Abstract Musings of an Insignificant Entity

Evy Katz and J. Thorsen redefine abstract art. Their self-titled show at Connect Gallery, which continues through Jan. What has been constructed cell by cell; is continually torn down, is recast, is rebuilt and reformed, to be injured is not to be broken. So, these are the paintings that come from my interior. And with my semi-medical background the lacunae is also the little holes in your bones. In this piece you can see what Katz means by interior spaces.

The painting draws you in and the movement within the piece helps move the eye. The vivid acrylic colors make the painting explode on the canvas.


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Synesthesia is something else that inspires her. She has always had this. So, I thought this is something I could bend and paint and I did. These pieces are very delicate, but draw people in. Thorsen used whole oils, glass flake, and cristobalite to create this piece. The result is stunning. Such calls have led to the creation of a wide variety of offerings for students at middle-school and even elementary levels [ 8 ]. Summer code camps targeted at middle-school students are one of the more popular approaches. Such camps often emphasize fun aspects of computing, such as games and robots.

However, research at the collegiate level suggests that meaningful applications of computing, such as computing for social good, are more successful and building and sustaining interest, particularly among students from groups traditionally underrepresented computing.

Random Musings Regarding Perfectionism

For the past three years, we have offered summer code camps for middle school students that explore different approaches to computing than are traditionally used for summer camps. One of our more recent camps focuses on ideas from the digital humanities, or DH, the application of computing approaches as a component of humanistic models of inquiry. Because it reveals different ways to apply algorithmic and computational thinking, DH has the potential to attract students who might not otherwise consider computing of value. Nonetheless, DH as an introductory topic is not only under-represented at the middle-school level, but also at the collegiate level.

In this paper, we report on our first offering of our digital-humanities middle-school camp. We introduce central issues in the digital humanities, explain the rationale for the camp design, describe the camp curriculum, and reflect on successful and less successful aspects of the camp. I suppose I could take a slightly different approach to the material and treat the digital humanities issue as the context The digital humanities are … and then use the second paragraph to suggest why we are offering them at the middle-school level.

One of the long-standing problems in computer science education is how to attract students who might not otherwise be interested in CS, particularly those from traditionally underrepresented groups. A number of approaches have shown success, such as media computation and computing for social good. However, the gap in enrollments among both women and domestic students of color continues.

It is therefore worth pursuing other approaches. One possibility is to emphasize ideas from the digital humanities, or DH, the application of algorithmic and computational approaches to support inquiry in the humanistic disciplines. Because of its focus on problems traditionally studied on the other side of campus , DH shows potential to attract a very different group of students to computer science. In this project, we explore the use of digital humanities topics in a week-long code camp intended for middle school students. Even though the use of DH as a topic in introductory CS is still in its infancy, we considered it useful to see what effect DH-style topics would have on students who do not yet know what the humanities are.

We report on our first offering of this camp. I find myself fond of the first paragraph. The third paragraph is essentially the same as in the prior abstract [ 9 ]. In either case, I should probably also think more about my definition of the digital humanities. Let me see what one of my reference works says:. For us, digital humanities simply represents a community of scholars and teachers interested in using or studying technology.

We use humanities techniques to study digital cultures, tools, and concepts, and we also use computational methods to explore the traditional objects of humanistic inquiry. What did I write? In the first sketch, I wrote the application of computing approaches as a component of humanistic models of inquiry. In the second, I wrote The application of algorithmic and computational approaches to support inquiry in the humanistic disciplines. I like that both focus on the computational tools as part of the inquiry.

But humanistic models of inquiry is a bit wordy and humanistic disciplines is a bit limiting. Perhaps just humanistic inquiry. What other words could I use? Thinking is too broad and does not necessarily imply the use of computation. Perhaps algorithms and computation.

Digital humanities DH , the use of algorithms and computation in support of broader humanistic inquiry. I have two abstracts, one that uses code camps as a context, one that uses the digital humanities. Which should I use? Writing an abstract for another code-camp paper gives me another set of language for the first paragraph.

Abstract musings

Plus, I like the way this introduction carefully grounds itself in those two important actors problems. The underrepresentation within CS of women, domestic students of color, and lower-SES students remains a national issue. Persistent stereotypes about who does computer science can cause members of these groups to preclude interest in the field Cheryan and Plaut ; many also perceive computing as irrelevant and asocial Guzdial While these issues must be addressed at multiple ages and levels, many suggest that we should start early, before students have developed both types of stereotypes McGill, Decker, and Settle As a step in combating mis- perceptions of ability and relevance, we developed and conducted a spectrum of week-long summer code camps for regional middle-school students.

These camps emphasize meaningful uses of computing, on building self-efficacy, and on broadening understanding of who does and can do computer science. In this paper, we focus on our data science for social good camp, in which students explored computational approaches to data science through a lens of computing for social good Goldweber , discovering how computing helps them not only better understand societal issues but also convince others to address problems. We discuss the rationale for the curriculum and its content, including our uses of pair programming, personal projects, and a growth model that brings students from block-based programming to professional Jupyter data notebooks.

Artist Comments

In a few days, I may decide on a completely different approach. However, I am asking myself it was worth that much time and effort to write something that is not significantly different than the original. Developing soft and technical skills through multi-semester, remotely mentored, community-service projects. The current draft title above is a mouthful.

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But it strikes me as a good starting point for what we want to write about. Should I free-write this abstract or should I do a bit of planning first? What are the key aspects of the course? We use multi-semester projects so that students have the experience of joining a project in the middle. We use alumni as remote mentors for the course. All three aspects help the students build soft skills; they learn to work as a team, they learn to work with non-technical clients, they learn to work with remote partners or managers , and they learn to think about their successors.

Returning to a project allows a student to develop leadership skills and potentially provides other students with a useful resource. I should probably include something about those lessons in the last paragraph. So I guess it will follow something like my standard model. I really should challenge myself to write differently.

There are a wide variety of approaches to the undergraduate software design or software engineering course. Some courses focus on formal methods. Others explore methodologies and core design issues. And, while most include a project, the project can vary from the central focus of the course, the part that all other learning hangs on, to something that is useful, but secondary to the primary learning in the course.

For the past four years, we have taught a reimagined software design course that includes both typical and atypical components. Projects form the core of the course: Students work in small teams people to build non-mission-critical software for local nonprofits. In contrast to projects in many software design courses, which students expect to finish in a single semester, we focus on projects that will often require multiple semesters to finish.

Among other things, this model gives students an experience they rarely encounter, that of working with legacy software. Our partner nonprofits report that they can rarely afford the commercial equivalents to the software the students develop, which both incentivizes the students to build the software and gives the partners patience when projects take more time than predicted.

Because students are working with non-technical clients, we provide them with alumni mentors who help them navigate not only technical problems, but also the challenges of working with a real-world client. They learn to work with a team, to communicate with non-technical clients, to work with remote collaborators or mentors , and to think ahead to the successors who have to take on the project in the next semester.

As we tell our students, in many ways these skills are more important than the technical skills they develop in the course. In this paper we report in more detail about the design of the course and provide suggestions for those who might want to adopt a similar approach. For example, how do you recruit and manage partners and alumni. We also report on the many issues we have encountered throughout the years. What happens when a student posts the class AWS key to a public repository and someone scrapes it?

How do you recover from the inadvertent posting of private information? What challenges might a change in management at a community partner entail? How much do I need to cut from the remaining paragraphs? That means cutting ninety words, or about one fifth. For the past four years, we have taught a reimagined software design course with both typical and atypical components. Rather than emphasizing projects that students finish in a single semester, we choose projects that typically require multiple semesters to complete.

Since students usually enroll for the course for one semester, this model gives students an experience they rarely encounter, that of working with legacy software. We provide each team with an alumni mentor who helps them navigate not only technical problems, but also the challenges of working with a real-world, non-technical client.

As we tell our students, in many ways, these skills are more important than the technical skills they develop in the course. In this paper, we report in detail about the design of the course and describe many of the challenges associated with this model, including projects that inadvertently reveal confidential information or keys to costly services, clients who switch management and, therefore, expectations, and projects that become obsolete before they are finished.

We also provide suggestions for those who might want to adopt a similar approach, such as strategies for recruiting and managing partners and alumni. Yeah, I can go for that. I wish I were less tired. What happens if I just cut the examples in the last paragraph? That makes it short enough. But I really like the examples in the last paragraph.

These projects typically require multiple semesters to complete. Since students usually enroll for the course for one semester, this model gives students the novel experience of legacy software. We also provide each team with an alumni mentor who helps them navigate not only technical problems, but also the challenges of working with a real-world, non-technical client. This abstract falls into the category of abstracts I expect to throw away and replace after I write the paper. But it should suffice for now. It covers most of the core issues.

In thinking about the project, the code camp context was what motivated us. But would the digital humanities aspect be more compelling to my readers? Over the past decade, politicians, leaders, and pundits have called for computing and computer science education opportunities to be made available earlier and earlier. Such calls have led to the creation of a wide variety of offerings for students at middle-school and even elementary levels, including summer code camps targeted at middle-school students.

Such camps often emphasize fun aspects of computing, such as games and robots [ 20 ]. In contrast, research at the collegiate level suggests that meaningful applications of computing, such as computing for social good, are more successful and building and sustaining interest, particularly among students from groups traditionally underrepresented computing. In this project, we developed and offered a summer camp that draws upon ideas and approaches from the digital humanities.

The digital humanities, or DH, explores the use of algorithms and computation in support of broader humanistic inquiry. Because DH reveals different ways to apply algorithmic and computational thinking, DH has the potential to attract students who might not otherwise consider computing. In this paper, we introduce central issues in the digital humanities, explain the rationale for the camp design, describe the camp curriculum, and reflect on successful and less successful aspects of the camp.

Among other things, we consider how to introduce digital humanities topics to students who have not yet heard of the humanities and explore the utility of such topics for this age group.

I guess the question is really whether I want to begin with underrepresentation or with call for changes to education. And in what I have here, I wonder whether the coneection between meaningful and digital humanities is sufficiently clear. The last sentence of the second paragraph tries to make that argument, but it may not be enough.

Once again, I have to remember that this is really just a draft.


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We will get to rewrite the abstract if we finish the paper. WIll I muse about those papers?

Abstract Musings #11 by Hannah Jane Call - Hello Poetry

Then I can analyze what I find compelling about them. That analysis may help me in the future. I should also acknowledge that what I find interesting may not be what others find interesting.