A Word from the WCCCE Chair

Welcome to the 1st Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education. This day is like a dream come true to many of us. It was about three years ago when I first started discussing the concept of having a BC conference on Computing Education with Murray Goldberg and Ken Takagaki, but the obstacles were hard to overcome. Last year in the regular BCCEC meeting the committee approved to sponsor the conference as a professional development activity of our articulation meetings. The program committee was selected and the conference was born. We still have obstacles to face and financial problems to solve but we are more confident and more determined than ever before.

WCCCE is the first Canadian conference on Computing Education. Although it has started as regional conference to serve the needs of the Computing Educators in BC and the western Canada, it has attracted some attention from institutions across the country. We hope next year, with an early announcement and more advertisement to be able to attract more papers from regional and national institutions.

The last six months were very busy for the committee. Although the number of papers we received was small, the procedures, the forms and the material in general for the reviews and distribution of the papers had to be prepared from scratch for the first time. Because of the distance, our meetings were primarily by email. We hope that we will soon be able to use teleconferencing or any similar idea to make our meetings more effective. One of the issues the committee had to resolve was the setting of conference fees. We have decided for this year not to have any conference frees, but to charge a nominal fee for the proceedings.

WCCCEÃ96 is the result of the efforts of many volunteers. The program committee did an excellent job in planning and organizing the event in general, but nothing would be accomplished without the diligence of Charles Brown and Waqar Haque who handled the local arrangements. Particular thanks goes to our coordinator Holly Mitchell who helped with all the paperwork, from the first announcement to the final version of the proceedings. I could not survive without her help.

But mote importantly, WCCCEÃ96 is the result of the efforts of all the authors who contributed to the technical sessions of the conference, the dedicated reviewers who offered their valuable knowledge and suggestions, and all the participants whose comments, discussions and involvement contributes to the success of our conference.

Thank you for your participation. Welcome to WCCCEÃ96.

George K. Tsiknis

 

Program Committee

Charles G. Brown , Math & CS, UNBC ( brownc@unbc.edu )

Rick Gee, CS, OUC ( gee@admin.okanagan.bc.ca )

Murray Goldberg, CS, UBC ( goldberg@cs.ubc.ca )

Richard Hewko, Phys Math & CS, EKCC ( hewko@ekcc.bc.ca )

Vince Manis, CS Langara College ( manis@cs.ubc.ca )

Ken Takagaki, Computing &Academic Studies, BCIT (FTKAK429@BCIT.BC.CA)

George K. Tsiknis (chair), CS, UBC ( tsiknis@cs.ubc.ca )

Local Arrangements

Charles G. Brown , Math & CS UNBC ( brownc@unbc.edu )

Waqar Haque, CS UNBC ( haque@unbc.edu )

 

Conference Program

Thursday, May 2, 1996

5:00-6:00 pm Registration and Welcome

6:00-10:00 pm Get-together BCCEC/WCCCE diner at a local restaurant

Friday, May 3, 1996

8:00 - 8:45 am Registration & Coffee

8:45 - 9:00 am Opening Remarks

George Tsiknis, UBC and Charles Brown, UNBC

9:00 - 9:45 am Keynote Address

Introduction: Charles Brown, University of Northern British Columbia

Keynote Speaker: Lee Keener, Chair of Math/CS, University of Northern British Columbia

"Building from Scratch: The Computer Science Program at UNBC"

"In the fall of 1994, the University of Northern British Columbia began full-scale operations. One of the degree programs at the new university was in computer science. This talk will look at the frustrations, successes, and opportunities involved in the creation of the computer science program, with speculations about the future."

9:45 - 10:00 am Break

10:00 - 11:15 am Paper Session A

Chair: Waqar Haque, University of Northern British Columbia

Ethics, Social Implications of Technology, and Computer Science Curriculum

Dominique Roelants, Malaspina University College

Computer Skills Upgrade Project

Debbe Gervin, British Columbia Institute of Technology
Ken Takagaki, British Columbia Institute of Technology

A Traditional Programming Course - It&Atildes The PITS (Paradigm) (And What We Can Do About It)

M. D. Evans, Simon Fraser University

11:15 - 11:30 am Break

11:30 - 12:20 pm Paper Session B

Chair: Habib Kashani, Langara College

A Schematic Approach to Teaching Computation

Vincent Manis, Langara College
Jim Little, University of British Columbia

Practical Theory: A strongly integrated core knowledge curriculum for teaching computing applications at the first year university level

Lynda Williams, University of Northern British Columbia

12:20 - 1:45 pm Lunch

1:45 - 3:00 pm Paper Session C

Chair: Ian Cavers, University of British Columbia

Teaching Software Design and Maintenance: A Document-Driven Approach

Daniel Hoffman, University of Victoria
Paul Strooper, University of Queensland
Peter Walsh, Malaspina University College

Teaching the Basic Abstract and Conctete Data Structures

George Tsiknis, University of British Columbia

A Computer Architecture for Introducing Computer Architecture

Vincent Manis, Langara College
Nou Dadoun, Langara College

3:00 - 3:15 pm Break

3:15 - 4:30 pm Demo/Poster Session

Chair: Waqar Haque, University of Northern British Columbia

Computer Aided Instruction via a World Wide Web Site for In-House Support of an Introductory Computing Applications Course with oetoo-many” Students

Lynda Williams, University of Northern British Columbia

An Authoring Environment for the Creation of Web-Based Course Material

Murray Goldberg, University of British Columbia

4:00 - 4:15 pm Closing Remarks