Title

Google, High School Programmers, A Team from SCU, and Catholic Charities: Service Learning in Silicon Valley

Presenter Name(s)

Susan K. Boyd, Santa Clara UniversityFollow
Jackie Hendricks, Santa Clara UniversityFollow
Daniel W. Lewis, Santa Clara UniversityFollow
Jack Cooper, San Rafael High SchoolFollow

Location

University Library, St. Clare Room

Start Date

8-8-2017 2:00 PM

End Date

8-8-2017 2:50 PM

Description

This presentation will discuss the interdisciplinary efforts behind the Summer Institute for Humanitarian Computing (SIHC) in the Summer of 2016. The SIHC was developed by Dan Lewis and Silvia Figueira of Santa Clara University’s Department of Computer Engineering, hosted by SCU’s Frugal Innovation Hub, and funded by Google. It was an intensive four week program for local high school students to develop mobile phone apps to benefit Catholic Charities of Silicon Valley and make their first forays into academic research and publication.

A team of three computer engineering professors, a teaching assistant, a program coordinator, an English faculty member, and the engineering librarian worked with ten local high school seniors. The program focused on engineering faculty guiding the students to develop their apps, with the final week structured around intensive research and writing. The librarian used a LibGuide and instruction to assist with research, and answered students’ questions and reviewed their use of SCU’s library and other resources. The English instructor guided them in writing papers worthy of an academic conference and in developing accompanying posters.

Two of the three projects were presented at the ACM Computing for Development (ACM DEV) conference held November 18-20, 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Short bio of the presenter(s)

Dr. Jackie Hendricks is an Academic Year Adjunct Lecturer in the English department. She teaches Engineering Communications and Critical Thinking and Writing during the school year, and Advanced Writing online during the summer. Jackie received her Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University in 2013, and received an M.A. from San Jose State University in 2006 which followed a B.A. from UCLA in 1999. She guided the SIHC participants in the writing of their papers and the preparation of their posters and presentations.

Susan Boyd is the library liaison to the School of Engineering and the Mathematics and Computer Science department. As the Engineering/Math Librarian, she provides reference, instruction and collection development services. She received her Masters in Library Studies and B.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Susan supported the research efforts of Dr. Jackie Hendricks and the participants in the SIHC.

Dr, Dan Lewis is an Associate Professor in the Computer Engineering department and served as its founding chair for the first 17 years. Now he teaches embedded software development to undergraduate students and works with local K-12 teachers, schools, and districts to create and expand opportunities for students to study and pursue a career in computer science. With funding from Google, Dan established the SIHC pilot program in the summer of 2016 with the express purpose of providing a computer science research experience for high school students with the possibility of publishing their results.

Jack Cooper is a senior at San Rafael High School, and was a participant in the SIHC pilot program. He and a team of four other students, with instruction from Professor Amr Elkady, developed a prototype application to simplify the process of finding and applying to low-income housing in Santa Clara County. Their work was presented at the Seventh ACM Symposium on Computing and Development.