Commentary on a recent study which evalauted the impact of Twitter on student engagement and grades.
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Call to Arms: Science and Engineering For Privacy
It is our responsibility as scientists and engineers to understand what can or cannot be done from a technical point of view on privacy.
Explaining Science and Engineering
As I have followed the international news regarding the Japanese disaster, I have been struck by the challenges each news organization has faced in explaining technical concepts. We live in a technological society, where understanding of scientific processes and the engineering design balances are essential to informed debate and decision making.
Algorithm Visualizations and Community Building
If you’re interested in using or developing algorithm visualizations (AVs), you should visit AlgoViz.org, a portal dedicated to creating a repository of AVs and building an active online community around them.
TeachScheme! Using Mathematics to Teach Programming
Matthias Felleisen and a team of computer scientists have developed the TeachScheme! Project, which provides high school teachers with courseware and other tools to use mathematics to teach programming.
Scientists, Engineers, and Computer Science; Industry and Research Groups
Mark Guzdial discusses what scientists and engineers should know about computer science, such as Alan Kay's "Triple Whammy." Greg Linden writes about industry's different approaches to research and how to organize researchers in a company.
Software Verification Turns Mainstream
Verification is maturing to the point where it will become integrated into mainstream software development.
At the NSF CE21 Meeting: We Have Such a Long Way to Go
The NSF CE21 Community Meeting highlighted the opportunity that computing has to catch up with the rest of STEM on education issues.
Let’s Teach Malware When It’s Ready: The Purpose of Undergrad CS
Ledin's call for teaching malware to all undergraduate students conflicts with my understanding of the purpose of an undergraduate CS degree.
The Wonderful World of Cooking Interfaces
This is an article describing some recent (and bizarre) interfaces to support cooking. The intersection of computer science and culinary art is not as small as you might think.
Intellectual Amplification via Computing
As the recent performance of IBM's Watson system on the game show Jeopardy! illustrated, the combination of large-scale data, rich algorithm suites and powerful computing are opening new vistas. Vannevar Bush's 1940s vision of a Memex, a device capable of storing, indexing and retrieving data from a broad knowledge base, is now within our reach.
In only a couple years, improved smartphones and laptops have closed the niche that netbooks lived in. Rather than mourn the loss of netbooks, let's celebrate their demise.
Design, Functionality, and Diffusion of Innovations
What's the relationship between functionality and design? What kinds of factors influence whether people do or don't adopt a technology?
Jason Hong considers how software companies could effectively incorporate first-rate design into their products.
What ‘Beginning’ Students Already Know: The Evidence
Detailed data collection at ETH Zurich over eight years shows what entering computer science students already know in computer usage and programming.
Peer Instruction For Seeing What Students Know (and Don’t)
Peer Instruction is an important pedagogical approach that is promoted by physics education researchers. I'm trying it for the first time in my CS class, and it's giving me new insight into my students.
How to Make a Geek Goddess Spit with Rage
A rather grumpy review of the book How to Be a Geek Goddess.
Let the Feds Know Your Thoughts on K-12 Computer Science Education
A federal program that invests in information technology research and development asks the community three sets of questions related to making K-12 computer science and essential subject.
U.S. government agencies are spending boatloads of money on pushing the envelope of massive compute servers, but appear to be ignoring the fact that many research groups have serious data-management problems.
Again: The One Sure Way to Advance Software Engineering
There is one proven way to improve the state of software, following the the airline industry's spectacular improvements of safety. The IT industry ignores it. Why?
Teaching Kids to Feel the Math With Computers
Why are students still calculating when they could be understanding? Now that computers are everywhere, how should math education change?
It is time we extracted a sample of cultural DNA from computing's history and engineered a new generation of contemplative, informal workshops. After gestation, ideas conceived at those workshops might even find their way into technical reports. Imagine that.
Shape the Future of Computing
ACM encourages its members to take a direct hand in shaping the future of the association. There are more ways than ever to get involved.
Get InvolvedCommunications of the ACM (CACM) is now a fully Open Access publication.
By opening CACM to the world, we hope to increase engagement among the broader computer science community and encourage non-members to discover the rich resources ACM has to offer.
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