Dan Garcia of University of California-Berkeley to speak on “Transforming K-12 Computer Science” — April 3

The Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering Seminar Series will host Dan Garcia of the University of California-Berkeley. The title of his talk is “Transforming K-12 Computer Science: The Beauty and Joy of Computing.” Time/Day: 4 p.m., Thursday, April 3 Location: Room 1670 Bob & Betty Beyster Building For more information: http://micde.umich.edu/seminar-series/dan-garcia/ Abstract: BJC was chosen as one of the initial pilots for a new, upcoming non-majors ”Advanced Placement Computer Science: Principles” course to broaden participation in computing.  The goal of the “CS10K” effort is to prepare 10,000 new high school CS teachers to teach the AP course by 2016.  It was funded from the National Science Foundation to provide summer workshops for 100 HS teachers.  This talk will introduce the AP CS Principles framework, the BJC course, the engaging Snap! (Build Your Own Blocks, based on Scratch) development environment, and some of the exciting things being done in the Computer Science Education group at UC Berkeley to move the needle and broaden participation in computing.