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A Summer Camp Experience to Engage Middle School Learners in AI through Conversational App Development

Authors:

Gloria Ashiya Katuka,

Yvonika Auguste,

Mehmet Celepkolu,

Kristy Elizabeth Boyer,

Joanne Barrett,

Tom McKlinAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE 2023: Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

Pages 813 - 819

https://doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569864

Published: 03 March 2023 Publication History

Abstract

The ubiquity of AI-based conversational apps such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant means more young users are interacting with these apps. The increasing popularity of these conversational applications brings a potential opportunity to attract learners to AI, CS and STEM fields. CS Education researchers need to explore how to leverage this opportunity, in particular to serve learners who are underrepresented in CS and STEM. This experience report describes the design and iterative refinement of a series of two-week summer camps in which 62 predominantly Black students participated in hands-on AI-based learning experiences to design and develop their own conversational AI apps. We discuss the organization of this summer camp experience, including strategies for recruiting from and building trust within the target community, designing professional development for camp facilitators, structuring the camp activities, and encouraging projects that are personally and socially relevant. We share challenges and lessons learned from this AI summer camp in the hopes that they will inform other researchers and practitioners who are interested in designing and deploying similar experiences.

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Cited By

Childs JZarch RDunton SMadkins TTrautmann KTaylor ZJacobson MOzturk SOttenbreit-Leftwich A(2024)Advancing Equity and Access: Addressing the Side Effects of Broadening Participation in Computer Science K–12 EducationReview of Research in Education10.3102/0091732X24128647548:1(121-153)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X241286475
Morales-Navarro LKafai Y(2024)Unpacking Approaches to Learning and Teaching Machine Learning in K-12 Education: Transparency, Ethics, and Design ActivitiesProceedings of the 19th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3677619.3678117(1-10)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677619.3678117
Quiroz PGutierrez FStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Scratch-NB: A Scratch Extension for Introducing K-12 Learners to Supervised Machine LearningProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630920(1077-1083)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630920
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

A Summer Camp Experience to Engage Middle School Learners in AI through Conversational App Development
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE 2023: Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

March 2023

1481 pages

ISBN:9781450394314

DOI:10.1145/3545945

General Chairs:
Maureen Doyle
Northern Kentucky University, USA
,
Ben Stephenson
University of Calgary, Canada
,
Program Chairs:
Brian Dorn
University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA
,
Leen-Kiat Soh
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
,
Lina Battestilli
North Carolina State University, USA

Copyright © 2023 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 03 March 2023

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SIGCSE 2023: The 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 15 - 18, 2023

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Cited By

Childs JZarch RDunton SMadkins TTrautmann KTaylor ZJacobson MOzturk SOttenbreit-Leftwich A(2024)Advancing Equity and Access: Addressing the Side Effects of Broadening Participation in Computer Science K–12 EducationReview of Research in Education10.3102/0091732X24128647548:1(121-153)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X241286475
Morales-Navarro LKafai Y(2024)Unpacking Approaches to Learning and Teaching Machine Learning in K-12 Education: Transparency, Ethics, and Design ActivitiesProceedings of the 19th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3677619.3678117(1-10)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677619.3678117
Quiroz PGutierrez FStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Scratch-NB: A Scratch Extension for Introducing K-12 Learners to Supervised Machine LearningProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630920(1077-1083)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630920
Song YTian XRegatti NKatuka GBoyer KIsrael MStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Artificial Intelligence Unplugged: Designing Unplugged Activities for a Conversational AI Summer CampProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630783(1272-1278)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630783
Kim KKwon K(2024)A systematic review of the evaluation in K-12 artificial intelligence education from 2013 to 2022Interactive Learning Environments10.1080/10494820.2024.2335499(1-29)Online publication date: 31-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2024.2335499
Tian XKumar ASolomon CCalder KKatuka GSong YCelepkolu MPezzullo LBarrett JBoyer KIsrael M(2024)AMBYInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10061838:COnline publication date: 27-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.100618

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