CFISD participates in National Computer Science Education Week

December 7, 2009—Computer Science Education Week has been designated by the U.S. House of Representatives as the week of Dec. 6-12, 2009.

During the week, educators recognize that computing touches everyone’s daily lives and plays a critical role in society; drives innovation and economic growth; provides rewarding job opportunities; and prepares students with the knowledge and skills they need for the 21st century.

“Computing is something that touches everyone’s life on a daily basis. As a result, more and more jobs have a connection to computer science,” said Denise Kubecka, CFISD coordinator for secondary technology applications. “Being exposed to computer science education allows students to engage in critical and computational thinking—both which are necessary for success in any field in this digital age.

“This was evident last week when I was at Cy-Fair High School watching a demonstration of robots students built and programmed for an area robotics contest this coming weekend. Hands-on experience in the realm of automation will likely prove beneficial for many of these students. During National Computer Science Education Week, I encourage our district's computer science teachers to spotlight, and others to take note, of the engaging and rigorous activities taking place within our computer science programs.”

The first full week in December was chosen in honor of Grace Murray Hopper, one of the outstanding pioneers in the field of computer science, who was born on Dec. 9, 1906. Hopper engineered new programming languages and pioneered standards for computer systems, which laid the foundation for many advances in computer science from the late 1940s through the 1970s.

In 1971, the Association for Computing Machinery established the annual Grace Murray Hopper Award for Outstanding Young Computer Professional to recognize contributions made by computer professionals who were 35 years of age or less, selected on the basis of a single recent major technical or service contribution.