Communications of the ACM
And That's a Wrap: SIGCSE 2015 Ends
The logo of SIGCSE 2015.
Credit: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education
The last day of SIGCSE 2015 follows a reversed schedule — two sessions of papers, panels, and special sessions, followed by the closing luncheon and keynote. Then there were the final set of workshops and the committee hand-off dinner.
The morning tracks were filled with more information, including the always packed Nifty Assignments session. If you’ve never been to SIGCSE, Nifty Assignments is always one of the highlights. Nick Parlante (Stanford University) curates interesting CS assignments from other educators, who then present them to the audience. This year's collection, as well as previous years dating back to 1999, can be found at http://nifty.stanford.edu/. This year's contenders include one for animation, one using geo data, and one incorporating sound.
There were also morning sessions on computer science in K-12, K-12 outreach and summer camps, non-major and interdisciplinary computing courses, and computing and society. SIGCSE covers a broad spectrum of computing educating topics and most can be found in at least one session at the annual symposium. In addition to all of these paper presentations, panels, and special sessions, SIGCSE also hosts posters, lightening talks, and a student research competition for both undergraduate and graduate students.
The concluding luncheon featured delicious Kansas City barbeque and a slide show of many of the events that occurred over the previous two and a half days. The final keynote delivered by Keith Hampton (Rutgers University) was entitled "Connected, Committed and Social? The Consequences of Computing for Relationships." Hampton discussed whether social media and digital technology really affect relationships, based on evidence from a series of large-scale studies. The speech provided the audience with information to ponder on their return trips home.
Of course, none of this would have occurred without the help of our sponsors and all the volunteers that help to organize, support, and run SIGCSE. We would like to thank our Platinum Sponsors Google and Microsoft; our Gold Sponsors ABET and Oracle Academy; our Silver Sponsors GitHub, Gradescope, Piazza, Teradata University Network, and Zyante zyBooks; and Turing’s Craft, our Bronze Sponsor. We also appreciate all the exhibitors, including those that sponsored the reception (NCWIT and Vocareum), as well as the in-kind donations. And many thanks to the volunteers, especially the students who helped staff events and provide assistance to the session chairs.
Finally, gratitude is extended to all the committee members who selflessly gave of their time to ensure a smooth conference for all. It was a successful conference, in which 1,280 friends gathered to learn from one another on how to improve computer science education for all.
We hope to see everyone next year in Memphis!
Briana B. Morrison is assistant professor of software engineering at Southern Polytechnic State University, and publicity/social media chair of SIGCSE 2015.
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