Come visit the CS Education Zoo from Steve Wolfman and Will Byrd

Post to SIGCSE-members, re-posted here with Steve’s permission.

TL;DR version: Watch Will&Steve interview interesting CS Ed folks on the CS Ed Zoo at http://webyrd.net/zoo.html.  Most recent episode with Mark Guzdial at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1oTtPECHZI

Full version:

It’s a common lament that CS education is an isolated practice. You teach in your own classroom, a colleague drops by once a year for performance review, and otherwise only your students know what you do.

We know what you’re thinking:

I wish there were a place where CS educators were kept on 24-hour public display (locked securely behind iron bars, of course).

Well, now there is!

Announcing the CS Education Zoo http://webyrd.net/zoo.html, a bi-weekly-very-ish interview series where CS educators (and people with animal-themed last names) Will Byrd and Steve Wolfman interview interesting people involved in CS education (even if they lack animal-themed last names).

So far, we’ve posted six episodes:

+ Mark Guzdial extols the power and potential of live coding (and MUCH more): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1oTtPECHZI

+ David Nolen ponders the impact of a programmer’s first language on their learning (and MUCH more): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxR-AjRZUrQ

+ Becky Bates shares how to craft a large, heterogeneous project course (and MUCH more): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QSOHDo4pVA

+ Jeff Forbes explains why “rapid feedback is better than good feedback” (and MUCH more): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJVoPE7IeaI

+ Rob Simmons discusses the subtleties of teaching formal reasoning about programming in intro courses (and MUCH more): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2xd5Bc_-Os

+ Kim Voll tells us what to tell our students interested in gaming careers (and MUCH more): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JcNHHSPMzE

And in the works: a chat with some of the people behind Hacker School.

P.S. Drop us a line (wolf@cs.ubc.ca or tweet like the cool kids apparently do to @steve_wolfman and @webyrd) if there’s some person, group, or other amorphous-but-audible entity you think we should invite!