Mentoring for Connections to Computing (MC²)

Background:

As computers continue to permeate every aspect of modern culture, it is becoming increasingly important for high school students to understand basic principles of computing. Sometimes it can be difficult to present these principles to students with limited experience with computers in way that they can understand. While there are some websites out there that can help teachers and tutors find ways to do this, they are often times difficult to navigate and they do not make the information easily available.

Students began work on a website last year that would organize lesson plans and other materials and make these resources easily available. A mentoring program is being established together with the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, and the mentors in this program will make use of the learning materials on this website.

Problem Statement:

The database still needs to be populated with these materials, and it needs a better user interface and searching capabilities. It also needs blogging capabilities for the mentors in the program to share what they are learning through the mentoring.

Team Members:

Brian Myers myersbj@email.uc.edu
Rebecca Moore moorer0@email.uc.edu
Michael Wolf wolfml@email.uc.edu

Faculty Advisor:

Dr. Karen Davis

Goal:

The goal of this project is to make the computing lessons repository as useful as possible.

Subgoals:

1. Populate the existing repository with learning resources we find and create

2. If scheduling permits, use these learning resources while working with students through programs with Cincinnati Youth Collaborative (CYC) and the Cincinnati Arts and Technology Center (CATC)

3. Fix any existing bugs in the repository

4. Improve the user interface and provide stronger searching capabilities

5. Add a blogging feature to the site for the mentors to use

Helpful Skills:

• User interface design

• Web design