| Date | Speaker | Talk |
| Sep 26, 2006 1:30p-3:00p WEH 4625 |
Tim Bell, author of "CS Unplugged", University of Canterbury | Computer Science Unplugged |
Computer Science Unplugged <http://www.unplugged.canterbury.ac.nz/> is a project that seeks to teach principles of computer science without using computers. It can be used in conjunction with computer courses, in classrooms, and in situations where access to computers is limited. This seminar describes activities that Computer Science academics can use to demonstrate principles of computer science to school children in a variety of settings, and as a warm up for university courses. These activities are "unplugged" --- no computers are required.
We will describe how "Unplugged" material can be used for school outreach, and some evaluation and lessons learned over the years will be presented.
Tim Bell is an Associate Professor in the department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. His current research interests include Computers and Music, Public Understanding of (Computer) Science, and educational applications of podcasting.
He received the Science Communicator Award from the NZ Association of Scientists in 1999, and an inaugural New Zealand Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2002. He has appeared with his "Computer Science Unplugged" show at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, the Dunedin International Science Festival, and the Australian Science Festival. He is also a qualified musician, and performs regularly on instruments that have black-and-white keyboards.
He is co-author of the books "Text Compression" and "Managing Gigabytes".