Today in History – May 3, 1997 – Garry Kasparov, reigning World Chess Champions wins first of six chess games against IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer. The event was the twentieth century version of John Henry’s “man against machine”. The event was viewed by millions of chess and computing fans who were able witness the competition live on this Web site, which now serves as the official archive.

The triumph of “man against machine” was not to happen, however, as in the shocking finale World Champion Garry Kasparov resigned 19 moves into Game 6 and lost in little more than an hour. This was the first time a current world champion had lost a match to a computer opponent in an official chess tournament. Match commentator Yasser Seirawan was stunned: “What we just witnessed was a landmark achievement in chess . . . I absolutely didn’t expect this to happen.”

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the Kasparov and Deep Blue, artificial intelligence and history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

View video about Shodor’s award-winning partnership work…
http://www.emergentpictures.com/smt/shodor-h264.mov

NCSMT recognizes Shodor as statewide leader in innovative partnership

Collaboration brings computing excitement to community kids’ programs

Durham, NC - When it comes to partnering with other organizations to improve math and science education, there’s one NC non profit organization that stands out: Shodor.

Shodor’s Pathways to Cyberinfrastructure program, which brings computational science (scientific computing) activities into existing afterschool programs at community centers such as the Emily K Center in Durham, was recognized on April 19th at the NC Science, Math and Technology Education Center’s annual Celebration of Science, Math and Technology as a leader for its partnership efforts.

The “Partnership Award in Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education” recognizes and honors North Carolina organizations that have an innovative partnership supporting science, mathematics, and technology (SMT) education.

Shodor’s Pathways program seeks out existing programs for kids from grades 3 through high school in order to add a scientific computing component. At the Emily K Center, for example, students are challenged with activities such as:

• exploring math and science skills using tools from the National Science Digital Library (http://nsdl.org) such as Shodor’s own Interactivate http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/
• working hands-on in Web design using HTML
• designing web page logos using Gimpshop and Inkscape; and
• learning skills in agent modeling using AgentSheets and Netlogo.

Amy Cummings, Education Program Leader at the Emily K Center, commented that youth involved in Shodor’s program at the center last summer “had a genuine understanding of how germs and disease spread because they had worked with a computer generated model.” “They had learned a good deal about probability in the process,” she added.

“Shodor is able to engage our students in science and technology in a way that they do not experience in their school day,” explained Cummings.

Shodor also partners with Durham’s Antioch Builds Community Center through the Pathways program. NCCU undergraduates were trained to lead computational science workshops in a four-week summer program at the center for 3rd through 8th grade participants. Topics ranged from mathematical modeling to environmental science.

“Shodor has done an outstanding job of sharing math and computational skills for the youth of this community,” said Michael D. Page, Chairman of the Antioch Center’s board of directors. “These workshops have been an asset in enhancing learning skills, improving homework performance and demonstrating new and innovative techniques to problem solving,” he added.

By partnering with organizations such as the Emily K Center, various faith-based centers, several Durham Parks and Recreation centers and Durham Public Schools’ afterschool programs, Shodor multiplies the impact of its work by teaching others to adapt and use Shodor’s online tools and student workshop curricula alongside other NSDL resources.
Shodor is a Durham non profit serving students and educators to improve math and science education nationwide through the effective use of interactive computing and communications technologies. Their website receives more than 3 million web page views per month. For more information, visit www.shodor.org/about.

#

More information is available at:

www.shodor.org

http://www.shodor.org/cyberpathways/

www.ncsmt.org

Today in History – April 22, 1970 – First Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, says that the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. He wanted President Kennedy to give visibility to pollution and the environmental degradation that was appearing throughout the country, but was going unnoticed by the political establishment. The anti-Vietnam War demonstrations called “teach-ins” were popular on college campuses and he decided to organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment, tapping into both the energy of the student anti-war movement and the environmental cause. A Sunday, November 30, 1969, New York Times article by Gladwin Hill forecast that this was going to be a massive event:

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’ …

Senator Gaylord Nelson explains that Earth Day worked “because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.”

Today with global warming and another energy crises, sustainability is a top international concern and an estimated 1 billion people will do something to observe the anniversary of the first Earth Day. People will participate in marches and protests, family and community activities, clean-up days, tree-planting events, saving water, saving energy, nature walks, and sustainability events.

Expressions like “Green is the new black”, “Green is the new red, white and blue” and “green commerce”, such as that highlighted in ABC’s “Green Gadgets for Earth Day” news, demonstrate that green design is big business today. Even President Bush has announced it a day to “celebrate and accelerate” on a website that merges the planet and the U.S. flag. Alas some of these efforts are really “green washing” and are more effective at ringing up sales than in helping the environment. We should encourage life cycle analysis thinking with our students to seriously look at the long term environmental impact of new products, energy options and strategies.

The Engineering Pathway has a number of resources on green design, manufacturing and sustainability as well as on environmental ethics. For more educational resources, see our agricultural engineering education, environmental engineering education and chemical engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – April 4, 1975 – The Microsoft Company founded.
Well actually, Microsoft’s archivist has no record of a noteworthy Microsoft event that might have happened on April 4. The closest event appears to be a hand written tax form dated on April 1 that may have reached the IRS on April 4. As a number of websites lists April 4 as the founding date for Microsoft, I thought I’d write the blog anyway. But this date may be an urban myth, possibly started with a Wikipedia error on the date. Do stay tuned to Amy Stevenson’s more informed blog on July 22, the date that Bill Gates and Paul Allen Licensed BASIC to Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). BASIC was the first computer language program written for a personal computer. This really was what launched Gates and Allen as a viable business entity.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen grew up in Seattle and started programming while still in elementary school. Paul Allen went was a bit older and took a job at Honeywell. In 1973, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft’s chief executive officer, were both undergraduates at Harvard University. All three were totally blown away by the possibilities offered by the MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800, based on an article they had read in the 1st January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics.

Gates had developed a preliminary version of the programming language BASIC for the MITS Altair and left during his junior year at Harvard and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to devote his energies to continue working on BASIC. Gates and Allen are reported to have worked in marathon 24-hour sessions to complete the BASIC programming language to the level at which it could be licensed to MITS. Gates and Allen were driven by the belief that computers had the potential to be a powerful tool for everyone, not just dedicated hobbyists. It was only in later licensing agreements with MITS that the informal partnership called Micro-Soft, was formalized.

The Microsoft history website provides the following overview of significant events that shaped the company in 1975.

• Revenues: $16,005
• Employees: 3 (Allen, Gates and Ric Weiland)
• MITS promotes Altair BASIC, the computer language developed by Gates and Allen for the Altair computer. Hobbyists are ecstatic, despite the fact that, even with BASIC, there is little you can actually do with the Altair.

I love the picture above of Microsoft on December 7, 1978 (upper left photo) with Steve Wood (left), Bob Wallace, Jim Lane. Middle row: Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg, Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin. Bottom row: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen. Clearly they of the 70’s generation.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Microsoft, the Altair and history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – April 1, 1976 – Apple Computer Company formed and released the Apple I computer - the first with a single circuit board. There was no assembly line as each Apple I was hand-built by Steve Wozniak in Steve Jobs’ parents’ home and required further assembly by the purchaser, including providing AC input voltages, wiring an ASCII keyboard to a DIP connector and wiring the video output pins to a monitor or to an RF modulator if a TV was used. Steve Wozniak showed the first one to the Homebrew Computer Club to get sales going. He had to sell his Volkswagen bus to help keep the company afloat.

Steve Wozniak designed the Apple II personal computer that was released on April 16, 1977, featuring a central processing unit (CPU), keyboard, floppy disk drive, and a $1,300 price tag. The Apple II launched the personal computer revolution. He left Apple in 1981 and went back to the University of California at Berkeley and finished his degree in electrical engineering and computer science there. Since then, he has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures, including improving computer capabilities in schools.

So how do you build the first personal computer? Wozniak says when he teaches Personal Computer 101 he asks students to go to the Apple I Owners Club, founded in 1977 by Joe Torzewski. The site contains over 120 pages detailing the Apple I computer. It shows you what it was like to actually buy and assemble one. If you’ve never seen an Apple I, check this site out and see how the personal computer revolution began. Want to know more, read Wozniak’s book: iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Apple computers and history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Also, today April 1, 2008, the Engineering Pathway completed a comprehensive user study of customer needs and has developed the following prioritized list of new features:

For Faculty:

• Tag educational resources guaranteed to boost teacher evaluations by at least 20%.
• Develop tool to automatically create homework and exams for each course in ABET-accredited computing and engineering curricula.
• Develop obfuscation tool that will take a simple concept and make it seem so complicated that faculty will be guaranteed to impress students and colleagues with their brilliance.
• Implement mind reading search tools (such as UC Berkeley’s brain scan or the MentalPlex developed by Google) to improve the user interface so that typing is no longer required.
• Develop chat bot for faculty to help them find good educational materials and boost their confidence in teaching.

For Students:

• Tag educational resources guaranteed to increase their grades by at least one letter grade.
• Provide a collection of homework and exam solutions for each course in ABET-accredited computing and engineering curricula.
• Develop a de-obfuscation tool that will take a complicated lecture from a “brilliant professor” and make it easy to understand.
• Tag the parts of computing and engineering courses that will be useful for a student’s first job. We plan to modify Google’s gDay tool that can search content on the internet before it’s created.
• Develop a database that allows students to enter their courses and return their “dream job” or “graduate school”.
• And the reverse. Students should be able to enter their “dream job” or “graduate school” and be told which courses to take.
• Create tool to create automatic “Cliff Notes” for any educational resources in the Engineering Pathway.