Social networks generate interest in computer science

Alt, Casey; Astrachan, Owen; Forbes, Jeffrey; Lucic, Richard; Rodger, Susan H.

doi:10.1145/1121341.1121477

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Thus, while some Web 2.0 applications are already being used in academic institutions as valid alternative approaches to the teaching of computer science, mathematics and statistics (Alt, 2006), CALL practitioners and teachers have also been quick to appreciate, evaluate and integrate such applications (Godwin-Jones, 2003;. Despite the increasing use of mobile technologies with its echoes of 'invisible' ubiquitous computing and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) practices (Kukulska-Hulme & Shield, 2008;Chinnery, 2006), many researchers continue to investigate the disruptive nature of technologies with their incumbent advantages and disadvantages (Heilesen & Josephsen, 2007).…”

Section: Introducing Blogging and Call Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using blogs to help language students to develop reflective learning strategies: Towards a pedagogical framework

Hourigan

Murray

2010

AJET

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Due to the social changes brought about in no small part by Web 2.0 tools, the potential impact of the blog writing phenomenon upon teaching and learning contexts reveals an important area for consideration for all university educators, and in particular for e-learning practitioners. Today, web users may access a wide variety of media to express themselves and to communicate with others. These may include conventional blog websites such as blogger.com or indeed social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook or Bebo, which continue to integrate blog tools and which also encourage self-expression on the part of the users. Moreover, the application of such written expression tools into a language learning context requires further investigation by the computer-assisted language learning (CALL) community, most notably in the field of exploring the distinct pedagogical environment which emerges within such a context. This paper shall detail the pedagogical and support role of the teacher as well as considering the content of learners' reflective output throughout the course of the semester. Our analysis will consider the overall teaching and learning environment, with additional qualitative examples from the learner blogs and essays in order to define clearly emerging roles and activities with regard to future classroom practice. Introducing blogging and CALL researchBerners-Lee's original web weaving in 1990 is now generally accepted as a radical catalyst of self expression and global connectivity (Butler, 1998). Since then, additional upheavals have occurred: from search engines such as Altavista, Google, Cuil and WolframAlpha, to podcasting, RSS feeds and Twitter, to name but a few components of the Web 2.0 social software revolution. Uniquely bridging both these evolutions stands blogging. Blogging, as Hill states: "is throwing the Internet forward and backward at the same time. Forward into a new era of consumer empowerment, and backward to the grass-roots spirit of the early Web" (2006:19). As we shall see in this paper, the consumers are also the producers of content and if blogging for language learning (L2) purposes is to be both empowering and engaging, it must first be integrated efficaciously into current modern foreign language pedagogies. Indeed, the recent impact of Web 2.0 tools on education clearly represents important developments in terms of current pedagogical practice. The introduction of a wide range of such innovative new technologies into teaching and learning contexts underpins the necessity of reflecting upon their proposed role and contribution within this distinct environment. Examples of such Web 2.0 tools which have recently been evaluated as potential learning aids include: podcasts (Lonn and Teasley 2009;Walls et al., 2010); online games (Paraskeva, Mysirlaki & Papagianni, 2010); smart phones (Cochrane & 210 Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2010, 26(2) Bateman, 2010); wikis (Elgort, Smith & Toland, 2008;Zorko, 2009) and social networking sites (Vie, 2008;Lockyer...

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Section: Introducing Blogging and Call Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using blogs to help language students to develop reflective learning strategies: Towards a pedagogical framework

Hourigan

Murray

2010

AJET

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“…This was also advocated quite clearly in a recent paper by several faculty members from Duke University [2], where the authors argue that social networks can provide relevant context and broaden participation in computing. They give a convincing argument that this is indeed the case, and they describe the potential of such a course in very general terms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…The contribution beyond [2] is twofold. First, I explicitly describe how my course can meet traditional CS0 course objectives.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social networking

Purewal

2010

Proceedings of the 41st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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“…"Instead of doing all the fundamentals first and then getting to the exciting parts just flip it over so the students see what the exciting parts are and then they are motivated to learn the fundamentals" [22]. A similar class at Duke University taught programming principles through social networking, looking to engage students by building on the popularity of existing social networking sites [2]. Although the same fundamental computing principles are being taught to students in these courses, the context in which they are being taught is more relevant and applicable in their lives.…”

Section: Synthesizing Themesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is computing?

Yardi

Bruckman

2007

Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Computing Education Research

101

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Studies show that teenagers perceive computing to be boring, antisocial, and irrelevant to their lives. We interviewed 13 teenagers from local Atlanta schools and observed over 40 teenagers in after-school technology programs to learn more about their perceptions of computing. We then interviewed 22 graduate students in the Human-Centered Computing and Human-Computer Interaction programs at Georgia Tech in order to learn about the factors that motivated them to pursue degrees in computing. We found that teenagers perceived computing to be boring, solitary, and lacking real-world context, yet graduate students described their research as exciting, social, and having a direct and meaningful impact on the world around them. Our results suggest that there is an opportunity to increase interest in computing among teenagers by bridging the gap between their perceptions of computing and the actual opportunities that are offered in computing disciplines. In this paper, we first describe our interview results. We then discuss our findings and propose a design-based curriculum to teach teenagers core computing principles. The goal of this curriculum is to prepare and motivate them for careers in today's expanding, Internet-based, global economy. We suggest that by portraying computing as an innovative, creative, and challenging field with authentic, real-world applications, we may be able to motivate teenagers to become more excited to pursue careers in computing.

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Social networks generate interest in computer science

Cited by 23 publications

References 20 publications

Using blogs to help language students to develop reflective learning strategies: Towards a pedagogical framework

Using blogs to help language students to develop reflective learning strategies: Towards a pedagogical framework

Social networking

What is computing?

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