Dissemination Plan
The LAUNCH-IT program will use several channels to disseminate curricular materials and programs. First, PIs Blank and Pottenger are members of the newly formed Association for Computing Machinery Computer Science Teachers Association (ACM CSTA). The CSTA maintains a web site at csta.acm.org that serves, among other purposes, as a channel to disseminate curricular materials and programs worldwide. Co-PI Pottenger has already been in touch with CSTA Director Chris Stephenson about posting curricular materials developed in the LVPTF project to the CSTA website. This ACM channel will be leveraged for dissemination of curricular materials and programs developed in the proposed LAUNCH-IT project. Second, as part of the LVPTF, PI Blank has developed curricular materials for a “Design-First” Java programming class that has been very successful at Dieruff High School. Dieruff is one of 150 Academies of Information Technology (AOIT) nationwide at which “academic learning experiences are combined with hands-on work experience to help students develop the thinking and problem-solving skills so critical to post-secondary education and career success.
The AOITs operate as a small learning community, providing a program of study that introduces students to the broad career opportunities in today’s digital workforce and equips them with the personal, analytical, technical and communication skills they need to thrive. By introducing high school students to the broad career opportunities of the IT industry, AOIT opens the door to new options, with which students are better able to make sound choices for the future” (www.naf.org). PI Blank’s curricular materials were presented at a recent AOIT meeting, and new curricular materials developed and deployed in the LAUNCH-IT program will likewise be disseminated thorough the nationwide network of AOITs sponsored by the NAF. Another dissemination thrust will come through expansion of the Martian Landscape and Mission Control Center at Harrison-Morton Middle School. Already nearby school districts in the Lehigh Valley have expressed enthusiasm about the program, and plan to involve their students in it. Likewise, interest from the New Jersey area has grown – the new Liberty Science Center in Jersey City has expressed a desire to set up a site at which students can use the Martian Landscape remotely. Harrison-Morton Middle School was also recently selected as a NASA Explorer School (NES), one of 50 nationwide. This comes at an opportune moment, for the NES program dovetails nicely with the LAUNCH-IT proposal and provides yet another channel for dissemination of curricular materials based on the Martian Landscape and Mission Control Center, In addition to these channels, plans are being discussed to expand the S.T.A.R. and LAUNCH-IT Academies to other geographic regions, for example Connecticut. Finally, the PIs will also continue to publish results of the project in suitable academic conferences and journals.
The PI will be taking a year long sabbatical starting in the summer of 2006. During this sabbatical, he will be co-authoring a new textbook for first year college and high school students, tentatively entitled Design First with Java. He will also be seeking opportunities to evaluate the intelligent tutoring system that he and his Ph.D. students have been developing at high schools and colleges outside the Lehigh Valley. These goals dovetail with the goal of disseminating our GK-12 and LAUNCH-IT curricula more widely. The PI expects to be available to supervise the LAUNCH-IT project and an outreach team during his sabbatical, should this grant be awarded.