Earlier in July, the University’s computer science program was awarded a $15,000 grant from Google that will be used to fund a computer science program for high school teachers.
“We are very excited about this grant, particularly as a chance to interact with a growing number of teachers who are aware of the opportunities that a career in computer science can provide to their students,” Jeff Gray, associate professor in the computer science department, said in an emailed statement. “We are one of two recipients in the South and very honored to be able to help our state’s teachers in becoming more aware of new technologies. This grant will help us in our continuing efforts to raise awareness of computing.”
The program will take place July 25-27. Gray said funds from the grant will assist teachers with travel support when they travel to Tuscaloosa for the program. There will be teachers from around the state and one teacher from Columbus, Miss., participating in the program. Last month, some of the grant money was used when two teachers from Dallas came to the city to learn more about the UA computer science approach.
Much of the material presented at the workshop will revolve around developing apps using Scratch and Google’s App Inventor. Shaundra Daily, a recent MIT Ph.D. graduate, will present on Scratch programming.
Gray will be teaching alongside UA Ph.D. student Amber Krug about Google App Inventor.
“The App Inventor is a friendly environment for creating smartphone apps for the Android,” Gray said. “It uses a graphical/visual block language that is easy to use for quick app development.”
Teachers will have the opportunity to create their own app that can be used in their classrooms and present their findings for Google and others to see. Along with using apps to create a greater student interest in computer science, Gray said he hopes the workshop will become a place for networking connections to be made as well.
“We also hope to use this opportunity to initiate a grassroots networking opportunity among these teachers so that they can share new experiences throughout the year,” he said.
The Google grant is a part of the Computer Science for High School or CS4HS initiative. As stated on cs4hs.com, the program is an “initiative sponsored by Google to promote Computer Science and Computational Thinking in high school and middle school curriculum.” The grant allows universities to provide these 2-3 day workshops. Grants for CS4HS are for universities, community or technical colleges in the US, Canada, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
