Fwd: ACM Princeton Chapter - December 10 meeting

[Arta Szathmary]

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Arta Szathmary about.me/artaszathmary

Arta.Sz...@gmail.com

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dennis Mancl <dma...@acm.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 11:20 AM
Subject: ACM Princeton Chapter - December 10 meeting
To: <PRINCETON-...@listserv.acm.org>

Upcoming Princeton ACM/ IEEE Computer Society Meetings and Events

Thursday Dec. 10 (early starting time: 5:30pm EST) - "Using the BBC micro:bit to teach STEM," Jonny Austin, CTO, Micro:Bit Educational Foundation

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PRINCETON ACM / IEEE-CS CHAPTERS
DECEMBER 2020 JOINT MEETING

   Using the BBC micro:bit to teach STEM

Our December meeting celebrates ACM CSEdWeek with a talk focused on education.

The BBC micro:bit was developed by a partnership of 30 organizations to meet the needs of educators in the classroom. Since the project launched with 1 million devices being distributed for free in the UK, a further 4 million micro:bits have been distributed around the world. It is in daily use helping students get creative with coding across 70 countries, with 250 accessories, and editors for Blocks (for example MakeCode), Python and Javascript, as a start!

The micro:bit is designed to be a seamless plug and play tool that puts creativity, learning and ease-of-use for teachers and young people first.  Instantly interactive, the micro:bit’s sensors and slick design make it accessible and exciting to the widest possible audience, even (perhaps especially) those who didn’t realize that coding was for them. It takes no time at all to build your first program, and the simplicity of the tools means that what follows is an upward spiral of success and satisfaction that encourages your imagination to run wild.

In October 2020, the Micro:bit Educational Foundation announced the release of micro:bit V2, which adds a speaker, a microphone and increased computing power while keeping compatibility with existing programs.

The talk will be about the story of the BBC Micro:bit, how it came to be, and how it is in use today. It will show some of the challenges, technical and educational that the Foundation and partners had to solve in creating micro:bit V2.  It will also discuss what’s ahead for the micro:bit community as we embark on the teaching of AI/ML concepts and work to inspire and prepare the next generation to work with digital technology everywhere in their lives, and an appeal for your help with this!

Jonathan Austin is the Chief Technology Officer at the Micro:bit Educational Foundation, on secondment from Arm Ltd. He was responsible for Arm’s delivery into the original BBC micro:bit project through 2015, and has been the Chief Technology Officer of the Foundation since its creation in 2016.  He is an author of the article, “The BBC micro:bit—From the U.K. to the World” in the March 2020 Communications of the ACM (https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/3/243028-the-bbc-microbit-from-the-u-k-to-the-world).


  --- NOTE EARLY STARTING TIME ---
   Date: Thursday December 10, 2020, 5:30pm EST
       **** NOTE: EARLY STARTING TIME ****
   Place: ONLINE MEETING - registration required
   How to register:
     * Send email to Prince...@gmail.com
     * OR Register on Meetup.com (https://www.meetup.com/IEEE-Princeton-Central-Jersey-Section/events/274600447/)
   Information: Dennis Mancl (908) 285-1066
   On-line meeting notice:  http://PrincetonACM.acm.org/meetings/mtg2012.pdf

All ACM / IEEE-CS meetings are open to the public. Students and their parents are welcome.  There is no admission charge.

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Future Princeton ACM/ IEEE Computer Society Meetings

All Princeton ACM / IEEE-CS meetings for fall/winter 2020-21 will be held “on-line”.  When you register for the meeting, you will receive an email with instructions for how to connect to the talk.

Thursday Jan. 21 (early starting time, 6:00pm)- "Full Stack Development: More Than Just Programming," Chris Northwood, Culture Shift

Thursday Feb. 18 - "Seismic Shifts: Challenges and Opportunities in the 'Post-ISA' Era of Computer Systems Design," Margaret Martonosi, Princeton University

Thursday Mar. 18 - TBA

Thursday Apr. 15 - TBA

May TBA - Annual Dinner Meeting