International Travel: Working Group on (Re)Defining Computing

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The foundations of computing science need rethinking. This group will convene a working group at the Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science (ITiCSE) in 2009 in Paris, France to articulate the fundamental properties of computing and computational thinking, and to explain what computing curricula built around this way of thinking might look like. Although much of the previous work in this area has focused on undergraduate majors, this project is equally important to pre-college, post-baccalaureate, and non-majors programs. As such, the program will directly address those creating high school sequences, new PhD programs, concentrations for non-majors who want or need to continue beyond CS 101 and those who are trying to reach students traditionally underrepresented in computing. Prior to the meeting, a group using electronic collaboration tools will draft a rough document describing the motivations for curricular change and the idea at its heart. We will use electronic collaboration tools for this phase. Each workshop member will circulate a description of at least one curriculum and the ways in which it supports or is supported by the model. At the meeting itself, members will discuss and refine the draft document. During part of the working group meeting, structured brainstorming techniques and facilitated discussions will aid in envisioning alternative curricula at all levels that might build on this idea. These visions, together with existing case studies will be part of the report. The working group is made of international scholars and members of industry as well as academics from the United States from a variety of institutions.