in 2013, I made a remix of a pizza chef game that used the video interface in Scratch 2.0. Very cool.
This year, as chair of the outreach committee of the Canadian Association of Computer Science / Association d’Informatique Canadienne (CACS/AIC), I am focusing on video of a different sort. Inspired by the kickoff video for the Hour of Code, that included Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, we have undertaken a crowd-sourced video project to celebrate computing in Canada and to highlight the importance of computer science education for all citizens. You can find out all the details about the project at: http://www.CanCompEd.ca/2014video.
CACS/AIC, whose members are the universities across Canada that offer Computer Science degree programs, has been actively supporting computer science teachers in each Canadian province and territory. CACS/AIC is just one of many organizations concerned with computer science education in Canada.
Computer Science Education Week, focused on the U.S. though international in intent, is an important activity in Canada. This year, many Canadians took part in the Hour of Code. The anniversary of Grace Hopper’s birth is a great time to celebrate computer science education: I enjoy showing my students a youtube video of her appearance on a 1986 episode of Late Night with David Letterman.
This week is "Reading Week" at many Canadian universities and in several provinces, the week begins with a statutory holiday today. Friday of this week (February 21 this year) was chosen for Canadian Computing Education Day with the thought that universities without students are better able to host visitors from the surrounding community during open house events.
If you are on twitter, please follow @CanCompEd and retweet something about CanCompEd Day.
Whether or not you do another Hour of Code to celebrate Canadian Computing Education Day, please watch for the video and share it widely.
This year, as chair of the outreach committee of the Canadian Association of Computer Science / Association d’Informatique Canadienne (CACS/AIC), I am focusing on video of a different sort. Inspired by the kickoff video for the Hour of Code, that included Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, we have undertaken a crowd-sourced video project to celebrate computing in Canada and to highlight the importance of computer science education for all citizens. You can find out all the details about the project at: http://www.CanCompEd.ca/2014video.
CACS/AIC, whose members are the universities across Canada that offer Computer Science degree programs, has been actively supporting computer science teachers in each Canadian province and territory. CACS/AIC is just one of many organizations concerned with computer science education in Canada.
Computer Science Education Week, focused on the U.S. though international in intent, is an important activity in Canada. This year, many Canadians took part in the Hour of Code. The anniversary of Grace Hopper’s birth is a great time to celebrate computer science education: I enjoy showing my students a youtube video of her appearance on a 1986 episode of Late Night with David Letterman.
This week is "Reading Week" at many Canadian universities and in several provinces, the week begins with a statutory holiday today. Friday of this week (February 21 this year) was chosen for Canadian Computing Education Day with the thought that universities without students are better able to host visitors from the surrounding community during open house events.
If you are on twitter, please follow @CanCompEd and retweet something about CanCompEd Day.
Whether or not you do another Hour of Code to celebrate Canadian Computing Education Day, please watch for the video and share it widely.
Links:
There were a few Scratch events on February 21, but that may not be the best day. We have an event in Canada called Science Rendezvous (www.sciencerendezvous.ca) which is to be held on May 10 this year. I think that this might be a good time for Scratch!
Best regards,
Daryl
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Thanks for letting us and others know about Canadian Computing Education Day. Great video and pizza chef project!
Is Scratch Day Canada taking place this year as well?
M