Computer Science | Grinnell College

At this Friday's session of Women in Computing / CS Table, we'll discuss issues relating to women and video games. The readings are

• Brown, Janelle. “Girl gamers: sugar, spice, everything profitable?” Wired, November 19, 1996.
• Williams, Dmitri, Nicole Martins, Mia Consalvo, and James D. Ivory. “The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in video games.” New media & society, 2009.
• Jenson, Jennifer, and Suzanne de Castell. “Gender, simulation, and gaming: research review and redirections.” Simulation & gaming, 2010.

Computer Science Table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR (the first PDR at the top of the stairs in the Marketplace/Cafeteria, also known as Rosenfield 224A). Faculty, staff, and students on meal plans are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

On Thursday, April 4, Aditi Roy 2013 will discuss the evaluation of recommendation algorithms:

While designing a recommendation algorithm for Kindle FreeTime Unlimited (a product which serves a subscription containing books, videos and apps to kids), I realized that there were many varied opinions on what the role of a good recommendation algorithm was. This talk will provide an overview of some of the popular approaches and algorithms used in the industry, the metrics used to evaluate recommendation algorithms, and the challenges involved in serving customers good recommendations.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, “What is a good recommendations algorithm?” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

Henry Walker received the SIGCSE 2013 Award for Lifetime Service:

For dedication to the computing education community, including within SIGCSE and APCS, development of curricula and pedagogy, authoring articles and textbooks, creation and support of conference submission software, mentoring of students and faculty, and consulting with departments to advance excellence in computing education. — http://www.sigcse.org/programs/awards/lifetime

At this Friday's session of Women in Computing / CS Table, we'll discuss perceptions of the underrepresentation of women in computer science. The readings are

• Lori Carter. 2006. Why students with an apparent aptitude for computer science don't choose to major in computer science. SIGCSE Bull. 38, 1 (March 2006), 27-31.
• Roli Varma. 2010. Why so few women enroll in computing? Gender and ethnic differences in students' perception. Computer Science Education 20, 4 (December 2010), 301-316.

Computer Science Table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR (the first PDR at the top of the stairs in the Marketplace/Cafeteria, also known as Rosenfield 224A). Faculty, staff, and students on meal plans are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

On Thursday, February 28, Professors Sam Rebelsky, Janet Davis, and Jerod Weinman will discuss the rationale for using media scripting in our introductory computer science course:

Grinnell's CSC 151 draws upon concepts of media computation to motivate students and to provide more visual feedback that helps students better understand the algorithms they write. At the same time, CSC 151 encourages students to think about computing (and image making) in multiple ways. In this talk, a preview of a talk we will give at the SIGCSE Symposium on Computer Science Education, we discuss the inception of the course, what we see as key design points of the course, and the ways in which we have assessed the efficacy of the course. Since the introduction of this new version of 151, we have seen significant increases in enrollment and diversity. Assessments suggest that the course helps students develop deep knowledge that is atypical of an introductory course and also builds confidence.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, “Building knowledge and confidence with mediascripting: a successful interdisciplinary approach to CS1,” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

The reading for this Friday's session of Women in Computing / CS Table is

Gloria Childress Townsend. 2002. People who make a difference: mentors and role models. SIGCSE Bull. 34, 2 (June 2002), 57-61. DOI=10.1145/543812.543831

Computer Science Table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR (the first PDR at the top of the stairs in the Marketplace/Cafeteria, also known as Rosenfield 224A). Faculty, staff, and students on meal plans are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

On Thursday, February 7, Martin Estrada 2014 and June Yolcuepa 2015 will discuss their summer 2012 research work and give their views of the future of our introductory course, CSC 151.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

This semester, the focus of CS Table is “Women and computing.” We will read and discuss a wide variety of articles that explore issues of gender in computing, particularly the underrepresentation of women in computing. Students may choose to register for CS Table as a one-credit special-topics course. Students should also feel free to attend discussions without registering.

At this Friday's CS Table, we will consider three articles by Maria Klawe that explore the changing status of women in computer science. The articles span nearly fifteen years, giving us a chance to look at how things change and how things stayed the same.

• Maria Klawe and Nancy Leveson. 1995. Women in computing: where are we now? Commun. ACM 38, 1 (January 1995), 29-35. DOI=10.1145/204865.204874
• Maria Klawe. 2002. Girls, boys, and computers. SIGCSE Bull. 34, 2 (June 2002), 16-17. DOI=10.1145/543812.543818
• Maria Klawe, Telle Whitney, and Caroline Simard. 2009. Women in computing---take 2. Commun. ACM 52, 2 (February 2009), 68-76. DOI=10.1145/1461928.1461947

Copies of the reading are available online using the DOI links. Printed copies should be available outside Professor Rebelsky's office (Noyce 3824).

Computer Science Table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR (the first PDR at the top of the stairs in the Marketplace/Cafeteria, also known as Rosenfield 224A). Faculty, staff, and students on meal plans are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

On Thursday, January 31, Professors Janet Davis and Sam Rebelsky will discuss summer student research in computer science, including the student projects that our faculty will direct this year.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The discussion will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

On Thursday, January 24, Hart Russell 2014 and Prashanna Tiwaree 2014 will present the results of their summer 2012 research project:

This project sought to replace the MediaScheme console used in CSC 151 with a more versatile system that consists of DrRacket, a Scheme development environment, communicating with the GIMP through D-Bus, an inter-process communication tool that is found in modern Linux systems.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, Re-architecturing MediaScheme, will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!