Mentor at the new Sumner Code Club

Please consider mentoring at the new Sumner Code Club, held in the beautiful Sumner Library just northwest of downtown Minneapolis.  Inspire Northside girls and boys (ages 9 to 14) to explore coding using Scratch -- a fun and powerful language for creating and sharing your own games, animations and stories. 

Experienced Scratch mentors -- or mentors eager to explore Scratch -- are all welcome. 

We're starting out with 3 sessions on Monday evenings from 4 to 6 pm -- March 31, April 7 and April 14.   

Please REGISTER HERE to mentor at one or all of these events and enjoy introducing a Northside child to the delights of coding.

Thank you for helping inspire a diverse new code-savvy generation. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. And please spread the word.  

Thank you,

Rebecca Schatz
rebecca@codesavvy.org

WSJ cites Coder DoJo Twin Cities

Matt Gray, co-founder of Coder DoJo Twin Cities and a guest at our next meeting is featured in a March 22, 2014 article on the rising interest and the opportunities to learn 'coding'.

CSA Spring Meeting - April 16, 2014 7:30-9:00am

We're mixing it up for our early spring meet up. In place of a mid-afternoon gathering, we're going to try for an earlier time slot - Breakfast!  Our special speaker for this meeting is one of CS&E's 'top researchers' - Prof. Loren Terveen whose research focuses on 'Precision Crowdsourcing'. The meeting details can be found under the agenda tab above.

Prof. Loren Terveen

Prof. Loren Terveen will be joining us to talk about his precision crowdsourcing  work with social media giant 'Pinterest'. He will present some noteworthy research findings, share his viewpoints on this research and bring us up to date on his current interests. After the talk, we'll have a short CSA business meeting.

Plus, we'll also have Matt Gray of Clockwork Active Media, a software engineer, tech-biz entrepreneur, CS&E alumnus 'in the house' to talk to CSA membership about Coder DoJo Twin Cities. Matt co-founded the Twin Cities chapter and he'll have some inspiring anecdotes to share.

Wednesday April 16, 2014 (RSVP by April 10)
7:30-9:00 am

Keller Hall, Room 4-178
200 Union St. SE, Minneapolis
Continental breakfast will be served.
Enter through the Electrical and Computer Engineering Main Office on the fourth floor.
Register here:    http://cse.umn.edu/forms/140416_alumni_learning.php

In concert with the College and Dean's office, we've invited CSE alumni to Professor Terveen's talk as one of the college's Spring 2014 Alumni Learning events.  We're hopeful this 'breakfast' time frame will not throw too many 'old timers' off of their game clock.  We're trying new and different ways to boost involvement and attendance. Our hope is to attract and welcome a few new faces and reconnect with old friends who couldn't get away for the typical mid-afternoon CSA meeting time.

See you bright and early on the 16th.

Ed. Note: Years of informal surveys over the past few years told us that CSA folks were 'open and welcoming' to different meeting times and places, given adequate notice, of course.
We need your input, we want to hear from you. Your suggestions and feedback are welcome.
Please, please take that 5 minutes and send us your thoughts, criticisms, ideas and recommendations via email. All of our 'lead dog' email addresses for this august organization are listed in the 'CSA MailBag' section.  Just click on the link and start.

CSA chair's connection field trip

I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with CS&E's Distinguished Alumnus, Rebecca Schatz (founder of 'The Works' and leads CodeSavvy.org), about her connecting with kids through coding and the outcomes she has witnessed.  I was personally convinced that CodeSavvy could be that extra-special connection and relationship that CSA has been seeking to bolster our outreach activity.

Rebecca is a terrific role model, fabulous leader and a strong advocate for volunteering with a purpose. She saw 'the need' before it was on most people's 'needs' radar. She experimented and built and tested and proved efficacy and feasibility.  No doubt about it - I was sold!  But, a nano-dilemma presented itself. If 'I' was going to stand behind this, recommend this initiative to CSA and the department, promote it, and do my level best to persuade colleagues, cajole friends and their colleagues to join this movement - I needed to see it 'in action' for myself.  I had to 'eat my own dog food' and see if a) these events were any good; and b) I - as a gray haired, 30 year info pro - could do this and like it!  So, I got the sign-up URL from Rebecca and attended the January 25th CoderDoJo Twin Cities event that CodeSavvy sponsors along with a couple of local software enterprises: Clockwork Active Media and Code42; a well known advertising agency - Colle+McVoy; and a couple of 'like-minded', non-profit, STEM advocates: Good 'n Nerdy and MinnWebCon.

Coder DoJo is Calling You ... back to the U

Hi Mentors,

If you are mentoring at the March 22 event, you may register up to three of your own children at this time. Please contact hello@coderdojotc.org if you have any questions or concerns.

We have a fantastic roster lined up for this Saturday---30 mentors---but I'd love to see even more for the 22nd so we can take full advantage of the classrooms at the U.
I'm working on a date for a mentors-only meetup so we can discuss 2014 so far and how well each group is working. I'll keep you posted.

Thank you all so much for volunteering your time to create this unique opportunity for kids and young adults in the metro area. And a special 'thank you' to all of you who put so much time, energy and effort into CoderDojo every other week.

Remember, every mentor that volunteers means an additional three students can attend CoderDojo!

You'd think after nearly a year of our events I'd be used to the delight in a child's eyes when they figure out they can control their computer---but I'm not. It gets me every time. :)

Thank you.  Matt Gray


Volunteer to warm your heart, sharpen your mind, and create some smiles! 
Sign up to be a mentor at the upcoming 4/12/2014 event!

Ed.Note: CoderDoJo Twin Cities conducts 14 week 'seasons' consisting of 7 working sessions held every other Saturday at the STSS building on the east bank UofMN campus. 
For details and remaining session dates for the 'current' season refer to the CoderDoJo website.

CSA and CodeSavvy.org

CSA began discussing the 'connection initiative'"how tos" with an expert, Rebecca Schatz, founder of the celebrated 'The Works', CodeSavvy.org and CS&E Department's 2013 Distinguished Alumni.  Rebecca's real world experiences and the hard lessons learned in building and running 'The Works' has provided her with an invaluable storehouse of foundational knowledge and years of experiences on the successful ways to start-up, market, nurture and operate an outreach program.

Rebecca's thrilled to have CSA on board and the timing is right!  She points out that the 'general public' is more attuned to the needs and pleas of better science and math educational opportunities  and specifically getting more young girls involved.  Youngsters and teens are eager to learn about computers and robots and rockets and smartphones and apps and the how-tos of building and creating. And yet, there's a shortage of 'qualified' mentors and coaches to leverage this great opportunity to connect and inspire.

There was 'an obvious match' between our respective organizations. CodeSavvy needs mentors for the kids who are participating in its programs, and CSA has some adult professionals who could find a way to commit a few hours exploring and coaching kids learning technology.

Join with us. We have plenty of openings and lots of opportunities. Check out all that is available and all that is coming up.

An Organization's Vitality Is Connection

Computing in modern society is now redefining 'ubiquitous' as the Internet of Things (IoT) era begins. Civilizations are increasingly dependent upon computer systems to operate and monitor our critical infrastructure and vital public safety services. In all kinds of businesses - manufacturing and services, in all of the sciences and engineering disciplines in all of our communications - computing continues to transform our lives, disrupt 'old ways', and obsolete 'old models' at an incredible pace. As civilization advances there's a growing priority 'need' to attract more young girls and boys into the sciences, mathematics, engineering and developing technologies. There's an aspect of this crisis of attraction that is as equally pressing as getting kids interested and involved and that is the need for STEM-based working professionals to volunteer to coach and mentor these young minds.

Get involved. Have some fun. And make a difference. We need to provide tangible help to our impressionable and inquisitive kids and out-of-classroom support for our teachers. This is our Call to Action! CSA is asking its members and colleagues - the scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and technicians - the STEM cadre of the state's business community - to step up and volunteer. For those involved with computing, we invite you to join us and help us to expand the mentor ranks of proven, working projects like Coder DoJo Twin Cities, Coder DoJo Rochester and other allied CodeSavvy projects.

Our stated mission is to facilitate connecting our CSA members with 'local communities' [as goodwill ambassadors of the CS&E department, college and university, and as human beings of character, honor and integrity who care about the future and want to pay-it-forward].  Our definition of 'local communities' is: people of all ages, but with a special focus on elementary and middle school kids, who have a keen interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and in particular - the computing arts and science.

As a CSA member we want YOU to become YOUR neighborhood's, YOUR town's, YOUR school's science, math, engineering and technology activist and advocate.

CS&E Events

The department posts a monthly calendar of events open to students, staff, faculty, CSA members and friends of the department. For example, special events relating to computing will be posted along with information on visiting scholars' talks, the Cray Lecture Series and 'Tech Talks' held regularly by companies several times a month. For details click here.

Here is the link to the CS&E Department's Seminar and Colloquia listings. 

There's always something spectacularly interesting going on at the University of Minnesota and especially in the College of Science and Engineering. Don't forget to 'feed your head', as Alice was told; or, ... was she?