作者:Jason Oswald，计算机科学系主席
Computer Science Education Week is an annual call to action to inspire K-12 students to learn computer science, 倡导公平, 并庆祝学生的贡献, 老师, 和实地合作伙伴.
12月的第二周是vwin德赢娱乐中最繁忙的时候. 如果条款没有结束, 节日庆祝活动也没有发生, 那么肯定还有其他事件在发生. 在GA这里, 创始人的一天, 设计的一天, 吊梁, 中学音乐会, 房子的事件, and countless other magical moments all happened during the prescribed CS Ed Week (December 5-11).
我们在这个时候庆祝是为了纪念格蕾丝·霍珀, 她的遗产, and her contributions to the field of Computer Science that are foundational elements to modern programming. 是什么让我觉得她与众不同, though – and indeed likely why we celebrate CS Ed Week in her honor – can be summed up with this quote:
这是我完成的最重要的事情, 除了构建编译器, 培训年轻人. 他们来找我，你知道，然后说，‘你认为我们能做到吗?’我说，‘试试吧.“我支持他们. 他们需要这个. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir 'em up at intervals so they don't forget to take chances. ——格蕾丝·霍珀
It is in this spirit of creativity and resilience that vwin德赢娱乐 celebrates CS Education Week.
The primary activity this year was built upon a classic unplugged activity called Muddy City. 在本质上, 泥泞之城的居民有很多土路需要铺路, 他们希望尽可能便宜地把所有的房子连接起来. This fun activity hides an introduction to Graph Theory and some of the attendant problems in that particular field. 较年轻的学生首先把房子连接起来, 然后尝试用尽可能少的连接将它们连接起来, and then iterated to account for the varying costs of those connections– creating what is known as a Minimum Spanning Tree. We then tried to understand how we were able to create this; what steps did we take; how could we explain this to someone else? 换句话说，算法是什么? 我怎么能向电脑解释这个呢, 所以当我们处理一百万个连接时，而不是十个, 我们可以解决这个问题, 太?
《vwin娱乐场官方》让位于棋盘游戏, 乘车票, 这是另一个隐藏图论问题, 也是一场精彩的比赛. 当然, you could use what we just learned in Muddy City to find the minimum spanning tree for the cities in 乘车票, 但在游戏中, 你想找到从A点到B点的最短路径. 作为人类, 我们可以找到最短路径, 或者一个非常接近它的, 就在一瞬间, using contextual information like the geography of the country and the direction of the path. 一台处理同样问题的计算机将没有这样的信息. 那么，我们如何向计算机解释如何解决这个问题呢? Or the problem right next door to this problem: how can I most efficiently visit a whole series of cities. 这就是著名的旅行推销员问题.
这些问题的版本在物流中一直出现, 生物信息学, and manufacturing: how can I minimize the distance a certain part of the machine has to travel, 考虑到它必须触及某些点? Being able to describe an algorithm that doesn’t rely on a human’s ability to utilize context clues is a foundational element of Computer Science.
The primary deliverers of these lessons were 上学校 Computer Science (CS) students. There is a special joy in seeing these interactions happen – and watching them practically skip across Connor Quad to revisit previous classrooms, 前的老师, 还有年幼的兄弟姐妹. The older students have such an excellent and unique way of working with the 较低的学校ers and the energy that this produces is electric. 学生 worked together to puzzle out the best way to solve whichever problem they were working on. “试试!最后, they’d proudly display their completed maps with the 上学校ers matching their energy beat for beat.
在其他地区，九年级学生在社区时间见面. 顾问们分享了这一周的一些信息，以及格蕾丝·霍珀是谁, 然后向他们展示下一个活动的选择——“试试吧!: By far the most popular choice was a walkthrough of a 太l developed by Georgia Tech called EarSketch, 它以一种有趣的方式将音乐编辑软件与编码结合在一起. Ms. Caramanico’s students seemed to have quite a time with it as they programmed their beats and mixed samples of current popular music together. 学生 could also learn how to code using a progressive programming language called Hedy, 或者开始制作他们的数字健康应用程序的原型.
最后, we had a few guest speakers come and talk to Middle and 上学校 students throughout the week. 我们的第一位演讲者是来自利哈伊大学的Hank Korth教授. 他谈到了计算机科学在大学阶段的情况, 里海大学的课程是什么样的, and his current work with the “interdisciplinary team spanning computer science and business” called Blockchain @ Lehigh. 另外还有两位最近的校友，21岁的Kevin Cui和22岁的Casey Traina. Kevin is currently a sophomore at Cornell and Casey is wrapping up his first term at Stanford. 他们各自谈到了他们学校的计算机科学项目, 他们一直在上的课程, and showed us some examples of what they’d been working on before opening the floor to a variety of questions relating to their GA experience, 大学, 和CS技术方面的东西.
因此，从12月1日到12月15日，我们腾出空间让学生们尝试. They tried making the residents of Muddy City less muddy, and then they tried to do it efficiently. They tried to discover how to explain to a computer what the shortest way to get from point A to point B is (in Computer Science, 它几乎没有一条直线)，他们试图像DJ一样制作音乐. They heard from GA community members who have been learning it, teaching it, living it… trying it.
