Engaging computer science in traditional education: the ECSITE project
Proceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
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Computer science faces the same problem worldwide: too few women in computing, low enrollment and high failure rates in university programs. There is growing consciousness which has led to various ideas and programs to deal with these problems. My talk will introduce a set of measures which we have implemented at RWTH Aachen University to tackle the problem on different levels. Therefore, I will present our successful program go4IT! of robotic courses for girls in 5th and 6th grade and some empirical results of how these influence their interest in STEM topics. Currently we are developing follow-up measures based on Android and GUI programming on smartphones. These measures cumulate into our newly founded Computer Science Junior Academy InfoSphere as out-of-school educational lab. There we offer a variety of learning modules which can last between two hours and a few days. Complete school classes can book InfoSphere modules or interested pupils of different ages can collaborate on self-organized projects. We have implemented various learning programs for multi-modal devices such as multi-touch tables and smartphones in order to introduce different topics of computer science. Our vision for these educational labs is the enhancement to different disciplines which bring together learners of all ages from K-12, students, researchers and professionals for lifelong learning and vocational training.