Program is all but done

Sorry I haven't posted much in the last month! It's been a pretty busy time for all of us on the Program Committee. As you figured out, decisions were made at the end of October in Chattanooga. We accepted 100 papers, as well as panels, special sessions, and workshops. Many thanks to the Program Committee for all that effort, especially Gary and Steve who made the whole Associate Program Chair mechanism work. I have heard from several people about the value that they are finding in their meta-reviews.

The "Birds of a Feather," Posters, and Video program submissions are under review now. Those decisions will be coming out in just a few days.

Meanwhile, all the other aspects of the program are falling into place. We have some wonderful supporters who are defining their supporter sessions. We have quite a slate of presymposium activities. Parallel events are shaping up. The UPE meeting on Friday afternoon will include an award being presented to Eugene Spafford, which will be an event not-to-be-missed.

We've got lots of restaurant recommendations to make now, after hanging out in Chattanooga for another week last month. I'll post pictures and stories of those here. The bottomline is: Come to Chattanooga March 4-7, 2009! It's going to be great!

Scenes of Chattanooga

This week is the SIGCSE 2009 Program Committee meeting in Chattanooga. Before I head back up to go get more photos, I thought I should finish sharing some of my favorites from the last planning meeting in Chattanooga.

Sue and I took a walk across the pedestrian bridge over the Tennessee River when we were there last. Here's a shot of the bluffs, where there is a marvelous American art museum.

And here's a shot of the Tennessee Aquarium, where we'll have our reception, from the same bridge.
As we got closer to the other side, we could see this amazing park across from Chattanooga.

On the right side of this picture, you can see a blue roofed building -- that's the merry-go-round, filled with horses and other animals carved by Chattanooga-area artists.

The fountain in the middle is surrounded by statues of animals. The water in the fountain sprays at irregular times, so people play games, running around the fountain -- sort of Russian roulette with a squirt gun.


Around North Chattanooga, you can find these dance lessons (!) built into the pavement. Think of them as a concrete (literally!) representation of process. Some of them show where both partners stand and how they move, but they're still pretty hard to follow.

Finally, on the way back to the Marriott, we passed by this scene. I saw it across other rooftops, so I'm not really sure where it's at, but it was so cool and not what I expected to see in Chattanooga.


And there you have the theme for this blog. Each visit, I'm surprised and delighted what I'm finding in Chattanooga! I am sure that you will share this experience when you visit in March 2009.

Craig Mundie on what engages students

Our SIGCSE 2009 keynoter, Microsoft's Craig Mundie is on a tour of college campuses right now. In this interview, he talks about what rekindles interest in computer science. Expect more details on this, live, in March!

Working on the Kids' Camp!

I know that people planning to attend SIGCSE 2009 are already looking for information on the SIGCSE 2009 Kids' Camp...and not really finding much. It is coming! Pam Cutter and Kris Nagel are hard at work organizing the 2009 camp. The first issue is setting up the contract with the child care organization, and we're trying to get that settled now. So don't worry -- we promise that it will be there. Just watch the web pages near you for further updates.

Engaging Computing EXPLORATION

A recent article in Diverse Education Issues in Higher Education presents a study of executives from Fortune 1000 companies whose focus is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). These executives said that "A shortage in STEM workers is threatening to push the United States from its global leadership position as a key innovator in these fields." That's not news to those of us teaching computing. What's more interesting is that the study goes on to make teaching recommendations. "Nearly all the executives surveyed say the best way for students to learn science is through a hands-on approach." Dr. Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space, is quoted in the article saying that kids inherently like science, but in school, "it’s drilled out of us because we don’t teach science in exploratory way."

That last recommendation is a challenge to computing educators. How do we teach computing in an "exploratory way"? Computing is mostly taught as a synthetic skill--we build things. We test the things we build, so there's an experimental component to it, but rarely do we "explore" in our classes. There's certainly evidence that that "exploratory" approach to computing is an important job skill. Beth Simon and Andy Begel's recent series of papers on their study of new hires at Microsoft show that the first year of work is mostly spent understanding existing code, not writing new code.

Therein lies a challenge for engaging CS students. How do we teach exploration skills? How do we help students to build on their inherent interest (as Mae Jemison claims) in how the world works, to helping them understand how computing works?

Pardon me, boy! Is that the...? Why, yes, it is! The Chattanooga Choo-Choo!

Yes, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo is one of the conference hotels for SIGCSE 2009. It's about a 10-20 minute walk to the Chattanooga Conference Center, or you can catch one of the free Electric Shuttles.

The Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel is located at the site of the original Chattanooga train station. In 2009, the Chattanooga train station will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. In May, the Glen Miller band will be visiting and performing as part of the celebration. (I'll be that you can guess at least one of the songs that they will be playing!) The lobby and front desk of the hotel is under the dome of the original train station, and it's really lovely.

One of the attractions of staying at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo is staying on a real rail car. Besides lots of traditional rooms, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo hotel has a number of rail cars that have been converted into hotel rooms. (Sorry, all the authentic, uncomfortable, tiny bunks have been removed and replaced with full-size comfy beds.) The train/hotels sit on the original tracks of the trainyard. When Sue and I were there in August, the gardens in the pedestrian areas between the trains looked terrific. Free Internet is available throughout the site, though it's wired (not wireless) in some of the train cars--hard to get the wireless signal to pass through the steel cars.

Craig Mundie on Cloud Computing

Our keynote speaker for SIGCSE 2009, Craig Mundie, just had an interview with Technology Review on his vision for cloud computing -- pretty exciting stuff!

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/21422/?a=f