For office use: Proposal # __ Date rec'd

PROPOSAL COVER PAGE

Title of Project: Empowering Teachers of Young Students in Computer Science (ETOYS-CS)

Name, Title, and Affiliation of Primary Applicant (Principal Investigator) George Reese, Director, MSTE Office, College of Education

Names, Titles, and Affiliation of other Personnel

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Lenny Pitt, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Computer Science

Kathleen Harness, Enrichment Teacher, Dr. Howard Elementary School & Staff, MSTE Office, College of Education

Amount of Request: $ 1 7 , 500

Type of Project (check all that apply):

Community Related Project

Course Proposal

Creative Work/Performance

Lecture/Seminar Series

Exhibition

Other

x

x

Names, Titles, AffIliation of Suggested Peer Reviewers (to be consulted only when the Review Committee requests additional information to better evaluate proposal). Kate Willlams, Assistant Professor in Library & Information Sciences Lawrence Angrave, Lecturer in Computer Science

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Department or Unit Head (required)

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ETOYS-CS

Empowering Teachers of Young Students in Computer Science (ETOYS-CS)

Congress has just put forward a resolution to designate the week of December 7th as "Computer

Science Education Week.,,1 "The House resolution calls on educators and policymakers to improve

computer science learning at all educational levels, and to motivate increased participation in computer science." However, right now, there are no state standards for computer science education (as there are for math, English, etc.), and there are few mechanisms to bring the real power of computer science to young children.

ETOYS-CS is a public engagement project that will create a course, Computer Science 199, for pre-service elementary school teachers. The course will provide undergraduates with an opportunity to learn computer science concepts and Etoys, a computer programming language for use at the elementary school level. These undergraduates will work with students in after school programs in Urbana and Champaign. More than a course, ETOYS-CS will be an engagement program developed collaboratively by The Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education (MSTE) in the College of Education and the Computer Science Department at the University oflllinois. We will work with Laurie Jacob at Edison Middle School's Technology Club, with Elizabeth Slifer at Carrie Busey Elementary School, and

Caren Allen at Kenwood Elementary School. ETOYS-CS will expand the ability of the campus to reach out to the community by creating a

mechanism for computer programming outreach to teachers and young students.

J

Etoys is an object-oriented programming language. It is an ideal computer environment for students to create simulations of natural or artificial phenomena in order to explore hypotheses. Creating a simulation requires abstraction of key properties to be modeled, as well as decomposing the problem into manageable sub-problems. Programming

concepts in many elementary Etoys projects involve those of iteration, of variable, and of conditional execution.

The ETOYS application pictured here was created by an elementary school student. It is an example of stochastic simulation that will be part of the ETOYS-CS curriculum for CS 199.

Components of the project The computer science content of the course will be written by Kathleen Harness, a veteran school

teacher at Dr. Howard Elementary in Champaign, in conjunction with computer scientists Cinda Heeren

and Lenny Pitt. Harness, Pitt, Heeren and the MSTE group will then implement the course and coordinate the outreach to the after school programs.

All materials developed through ETOYS-CS will be made available on the MSTE-hosted Etoyslllinois.org website. This site already has hundreds of projects created by young children that demonstrate their ability to learn and use computer programming concepts. The site has international visibility with major users in Europe and South America. Materials developed by Harness are part of all the millions ofXO computers being distributed around the world this academic year (e.g., 290,000 in Uruguay and 396,727 in Peru).

I See the ACM announcement at http://www.acm.org/press-roomlnews-releases/cs-education-weeklview

ETOYS-CS

The audiences for the project are the elementary school students and teachers in the community. However, the undergraduate student teachers will also benefit by increasing their familiarity with computers in general and programming in particular. Using a model comparable to that employed by the successful Math 199 course which combines classroom instruction with community engagement, our program will operate as follows: 20 undergraduates will each work 8 weeks for 4 hours per week with at least 2 students (1,280 student contact hours).

2

TheETOYS-CS materials will be developed in spring 2010; then piloted with students and

teachers in our network of collaborators in the local schools and on the U of I campus. This will build on the current connections Harness and Snir already have with several Champaign teachers who are using Etoys materials. The CS199 course will be offered in the fall of201O. We will evaluate the outcome and produce a project report in December 2010. At this time, we do not know how the course will be sustained after the first semester. However, we are confident that we can find enduring sources of support to keep the project going. One of the outcomes of a successful project will be the ability to sustain it past the initial phase.

Impacts The program will impact at least 20 undergraduates. There will also be statewide impact through

the training of teachers who will then begin going into classrooms around lllinois with these skills. By

involving a veteran teacher (Harness) from Champaign in the development and implementation of the program, we hope to build a bridge between in-service and pre-service teachers in local schools. We believe that having teachers actively involved in this way will also benefit the University'S process of outreach to local schools and help University students and staff better understand the challenges and opportunities in the local community.

Personnel The project will be managed, by George Reese, Director ofthe MSTE Office. Kathleen Harness

will plan the meetings and complete the preliminary modules that will then be revised and enriched by Lenny Pitt and Cinda Heeren. The MSTE Web development and tech support team of Michael McKelvey and Steve Granda will make sure that the Web presence is maintained and that there is adequate technology support for implementation in the schools. The collaborating teachers will be an essential part of the course, and the MSTE team will visit the schools to observe the instruction at least four times during the fall of 20 10.

Evaluation The primary impacts are the 8 weeks of after school instruction that benefit the students of our

local communities. ETOYS-CS will also reinforce the collaboration of practicing teachers with University faculty and staff as part of an authentic partnership that has genuine contributions from all the participants. To measure impacts, we will count the student contact hours to be sure if we have met the minimal goal. We will make all teacher resource and model project materials available on the Web and will track use via Google Analytics. MSTE has learned that online curriculum materials that are used by teachers result in email contacts with questions concerns. Our report will summarize which materials were accessed, where they were accessed from, and, as much as possible, who was using them. We will include qualitative data from focus group interviews in the fall of 20 10.

I strongly support ETOYS-CS and the course, Computer Science 199 as a way to give undergraduates an

opportunity to learn computer science concepts and computer programming and then to work with

students in after school programs. Avigail and Kathleen have partnered with me and classes at Edison to

show the program to both teachers and students and we continue to use it here. Students love it and

it's an easy and creative way to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Laurie Jacob

Instructional Technology Specialist

Edison Middle-School, Champaign

-----Original Message-----From: kharness@illinois.edu [<mailto:kharness@illinois.edu>mailto:kharness@il linois.edu] Sent: Fri 10/30/2009 1:47PM To: Elizabeth Slifer; Caren Allen Subject: next year

Good Afternoon, Do you think there would be interest at Kenwood and Carrie Busey in having pre-service teachers teach Etoys during the after school program?

We are writing a public engagement grant proposal that would offer an elective CS/Coliege of Ed course for undergrads who would learn programming with Etoys and who would then be required to teach four hours per week for 8 weeks in a school (after school will be best and easiest to schedule).

Our application is due on Monday so this is very short notice, but if you could write an email response for us to include with our proposal, I would appreciate it very much. Regards, Kathleen

From: "Caren Allen" <allenca@champaignschools.org> Date: Sun, 1 Nov 200922:31 :59 -0600 To: <kharness@illinois.edu> Subject: RE: next year

Yes, Yes, Yes!!!

We had a lot of kids sign-up for "computer club" last year, so I'm sure there would interested in something as fun and organized as Etoys!

Thanks for thinking of Kenwood.

Caren

-----Original Message-----From: kharness@iliinois.edu [<mailto:kharness@illinois.edu>mailto:kharness@illinois.edu] Sent: Fri 10/30/2009 1:47 PM To: Elizabeth Slifer; Caren Alien Subject: next year

Good Afternoon, Do you think there would be interest at Kenwood and Carrie Busey in having pre-service teachers teach Etoys during the after school program?

We are writing a public engagement grant proposal that would offer an elective CS/College of Ed course for undergrads who would learn programming with Etoys and who would then be required to teach four hours per week for 8 weeks in a school (after school will be best and easiest to schedule).

Our application is due on Monday so this is very short notice, but if you could write an email response for us to include with our proposal, I would appreciate it very much. Regards, Kathleen

From: "Elizabeth Slifer" <sliferel@champaignschools.org> Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 07:29:46 -0600 To: <kharness@illinois.edu> Subject: RE: next year

I think it would be great to have ETOYSs taught at after school. My instinct is that they surf the web too much and a focused program with knowledgeable people would be great. We also have America Reads Tutors who have helped in my class that might want to volunteer time in the lab, too. It (lab) could be used in conjunction with science, literacy or math topics from the classroom. It would enhance their learning and thinking skills. I am all for having it in the after school program. elizabeth slifer

Empowering Teachers of Young Students in Computer Science (ETOYS-CS)

Budget All personnel expenditures are for hourly employees.

Personnel Role George Reese (MSTE) Project manager Lenny Pitt (Computer Science) Instruction and materials developer Cinda Heeren (Computer Instruction and materials developer Science) Kathleen Harness (MSTE and Dr. Howard Elementary School) A vigail Snir (MSTE) Kathleen Smith (Mathematics) Jana Sebestik (MSTE) Michael McKelvey

Steve Granda (MSTE) Beth Kirchgesner (MSTE)

Supplies: Materials

Printing Total Cost:

Lead curriculum developer and instructor

Curriculum developer Developer Developer Webmaster - oversees online content

Technology support Program coordinator responsible for logistics and preparation of materials

Kits of travelling mini laptop computers for use in preparation and in the schools

Cost $0 $0 $0

$8,000

$0 $0 $0 $0

$1,000 $1,000

$7,000

$500 $17,500