Joseph D. Oldham, Centre College
Florence Appel, Saint Xavier University

This session is for anyone interested in computing, education, and society to get together. SIGCSE members know the importance of societal issues in the CS curriculum. SIGCAS (Computers and Society) members are similarly committed to investigating such issues. Several SIGCSE members who hold a joint membership in SIGCAS are interested in once again discussing approaches to teaching societal issues in computing. We can also continue to look for points of connection between the two SIGs.

Rita Powell, University of Pennsylvania
Jean Griffin, University of Pennsylvania
David Matuszek, University of Pennsylvania
Diana Palsetia, University of Pennsylvania

Women enter computer science majors at rates that are disproportionately lower than men and leave at rates that are disproportionately higher. Results of a study conducted in 2003-04 at the University of Pennsylvania provided information that led to curricular and cultural changes in the undergraduate program and the department to stem the attrition of women. The Sundials in the Shade BOF proposes to discuss the Penn study, the changes that our department has made and how this has impacted persistence in the major.

Mario Guimaraes, Kennesaw State University
Paul Wagner, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Many security professionals believe that "The main battlefield between hackers and security professionals has moved from the network/OS layer to the database applications layer". However, there are a small number of database security courses being offered compared to network and operating systems security. This BOF will focus on identifying essential Database Security topics and breaking them down into the ones that should be taught in the CS curriculum. We hope that this session will also provide a forum for future discussions in this topic. The intended audience consists of any faculty that teaches Database or Security Classes.

Cathy Bareiss, Olivet Nazarene University

here are many challenges and strengths associated with teaching in a small department typically not found in larger departments. By working together, small departments can find ways to address these challenges and maximum the strengths. This BOF will allow attendees to share their successes and find help with their current challenges while members of small departments. We will also spend some time identifying our next areas of focus and people willing to work on these areas.

Frank Lanzer, Anne Arundel Community College
Donna Hiestand-Tupper, The Community College of Baltimore County-Essex

Community colleges are ideally situated to respond to the needs of their communities. The needs of underrepresented populations are of major concern and tend to focus the community college effort. The down side to this closeness may be a distance, physically and philosophically, from articulating universities. Efforts to recruit and retain women and minorities, and alliances with universities are two of the intended topics. Community colleges attract a wide variety of underrepresented populations. Many of these students transfer to universities. This Birds of a Feather session will foster a dialog and explore efforts to recruit and retain all underrepresented populations.

John Gudenas, Aurora University

We will discuss computer science capstone courses from a contextual view as well as from an outcome view. Drawing from the input of our group: structure, assessment, what seems to work, what didn't appear to work and any other relevant issues will be included in the forum. Consider that capstone courses are an important part of the undergraduate program and may very well provide or hone the social, verbal, research or other skills that lead our students to employment or graduate school. Participants can expect to learn from the experience of others as to the effectiveness of actual pedagogical techniques and content.

Carol Frieze, Carnegie Mellon University
Orit Hazzan, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Do we really believe that the predominant approaches to how we think about, and act on, issues relating to broadening participation in CS work? Have the major approaches to gender and CS research become part of the problem? Should we consider alternative approaches? This BOF discusses the limited implications for change afforded by the current body of "Gender and CS knowledge", and addresses how different working assumptions and research approaches may result in different conclusions, recommendations and strategies for broadening participation in CS.

David J. Malan, Harvard University

The sheer volume of keywords and syntax in even the simplest of Java programs (e.g., "hello, world") practically defies explanation on CS1's first day. Moreover, too often do semicolons and the like interfere with students' mastery of more important constructs (e.g., conditions, loops, variables, etc.). And so do some instructors turn to graphical programming languages like Alice, Crickets, Karel, Logo, and Scratch for students' first foray into programming. But which to use? Which is best? Which do you use? This session is an opportunity for instructors to share and learn from each other's experiences with these and other graphical languages.

Michal Armoni, Weizmann Institute of Science
Rakesh Verma, University of Houston

The automata and formal language course is considered a difficult course, and many students fail to see its relevance to their future computer science careers. Recent discussions within the CS education community hint that even some CS faculty are attaching low priority to this course in the current CS undergraduate curriculum. We feel that this course has a very important and unique role, as a representative of an entire subfield, with unique characterizing thinking patterns. We hope to fruitfully discuss ways to improve the status of this course, and to improve the representation of the subfield in the professional societies.

Robert G. Willhoft, Roberts Wesleyan College

Encouraging contribution and collaboration by students using wikis both in specific courses and across the curriculum. This BOF will encourage discussion about using a wiki in the following ways:
- Discussion forum for the textbook
- A replacement for standard written homework assignments
- A place for students to collaborate in studying for quizzes and exams
- Development of highly customized help for students working on labs and/or projects
- Student collaboration on written assignments
- Student/faculty collaboration on programming projects
- Exploration of tools used in a given course

Laurie White, Mercer University
Ann Shen, Bishop Strachan School
David Reed, Creighton University
Tracy Ishman, Plano West Senior High School
Donald Allen, Troy High School

Members of the APCS Test Development Committee will lead a discussion of the items of interest in the APCS program (CS-1/CS-2). These items may include, but are not limited to:
-the use of case studies
-the GridWorld case study (to be used on the exam starting in 2008)
-issues of course equivalence between the AP program and college and university CS-1/CS-2 courses.
-the importance of the AP Course Audit for high schools and universities
-syllabi preparation for the AP Course Audit
-results from the 2006 AP exam
-the use of Java 5 in the AP program

Solomon Negash, Kennesaw State University
Ying Xie, Kennesaw State University

A course in data warehousing and business intelligence requires depth in business and technical learning outcomes, catering to Information Systems (IS) and Computer Science (CS) majors, respectively. Because of the interdependence between the business and technical developments in these courses both CS and IS majors need to be exposed to the concepts. A strategy on how to achieve this goal with consideration for faculty workload is discussed in this BOF.

Ariel Ortiz, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Estado de México

As CS educators we know the importance of education over professional training. Yet we cannot ignore that employers commonly affirm that recently graduated students have a lack of practical skills required in "real world" situations. Important IT companies have academic programs that allow students to get certified in their specific technologies before they graduate. Anecdotic evidence has shown that a newly graduated student is more marketable if he or she has one or more professional certifications. This BOF will allow faculty members to discuss the pros and cons regarding this issue.

David P. Voorhees, Le Moyne College

The view that computer science equals programming has been promoted by CS departments and professional organizations through their support of programming contests. Recent discussions on what a CS education should entail present an opportunity to restructure the contests to promote the breadth of computer science. This BOF will discuss ideas for changing the structure of programming contests, including types of exercises, location (centralized versus decentralized), duration, and judging criteria. The goal is to begin a discussion that leads to a change in contest structure that promotes the breadth of CS instead of the narrow CS equals programming stereotype.

Mark E. Hoffman, Quinnipiac University
Jeffrey A. Stone, Pennsylvania State University
David S. Herscovici, Quinnipiac University
Elinor M. Madigan, Pennsylvania State University

For over twenty years, writing has been part of the Computer Science education literature. The literature promotes the importance of writing, gives several examples that authors consider successful, and often exhort fellow CS educators to adopt more writing in their courses. In several instances, authors report adopting writing as part of a university-wide mandate or assignment to a writing intensive course. In this session, we will discuss the challenges of adopting writing in CS education. We will share types of writing that CS educators use, and explore recent trends where writing is used to promote teaching and student learning.

Doug Baldwin, SUNY Geneseo
Peter Henderson, Butler University
Judith Gersting, University of Hawaii, Hilo
William Marion, Valparaiso University

Mathematical concepts and reasoning are important tools for computing students to understand and be able to use. This has been recognized by computer science, software engineering, and mathematics educators in the evolution of the latest curriculum guidelines. This session will foster discussion of math's evolving place in computing education, including but not limited to new curriculum models, new courses, mathematics early, integration of mathematics throughout the curriculum, available resources, and promoting change. All computing educators who wish to explore and discuss these and similar topics from any point of view are encouraged to attend.

Richard Anderson, University of Washington
Dave Berque, DePauw University
Beth Simon, UCSD

Many instructors use active learning techniques to promote student engagement and assess class understanding. As an increasing number of students bring wireless devices to the classroom, there is growing interest in incorporating these devices into classroom instruction. In this birds of a feather session, we will examine how wireless networked devices can be used to support active learning. We are interested in hearing about pedagogical practices used in different sub-disciplines of Computer Science. The emphasis will be on the pedagogical techniques, and not the individual systems. The three discussion leaders have developed classroom interaction systems, and have substantial experience using the systems in the classroom.

James Cross, Auburn University
Dean Hendrix, Auburn University
David Umphress, Auburn University

jGRASP is a freely available IDE with visualizations for improving the comprehensibility of software. A new structure identifier viewer has been added which is able to automatically detect and render many traditional data structures including stacks, queues, linked lists, and binary trees. The viewer provides a state-based animation of the data structure in a textbook-like presentation view as the user steps through a program. This birds of a feather session will focus on (1) how this new data structure viewer can improve the teaching and learning experience for students and (2) how the viewer itself can be improved. http://jgrasp.org/