My name is Andrew Luxton-Reilly (originally Andrew Luxton, but I changed my name when I married, much to the surprise of my students).  I came from a background in the liberal arts, studying subjects like Media, Ancient History, Psychology and Philosophy and I loved it.   I completed a Masters of Arts in Philosophy before eventually conceding that a more applied subject would improve my career opportunities.  I was fortunate to be finishing my studies at a time when student numbers in Computer Science were growing rapidly and I fell into a teaching position in the Computer Science Department at The University of Auckland in New Zealand, more by accident than by design.  I have been a member of the faculty since 1995, but spent the first 10 years teaching, and have only been involved in Computer Science Education Research since 2005.

The majority of my research has related to Contributing Student Pedagogies, which bring the ideas of user-generated content into the Educational ambit.  More recently, I’ve become interested in trying to describe and measure the various things that make programming code difficult to understand.  I’ve also been involved in a few ITiCSE working groups, which I highly recommend to anyone who gets the chance.

I’ve been teaching what are considered to be large classes by our standards, averaging around 400 students (although before the decline in CS enrolments some classes peaked at almost 850 students).  Most of this teaching has been with novice programmers, either in CS0, CS1 or CS2.   Although I love teaching the introductory sequence, I was gratified to have had the opportunity this year to develop and teach a new graduate course in Computing Education.

A new role that I’ve taken on recently has been membership in the University of Auckland Human Participant Ethics Committee – in other words, the institutional ethics review board.  I’ve only been on the committee for a few months so far, but it is fascinating to be on the other side of the fence when it comes to approving research studies.  I expect to write more on some of the issues that arise in future.

It is almost Christmas, which means long days on the beach and BBQs in the sun.  Once again, I have to explain to my (5 yr old) son that it won’t snow on Christmas, regardless of what he sees on cards, books, TV shows, movies and merchandise.  What is normal for one culture doesn’t always apply in another, and it is only through exposure to a diversity of views that we realize how much we inherit from tradition, and how different things could be!

I hope that my contributions here will add to the diversity of views on CS Education from around the world – but not until I get back from my summer holidays

Ciao,
Andrew

My name is Roger McDermott and I am a faculty member in the School of Computing Science and Digital Media, at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland. This is a relatively new (i.e. post 1992) British university of the type that grew out of the older regional UK Polytechnics and these type of institutions generally see themselves as having a more vocational or “professional” focus in their degree courses than the older universities.

I have to confess that I approach submitting to this blog with a little trepidation since, as I constantly remind my colleagues, I am not really a Computer Scientist. My academic background is in mathematics, specifically mathematical physics, and when I was originally appointed as a lecturer almost twenty years ago, it was to teach applied mathematics in, what was then, a School of Mathematical Sciences. Since that time, my academic department has responded to the vagaries of undergraduate recruitment by transforming itself first into a “School of Mathematics and Computing”, then to a “School of Computing and Mathematics” (that was a tough change!), then to a “School of Computing”, with an (aptly named) “Division of Mathematics and Statistics”, and now to our current incarnation as a “School of Computing Science and Digital Media”. No doubt an enterprising PhD student will one day carry out a research project on the social history revealed by these name changes, but one obvious fact is that, whatever our background, my colleagues and I live and work in a world where everyone needs to react to a changing educational environment. I still lecture in applied maths but nowadays I spend a lot of my time teaching various aspects of programming, as well as modules on collaborative and professional skills.

My students too have changed. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the introduction of tuition fees appears to many to be changing fundamentally the relationship between student and university. Even in Scotland, where the government still pays this cost, almost all students have part-time jobs and many are working long hours to pay for their living expenses, despite being registered as studying full-time. This is a complete change from when I was an undergraduate and the issues associated with it have a direct impact on my teaching.

What do I hope to contribute to the blog? Firstly, I hope to be able to provide a reasonably well-informed commentary on the UK approach to the subject. These are both difficult and exciting times for the sector, with new secondary school curricula being developed on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall. The changes aim to reverse the lack of opportunity for pupils to study Computer Science and Information Systems prior to university. The plans are good but the implementation may well prove difficult without the provision of extra resources, and I hope to report on this process.

Secondly, I have my own opinions about computer science education, and my own list of topics that I think are interesting and important. The relationship between different parts of the discipline, maths in the curriculum, teaching programming languages and paradigms, the significance and impact of MOOCs, … these are some of the things that I think raise important issues for the subject and deserve wider discussion.

Finally, I would like to invite conversation on the pedagogical issues with which I am currently involved. While I see myself first and foremost as a teacher, I have in recent years applied myself more to CS education as a research field. My own introduction to this has come through involvement with the UK Higher Education Academy subject centres, and participation in the ITiCSE conferences. Almost without exception, the people I have met there have been both intellectually stimulating and kind to me personally as a newcomer to the field. I have always come away from such interactions with my interest in the subject re-invigorated and I hope that this process can continue with the Inroads blog.

Roger McDermott