The Value of Practicing CS Students to Actually Teach Software Programming

Speaker:        Amir KIRSH
                Tel-Aviv-Yaffo

Title:          "The Value of Practicing CS Students to Actually Teach
                 Software Programming"

Date:           Monday, 29 September 2014

Time:           11:00am - 12 noon

Venue:          Lecture Theater H (near lifts 27/28), HKUST

Abstract:

The importance of "coding" as a tool for communicating and better
understanding our world has become a trend, pushed by organizations such
as "hour of code" and supported by University projects such as "Scratch"
by MIT Media Labs, Greenfoot by Kent University, Alice by Carnegie Mellon
and others.

Beyond the value for youngsters in being exposed to computer programming
there is also significant value in putting computer science students in
front of a school class, even if not aiming at actually becoming a school
teacher.

In this talk I will review my experience in leading a course titled
"Modern Tools and Methods for Teaching Software Programming for Kids", an
elective course in the Computer Science department of the Academic College
of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo. Session will review the course tools, methods and
requirements and the skills and experience earned by the students.

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Biography:

Amir KIRSH is a staff member in the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo,
since 1998, teaching practical programming courses while in parallel being
a software development manager in global hi-tech companies. As part of his
community involvement in the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo Amir has
initiated and managing the "Young Developers Day" program in which school
kids at age 8 to 16 are exposed to software programming, 3D modeling,
Object Oriented development and other Software Engineering domains.