image: Luis von Ahn of Carnegie Melon is the first issue of CS Bits & Bytes' featured computer scientist. He is a pioneer in the field of "Human Computation," often called "Crowdsourcing," which combines the use of human skills and abilities in a novel way to solve large-scale computational problems. Digitizing text is just one example of a problem that can be solved by harnessing the combined power of humans and computers that would be impossible for either to solve alone. This practice is called "CAPTCHA" which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The other word is a "reCAPTCHA" and is an image of a word from text that automated software was unable to recognize. view more
Credit: Luis von Ahn
In recognition of Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) 2011, Dec. 4 to 10, the National Science Foundation (NSF) today began publishing and disseminating CS Bits & Bytes, one-page newsletters spotlighting innovative computer science research.
Computer science is the only STEM--science, technology, engineering and mathematics--disclipine with more job openings than there are college graduates to fill them. Leadership in NSF's directorate for Computer Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is working to address this underproduction problem by promoting ways to make computer science more engaging and acessible in the K-12 arena.
"The CS Bits & Bytes series emphasizes how computer science permeates and improves our lives and supports progress across many other scientific and engineering disciplines," said Farnam Jahanian, NSF's assistant director for CISE. "It is an exciting tool to attract students to computing and information technology."
Each issue of CS Bits & Bytes will describe cutting edge scientific research, link to snapshots, videos and interactive activities and profile a computer scientist from the diversity of individuals who do this inspiring, multidisciplinary work.
To reach the desired middle and high school level audience, NSF is drawing on the expertise of those in its Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Program--comprised of elementary and secondary school math and science teachers around the country serving for a year as NSF fellows.
"The goal is for educators and parents to use CS Bits & Bytes to inspire students to engage in the multi-faceted world of computer science, to become not just users but creators of technology, and to develop the skills to use computation to their own ends, across a wide span of interests and disciplines," said Jan Cuny, NSF program officer for education and workforce.
The first issue of CS Bits & Bytes focuses on human computation. Publication will occur on a biweekly basis and continue through the end of the 2011/2012 academic year, inspiring exploration of such topics as self-driving cars, the creation of new materials, communications technologies and geospatial computing. To receive future issues, please visit NSF's CS Bits & Bytes page.
CSEdWeek was designated by Congress to commemorate the birthday of computing pioneer, Grace Hopper, and to recognize the transformative role of computing and the need to bolster computer science at all educational levels.