Outreach Blog
Welcome to our Blog! The purpose of this blog is to share information that enables K-12 students to have meaningful experiences with computing. Computer science is a profession that is for everyone: it provides careers that are impactful, intellectually stimulating, well paid and flexible. Yet, there is a worldwide shortage of computer scientists! Because computer scientists have changed the way we live (e.g. social media, smart phones and Google) and will continue to do so in the future (e.g. self-driving cars, smart homes, the Internet of Things and more), it is imperative that women and men from all walks of life participate. Please enjoy, share and contribute!
Happy Computing,
John Paxton
Professor and Department Head
September 14, 2016
Welcome Back new students and returning students!
Computer Science student enjoy root beer floats and ice cream bars!
May 24, 2016
Who Let The Dogs Out in Frenchtown!
Mr. Wood's kindergarten class learned about sequencing by making origami dog masks! Mr. Wood's class was the only class in Montana to complete all of the 2015-2016 Looney Challenges! CONGRATULATIONS!!!
May 12, 2016
Final Looney Challenge Posted Today!
This Week's challenge is the final Looney Challenge for the 2015-2016 school year! The Challenge explores the NASA Robotics Mining competition, the Montana State University Robotics mining team, students will learn about Mars and drive a Mars rover!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
May 4, 2016
Tangrams at Gardiner Schools!
Students from Mr. Poeschl's tech classes at Gardiner Middle School and High School
doing the Tangrams - a Looney Challenge. The students mentioned that they learned
about computational thinking and how to "come up with totally different ideas that are completely crazy and test them out."
Thanks you for participating in Looney Challenges!
Photographs courtesy of Mr. Poeschl.
May 3, 2016
What's New! The Spring 2016 CS Department Newsletter!
We are pleased to share with you the latest news and events from the computer science
department at MSU! We've had an exciting and very busy year and want to let you know about the accolades
and activities of our students, faculty and staff. Click on the thumbnail to find
the newsletter or If you would prefer to view the newsletter as a PDF, please go to http://ou.montana.edu/
ENJOY!
April 20, 2016
Looney Challenges! Posted Today!
This Week's Looney Challenges explores Sequencing! Understanding sequencing is an important and basic skill that students need to understand to solve computer science and mathematics problems!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
April 6, 2016
Summer Course for Montana Teachers - Teach Computing!
The Department of Computer Science and the MSSE Program at Montana State University
are pleased to offer an exciting summer 2016 graduate level course. CSCI 591Computer Science in the Classroom: Computational Thinking for Teachers is a 2 credit MSU campus course offered June 13-17, 2016.
The course is designed for grade 7-12 teachers who want to learn how to incorporate computation into the classroom. Teachers will be introduced to:
-
-
-
-
- Computational thinking using the Python programming language.
- The computing field and how it impacts the human condition.
- Ideas and influential people in the field of computing.
-
-
-
Funding support is offered to Montana high school teachers interested in teaching a computational thinking course either as a vocational elective or as a dual enrollment course. The support is a partial tuition reimbursement. Funding support for teachers interested in teaching such a course will be available through an application process.
Please share information about this course with math, technology and science teachers in
your school district. A CSCI 591 flyer is available at this link: http://ou.montana.edu/
All interested teachers should contact Diana Paterson at [email protected] or call 406-994-5679 for more information.
March 30, 2016
Looney Challenges! Posted Today!
This Week's Looney Challenges explores ALGORITHMS! Understanding algorithims is an important and basic skill that students need to understand to solve computer science and mathematics problems!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
March 25, 2016
Hour of Code, Continued!
Did you participate in Hour of Code? Would you like to keep learning coding? Are you a teacher that wants to incorporate more computing into your classroom?
Code.org offers several options to help you and/or your students to keep learning!
Code Studio - enables students to learn basic concepts of computer science as early as kindergarten. Teachers can track student progress and access lesson plans online, go to: https://studio.code.org/ to learn more or click on the image below.
Online, Self-Paced Courses for Teachers - Code.org also offers online professional development programs for K-12 teachers. The courses are free and are self-paced. The Teaching Computer Science Fundamentals course is intended "as an introduction to computer science fundamentals and the Code.org K-5 resources." For more information about the course, please go to https://code.org/educate/professional-development-online. For more professional development courses, go to the Professional Development page at Code.org, https://code.org/educate/professional-development.
March 9, 2016
This week's Looney Challenge will explore Pascal's Triangle. We decided to bring back a Looney Challenge from the archives to challenge your students!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
March 2, 2016
Having Fun with Cryptography!
Mr. Wood's kindergarten class at Frenchtown Elementary School learned about cryptography while participating in the 2015-2016 Looney Challenges. The student's decoded a message from Looney the Robot and taught their 5th grade mentors about ciphers, how to decode and encode. So far, Mr. Wood's class has completed every Looney Challenge and have earned more points than any other class participating in the Challenges! Nice job!!
Thank you to Mr. Wood for sending the photograph!
February 22, 2016
Bitterroot Valley Schools enjoy "The Legend of Looney"
Hunter Lloyd traveled to schools in the Bitterroot Valley last week with his robots to entertain and motivate students to pursue careers in computer science. This is the final semester of our grant that has been supporting Hunter and Looney's school visits around the State of Montana. He will be visiting schools in the region surrounding Bozeman and will also travel to Helena (March 1st), Harlowton (March 23rd), and North Central Montana (April 18-20 - Shelby, Choteau, Cutbank, Choteau and Great Falls). The photographs below are courtesy the Ravalli Republic and Michelle McConnaha.
February 17, 2016
This week's Looney Challenge will explore Cryptography and the Caesar Cipher!
Learn about cryptography, the Caesar Cipher and decode clues while playing "Desert Oasis Treasure Hunt."
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
January 25, 2016
Frenchtown Kindergarten Class Learning to Code
Brandon Wood's kindergarten class has been working very hard to learn how to code. So far, they have completed ALL the Looney Challenges! Keep up the great work!!
Photographs courtesy of Brandon Wood.
January 6, 2016
This week's Looney Challenge will explore the 2016 International Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas!
Student's will explore the latest technologies and the 2016 Innovation Award! Honorees include wireless video headphones, Lily, a “throw and shoot” camera, and a wellness app that uses an ergonomic ring.
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
January 1, 2016
December 21, 2015
December 9, 2015
Celebrate CS Education Week and Hour of Code for this week's Looney Challenge!
The CS Department is hosting an Hour of Code event, December 10th, 2015. Join us and the worldwide events this week!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
November 24, 2015
From all of us at the Computer Science Department!
November 18, 2015
The current Looney Challenge is about Recursion! Learn about recursion and see examples of recursion in art, nature, math, and computer science!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
November 2, 2015
Frenchtown Kindergarten Class Learn Tangrams!
Brandon Wood's kindergarten class learned how tangram's are used to teach computational thinking, spatial skills and mathematical performance. The students enjoyed the puzzles!
November 2, 2015
Bitmap Looney Challenge - Posted Today!
The current Looney Challenge is about Bitmap! Test your students knowledge on pixels and image representation!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
October 21, 2015
Hour of Code - December 7-13, 2015
Join Hour of Code! The global movement is trying to reach over 100,000 classrooms this year!
To learn more and to sign up your class and school, please go to HOUR OF CODE.
What is Hour of Code?
"It's a grassroots movement that has already introduced 100 million students to the basics of computer science. Participate with any one Hour of Code activity that students love - no experience needed!"
Also, if you join Hour of Code and have already registered your class/school, or want to register for Looney Challenges, please let us know, [email protected] and we'll award your class an extra 5 points for participating. All you need to do is send us a photo showing us your class doing the Hour of Code in your classroom and the activity your students have chosen!
October 19, 2015
Grace Hopper Celebration - 2015
Students from the Computer Science Department attended the 2015 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. The event, hosted by the Anita Borg Institute in Houston, Texas, was attended by over 12,000! The student's commented that the event was inspiring and fun! Check out the photographs!
MSU Attendees!
Stepping back in time.
Making MSU's presence known!
October 7, 2015
Tangram Looney Challenge - Posted Today!
This week's Looney Challenge is all about Tangrams! Test your students computational thinking, spatial skills and mathematical performance!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
September 21, 2015
Looney Challenges 2015-2016!
We are happy to announce the 3rd year of Looney Challenges! The first Challenge will
be posted, Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015.
This year's Looney Challenges have been re-vamped for teachers to use in Montana classrooms to teach computing skills. Teachers can register their class, or classes, and compete against other schools! Teachers can earn points to win computing prizes for your classroom, including up to 20 Raspberry Pi's (https://www.raspberrypi.org/)!
Please join us for another year of Looney Challenges!
July 2, 2015
June 15, 2015
Aldebaran NAO Challenge for U.S. High Schools
Aldebaran announced earlier this year the first NAO Challenge for U.S. High School
student. The finals will be held in Longmont, Colorado, June 27th, 2015. Thirteen
teams will compete in four different contest using NAO Robots (Like Looney!) To Learn
more about the Challenge, go to https://www.aldebaran.com/en/naochallengeusa.
Interested in participating next year? Follow the announcements on the NAO Challenge website for the 2016 competition and remember you only need 2-5 team members and you don't have to have a NAO robot to participate. Montana has a great history for student participating in robotics competitions - let's show what we know at the NAO Challenge in 2016!
For more information about particpating, send us an email, [email protected], and we'll see what we can do to help!
Thank you Penny Beckman, Thompson Falls Schools, for the photograph of Looney!
June 8, 2015
Looney Challenge #19 - Posted Today!
June 2, 2015
This week's Looney Challenge is the final challenge for the 2014-2015 school year! Talk to chatbot and learn about artificial intelligence (AI)!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
Man on the Moon
The American Computer and Robotics Museum's new exhibit, Man on the Moon, is open to the public. The exhibit celebrates more than 50 years of NASA and space
programs. See artifacts from the Apollo Missions that have never been on display!
The exhibit also shows how the space program made the personal technology and social
networking that we use everyday possible.
Also, stay tuned for the Museum's announcement of the 2015 George R. Stibitz Computer & Communication Pioneer Award and the Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award honorees!
The Museum is amazing and we highly recommend a visit!
For more information, go to the Museum's website, http://www.compustory.com/.
Photo Credit courtesy: American Computer & Robotics Museum
May 26, 2015
Looney Challenge #18 - Posted Today!
This week's Looney Challenge is about binary searches. Read a computational fairy tale, Hunting Dragons with Binary Search, and play Guessing the Number game!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
May 11, 2015
Looney Challenge #17 - Posted Today!
This week's Looney Challenge is about the NASA Robotic Mining competition that will take place, May 18-22, 2015.Challenges will learn about the MSU MARMOT team and drive a Mars ROVER!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
May 6, 2015
CS Department's Spring 2015 Newsletter
Introducing the 2015 Spring Newsletter! Highlights include:-Hunter Lloyd and Looney the Robot's "How to Train Your Robot" tour
-Meet the new CS Department Faculty
-Learn how the Association for Women in Engineering are helping students be prepared for careers in -CS
-Gianforte Family Foundation $1 Million Gift to the CS Department
-Software Factory
-Dr. Rocky Ross Retires
-And More!
Sun River FTC Wins World Championship!
Congratulations to the Sun River FTC - RedNek Robotics! The team ended a successful year at the FTC World Robotics Championships, April 22-25th in St. Louis, Missouri where they were one of the Winning Alliance at FTC Worlds teams! Team members included Carl Fee, Winston Fee, Jonathan McNair, Kirtland Briscoe, and Aaron Brubaker. The team members attend Fairfield High School, Paris Gibson Alternative High School and one homeschooled team member.
The team began the year competing again 4450 teams at many and regional and state competitions with only 128 qualifying for the World Championships. The Sun River team entered the championships as the favorite after having broken the world record in points 4 times at regional competitions! Their win-loss record for the season was 42-7!
Check out the Great Falls Tribune article about the Sun River FTC by clicking here. Other links:
RedNek Robotics Team Wins Worlds, Fox News Montana, April 28, 2015, http://www.kfbb.com/story/28925500/rednek-robotics-team-wins-worlds
RedNekRobotics Team from Sun River Wins World Championship, KRTV, April 28, 2015, http://www.krtv.com/story/28924594/rednek-robotics-team-from-sun-river-wins-world-championship
Thank you to George Marchant, Marchant Photography, for the photographs!
April 28th, 2015
Looney and Hunter Visit Eastern and South Central Montana!
Hunter Lloyd continued his "How to Train Your Robot" school tour by visiting Colstrip Schools, Forsyth High School and Middle School, Laurel High School, and Bench Elementary School, April 20th and 21st. In addition to the regular school programs, Hunter also participated in an after-school program hosted by the MSU Extension for Rosebud-Treasure Counties. Students from Forsyth, Hysham and Rosebud traveled to the Forsyth Library - Fun was had by everyone! Photographs from the trip are posted below. Thank you to Jennifer Anderson, MSU Extension and Ed Norman, Principal, Laurel High School for the photographs!
April 27, 2015
Looney Challenge #16 - Posted Today!
This week's Looney Challenge is Alan Turing, computer science pioneer, mathematician and cryptographer, and the Enigma cipher machine. Learn what Alan Turing invented and how he helped cracked the code!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
April 15, 2015
Congratulations Sun River Robotics FTC Team!!!
The team from the Sun River Valley area and Great Falls competed in the western regional competition in California and qualified for the World Championships later this month. Approximately 4,450 teams competed in the FIRST Challenge. At the regional competition, the team competed against 71 teams and won the division to move on to compete in the "gold" division at the FTC West Super Regional. They team set a world record, twice during the super regional playoffs with a 847 without penalties out of a theoretical score of 974. The world championships will be held in St. Louis, Missouri, April 22-25, 2015. Cheer on the team by watching online, go to the First Challenge World Championships website. CONGRATULATION and GO NERDS!!!
Looney and Hunter Visit Gardiner!
Gardiner Schools welcomed Hunter Lloyd yesterday, April 14th! Thanks to all the students and teachers at Gardiner for an enjoyable day! Also, thank you to Richelle Riley for sending the photographs!
April 13, 2015
Looney Challenge #15 - Posted Today!
This week's Looney Challenge is all about sequencing in computer programming and algorithms! K-4th grade Looney Challengers will play "The Foos." Anyone can play Foos, age doesn't matter, but for more experienced Challenges, we also have something for you!
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to begin and earn Looney Challenge points!
April 8, 2015
CS News!
TSA Montana State Championships
Teams from Montana schools competed in the 2015 Technology Student Association (TSA) Championships, March 30th, 2015. TO learn more about TSA and the championships, go to http://www.robotevents.com/robot-competitions/tsa/re-tsa-15-2628.html.
Thank you to Sam LaBrant from Glacier High School for sharing the photographs from the TSA Championships in Billings.
NATIONAL ROBOTICS WEEK!
This week is National Robotics Week! To learn more about how you can celebrate, go
to http://www.nationalroboticsweek.org/.
LOONEY CHALLENGES
Only SIX Looney Challenges to go before the June 30th Deadline! Don't wait and send in your challenges to earn points! REMEMBER, you can do the Challenges in any order as long as they are emailed to [email protected] by June 30th, 2015!!
April 2, 2015
Bobcat Software Factory
The Software Factory is a software development laboratory that has been designed and implemented in collaboration with the Software Engineering Lab in the Computer Science Department at Montana State University and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland. Initial support of the Bobcat Software Factory is from local Bozeman company, Zoot Enterprises.
Computer science students use entrepreneurship, state-of-the-art tools, modern processes and best practices to prototype and develop software for business in an environment made to support top-level research.
The students participating in the Software Factory this year are, from left to right, Mike Trenk, Hunter Lapp, Adam Koziol, Connor Danielson, and Dr. Clemente Izurieta, founder of the Software Factory at Montana State University (Photo courtesy of MSU Communication Services)
Thank you to Zoot Technologies for supporting the Software Factory!
For more information or to visit the software factory, please contact Dr. Clemente Izurieta, [email protected] or (406) 994-3720. Or visit the Software Factory webpage, bobcatsoftwarfactory.com.
March 30, 2015
Looney Challenge #14 - Posted Today!
This week's Looney Challenge is all about Robots! Challengers will explore the Robogames, to be held this week, April 3-5th, in San Mateo, California.
Click on the Looney Challenge icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge to learn more about Robogames and earn Looney Challenge points!
March 26, 2015
Frenchtown Kindergarten Class Learn Binary
Mr. Wood's kindergarten class at Frenchtown Elementary School has been learning about computer science by participating in Looney Challenges. The class recently learned about binary and completed the binary Challenges posted on the Looney Challenges website. It's never to early to learn computational thinking skills! Students are currently learning about cryptographs (Looney Challenge #13) and are creating a cryptogram to send Looney the Robot and Hunter Lloyd a secret message!
Thank You Mr. Woods for sending the photographs!
March 16, 2015
Looney Challenge #13 - POSTED TODAY!
Looney and Hunter are back from Spring Break and have a fun Challenge! Cryptography!
Break the Code to earn points!
Click on the "This Week's Looney Challenge" icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge.
March 2, 2015
Looney Challenge #12 - POSTED TODAY!
Challenge yourself with Pascal's Triangle! Do the Looney Challenge today!
Click on the "This Week's Looney Challenge" icon or go to cs.montana.edu/looney-challenge.
CS Department Blog Archives