Analogies and metaphors are ubiquitous in computing education, helping instructors break down complex or abstract ideas by connecting them to familiar experiences. This Birds of a Feather session invites educators from across the CS curriculum—from introductory through advanced courses—to share ''sticky'' analogies: explanations that clarify challenging concepts and remain memorable for students. Facilitators will begin with a small set of example analogies that illustrate how to articulate a learning goal, map each component of the analogy to the target concept, and identify any needed cultural or background knowledge. The floor will then open for attendees to contribute analogies that have either worked well for them or fallen flat, enabling collective reflection on what makes an analogy effective or ineffective. A shared document will be collaboratively built during the session so attendees can take away new analogies, refine existing ones, and continue contributing after the symposium.

The authors have been using Development Containers for a course in digital logic and computer organization for more than a year and have found that: 1) they make authentic experiences with the content accessible to all students, 2) they can virtually eliminate installation inconsistencies and the need for institutional support for software/hardware, and, most importantly, 3) they can be created and used in live, active-learning sessions in approximately 3 minutes!

Maintaining resources for courses in Digital Logic and Computer Architecture can be challenging at any scale or institution, especially if such courses are intended to provide authentic experience with contemporary tools, like Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). A recent redesign of an introductory Digital Logic and Computer Architecture course at Washington University in St. Louis leveraged modern containerized environments, Codespaces and Development Containers, along with open-source tools to create a custom environment suited for hardware-focused courses in digital logic and computer architecture. This demo will introduce the system, which can easily be adopted by others. (Participants can create a full instance during the demonstration!) The environment is aligned with commonly used computer architecture texts and includes everything needed for a variety of assignments, including simulating designs (digital logic and assembly language) and deploying digital logic to low-cost FPGA platforms (

Directing undergraduate studies (DUS) is often undertaken by an individual (possibly department chair) or committee that lacks formal training for DUS duties. In addition, growing teaching demands are often outpacing growth in faculty, which lead to unique pressures on the DUS activities that are neither addressed by recent departmental experience nor shared among local peers. The focus of this session is common Computing DUS-specific challenges: the logistics and administration of undergraduate programs. Although the session focuses on Undergraduate Studies, those charged with direction and oversight of all types of degree programs are welcome to participate and share. Participants will be given a forum to: 1) identify some of the most common DUS activities and responsibilities; 2) share challenges, successes, and tips with other participants; and most importantly, 3) a chance to network with peers who may be able to share valuable knowledge and support beyond the session. Online tools will be used to organize and prioritize discussion topics, so participants should bring a laptop or mobile device.

Teaching full-stack web development requires the instructor not only keep up with rapidly changing technology but also grapple with thorny questions of hosting. Many of the solutions for professional developers, unsurprisingly, do not work well in an academic environment, and their use entails much compromise and jury-rigging. In this workshop, participants will discover how to make the setting up of that essential infrastructure much easier as they work through small examples of full-stack work (no prior experience necessary). We look at tooling that provides environments similar to what one would find in industry (compatible with all major languages and platforms), but not at the expense of what academics need: support for creating and grading assignments, collaboration, privacy, FERPA compliance, and the like.

This fun, hands-on workshop will show how to include significant computing concepts in engaging, creative activities that are accessible to students who have completed CS1. Participants will use Arduinos (provided) and experience a studio-style learning environment which can serve as an example for studio-based learning in the classroom. The maker movement is taking off, with accessible microcontrollers, sensors, actuators, and 3-D printing capability enabling do-it-yourself hobbyists of all ages to tinker in ways that previously were unavailable to the general public. At the heart of many maker projects is computer control, yet computer science education (especially in the early years) is primarily centered around traditional computing platforms: desktops, laptops, and servers, not the microcontrollers that are prevalent in the maker community. This workshop introduces curricular materials that can turn amateur makers into professional designers, understanding the underlying principles that drive the artifacts that makers make. The theoretical concepts covered include principles that are often present when computers interact with the physical world, e.g., timing as a functional requirement, physical inputs and outputs, etc. Finite automata are also introduced, in the form of finite-state machines, as an example of a computational formalism that has immediate practical use. The materials for a semester-long course (textbook, lecture videos, studios, assignments) are all freely available. The course expands upon the workshop subjects to also include the concepts of information representation, computer communications, and basic computer organization/architecture.

Canvas is one of the most widely used Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and, due to the pandemic, has become one of the primary tools many students use to access course content. Canvas provides everything that one would expect in a modern LMS: the ability to host and organize content; create, manage and grade assignments and quizzes; communicate via discussion boards and announcements; and integrate with external tools. But the devil is in the details, and Canvas suffers from significant shortcomings, some particular to computing courses, others that impede large course management and efficient instructor workflows. Participants in this BOF will share their successes, frustrations, failures, and workarounds using Canvas in computing courses. In the spirit of common commiseration, each participant will be welcome to highlight one "Canvas gripe", such as a specific example of poor usability or missing feature. (In the interest of time there's a limit of one gripe per person!)

This fun filled workshop will introduce participants to game development using MakeCode Arcade (Arcade), which is suited for K-12, outreach, and CS1. Hands-on activities will provide context for interesting computing ideas, like event driven programming, the concept of state, and principles of Human-Computer Interaction. We will start with a novice-friendly, block-based programming paradigm (similar to Scratch), but also show how Arcade's environment naturally scaffolds students into text-based languages as we progress to examples in JavaScript and Python (prior experience not needed). Other introductory tools often have shortcomings for games: a) game elements, like scoring and multiplayer capabilities, can be challenging to implement and b) finished games lack features associated with "real" games, like gamepad controls. This workshop will showcase Arcade features uniquely suited for games, such as scoring primitives and sprite data types, and how games can be deployed to low-cost consoles, comparable to Nintendo's Gameboy. Participants will: 1) complete example games using game elements, 2) see Arcade's use in remote education, 3) gain insight into succinct, meaningful activities for a variety of audiences (K-12, outreach, CS1), and 4) get educators' perspectives on the pros/cons of the Arcade platform. Activities will be completed via web browsers (Chrome preferred). Deployment to hardware will be demonstrated and participants can follow along if they own hardware, but it isn't required (to acquire hardware see the 'Hardware' section of https://arcade.makecode.com/).

This workshop will teach instructors how to incorporate Machine Learning into their mobile course using ML Kit for Firebase. ML Kit provides powerful machine learning functionality to your app running either iOS or Android and is for both experienced and novice machine learning developers. With just a few lines of code, you can use these powerful and easy to use machine learning packages. This workshop will focus on using machine learning in mobile applications to solve real-world problems. In this workshop, we will explore some of the functionality ML Kit provides. Topics include text recognition, facial detection, recognizing points of interest, image characterization, and labeling. We will integrate a few of these features into fully functional apps running on iOS or Android. Additionally, we will explore tradeoffs between executing ML Kit in the cloud and on a device. This workshop is targeted for instructors teaching a web development or mobile application course looking to incorporate cloud and native ML functionality. It is also suited for anyone wanting to deploy ML applications quickly using a feature-rich API. A laptop running Android Studio or Xcode is required. Prior to the workshop participants will be given instructions for software installation.

This workshop will show how web development skills can be used to develop native mobile apps (iOS, Android, and Web) using a JavaScript library called React Native, an open-source framework developed by Facebook. React Native extends the popular React web framework with support for truly native mobile apps. After completing the workshop, participants will have a classroom-ready assignment to share with their students.

This workshop will teach instructors how to incorporate Machine Learning into their mobile course using ML Kit for Firebase. ML Kit provides powerful machine learning functionality to your app running either iOS or Android and is for both experienced and novice machine learning developers. With just a few lines of code, you can use these powerful and easy to use machine learning packages. This workshop will focus on using machine learning in mobile applications to solve real-world problems.

Makerspaces are areas set aside in schools, libraries, and other locations, where inventors and Do-It-Yourselfers gather to create and collaborate. Activities run the gamut from high(er) tech, such as electronic kit making and Arduino programming, 3D design and printing, to more traditional crafts such as sewing and woodworking. As makerspaces become more prevalent, the question arises where, if anywhere, do they fit into the post secondary environment, and specifically, in the computer science realm? Should computer science departments host them? What, exactly, can we do with them? They would be appear to be a good outlet for our students, allowing them to exercise their creative side, but can they do more? Can we use them to draw in non-majors, or to encourage collaboration between students in different fields? Can they be used to supplement various courses? If so, which, and how might they be used? We are interested in talking to others who have makerspace experience at the post-secondary level so that we can share ideas.

Embedded systems pervade nearly every aspect of modern life. Moreover, the emergence of both mobile platforms and Internet of Things (IoT) is furthering their reach. Although embedded systems are one of the bodies of knowledge in the ACM/IEEE-CS Com- puter Engineering Curricula, they have only passing mention in the ACM/IEEE-CS Computer Science Curricula. Inclusion of embedded systems concepts in undergraduate computer science can facilitate many objectives: a) they are an example of Platform-Based Devel- opment, a prominent theme in the ACM 2013 CS Curricula, b) they are often a more suitable level of complexity for educational needs than other "real world" platforms (e.g., Arduinos may be used to introduce many AP CS Principles in a single course), c) they offer a novel form of engagement, which may enhance diversity, and d) emerging areas, like IoT, are increasing demand for professionals that understand the full span of systems, from low-level firmware, to middleware and cloud computing. This panel represents three methods of including embedded systems concepts in undergraduate computer science: 1) use of em- bedded systems to improve engagement in a non-major computing course, 2) a required course covering core content for both com- puter science and computer engineering majors, and 3) a degree program offering a formal emphasis in embedded systems via a complementary set of courses. The panelists will share their motiva- tions for including embedded systems concepts in their programs, their approaches to integrating the content into their curricula, the teaching methods they use, the challenges they faced, and chal- lenges that remain.

Are you interested in a fun way to introduce a variety of students to significant contemporary CS topics, like wireless networking, robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT)? Do you want to do so using a platform that is cheap, has a low-barrier to entry, but where learning can translate to the real world and where advanced students can pursue advanced topics? If so, you need a micro:bit! The micro:bit is a platform developed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to encourage children to pursue computing and electronics. Although designed for children, its capabilities are sufficient for a variety of postsecondary applications. It includes a 32-bit processor, lights, buttons, an accelerometer, digital I/O, and wireless communication, making it ideal for wearables and robotics. It also leverages some of the latest trends in introductory computing, like support for block-based languages (àla Scratch), while also being sophisticated enough for complex topics in Operating Systems and Networking This workshop will introduce the micro:bit and focus on engaging, lightweight coverage of complex topics, including robotics, mesh networks, and IoT. Participants will work through classroom-ready exercises suitable for K-12 workshops, student recruiting events, CS0/1/2, or as bootstrap topics in IoT courses. The workshop will include some subjects not commonly covered in existing micro:bit material, like integration with mobile apps and IoT applications. Participants will be provided with hardware but will need a laptop with internet access and a mobile device (any OSes, but some features work better with iOS).

As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues its expansion into homes, businesses and industries, the impact for Computer Science educators is increasingly evident. In 2017, the ITiCSE IoT working group identified relevant content, tools for teaching, and four IoT course types. The resulting report provided an entry point for educators challenged with setting up a new IoT course. The 2018 working group will build on this prior work by addressing feedback on the 2017 report and by examining the rapidly changing state-of-the-art in IoT. In particular, the working group will extend educators' ability to integrate IoT into curriculum by investigating additional content areas and pedagogical approaches.

There is no doubt that Computer Organization (Comp Org) is not as central a topic as it once was. In the ACM's curricular guidelines, the number of hours devoted to Computer Architecture and Organization has fallen from 36 core hours in 2001 and 2008 to 16 tier 2 hours in 2013, and, incredibly, students are not always as enthralled with the subject as their instructor. Therefore, we are compelled to ask? what to do about Comp Org? How might we revamp it to make it more relevant and appealing? Should we concentrate on one ISA? Use CISC, RISC, or both? Do we need to use real, contemporary hardware, or stick with simulators? More radically, can micro-controllers, used for Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, be used to broaden the course, to weave together both traditional Comp Org topics and IoT?

Are you interested in a fun way to introduce a variety of students to significant contemporary CS topics, like wireless networking, robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT)? Do you want to do so using a platform that is cheap, has a low barrier to entry, but where learning can translate to the real world and where advanced students can pursue advanced topics? If so, you need a micro:bit! The micro:bit is a platform developed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to encourage children to pursue computing and electronics. Although designed for children, its capabilities are sufficient for a variety of postsecondary applications. It includes a 32-bit processor, lights, buttons, an accelerometer, digital I/O, and wireless communication, making it ideal for wearables and robotics. It also leverages some of the latest trends in introductory computing, like support for block-based languages (àla Scratch), while also being sophisticated enough for complex topics in Operating Systems and Networking. This workshop will introduce the micro:bit and focus on engaging, lightweight coverage of complex topics, including robotics, mesh networks, and IoT. Participants will work through classroom-ready exercises suitable for K-12 workshops, student recruiting events, CS1/2, or as bootstrap topics in IoT courses. The workshop will include some subjects not commonly covered in existing micro:bit material, like integration with mobile apps and IoT applications. Participants will be provided with hardware but will need a laptop with internet access and a mobile device (any OSes).

Smart devices are everywhere, and the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution is only in its infancy. In the Internet of Things, everyday objects share data over networks, with or without human intervention. Self-driving cars, sensing thermostats, door locks, pet feeders, light bulbs, wearables of all kinds, and smart materials for manufacturing all belong to the new Internet of Things, applying sensors and cloud computing to allow for object-to-object communication. As computer science educators, we will soon be teaching students how to develop and maintain IoT technologies. This presents enormous challenges and even greater opportunities. How will we integrate IoT concepts and technologies into existing curricula? How will we handle the mix of software and hardware topics that most IoT projects involve? How will we deal with the legal, social, and ethical issues? How will we choose from the growing number of IoT industry standards? What kinds of equipment and lab spaces are optimal for small, medium, and large-scale programs, and how will we budget for all this? What are the opportunities for interdisciplinary studies? How will we leverage the enthusiasm students feel when they create projects that go beyond text, beyond graphics, beyond virtual reality, and into the tactile, three-dimensional, realm of moving real-world objects? In this working group, we study and document the current state of IoT education and interview educators with IoT teaching experience. We will then make recommendations to help educators integrate IoT topics in computer science curricula.

The recipe might not sound particularly exciting: take a microcontroller, garnish with sensors and various output devices, season with a bit of code, and then network until done: but the result -- the Internet of Things (IoT) -- is a rapidly burgeoning field that provides a novel and enticing context for sophomore to senior level students to hone their networking, coding, problem solving and presentation skills, exercise their creativity, and unleash their entrepreneurial spirit. In short, it is a perfect mid-to-upper division elective course. Faculty considering such a course are faced with a myriad of difficult decisions, however, including the appropriate class level, course structure, prerequisites, and platform choice. The purpose of this session is to bring together people who have taught, or are considering teaching, IoT, to discuss these issues. Topics may include: a) an overview of platforms and tools, b) appropriate course topics, c) platform acquisition, deployment, and costs, d) identification of support materials (e.g., classroom friendly materials/guides/documentation), e) appropriate prerequisites, f) IoT platform fidelity (i.e. will the experience translate to real-world IoT skills), and g) discussion of potential broader curricular advantages that come from including IoT topics..

Internet of Things (IoT) devices -- networked microcontrollers with attached sensors and outputs (LEDs, actuators, etc.) -- are becoming ubiquitous in the home (e.g., smart light bulbs, security systems), on the road (e.g., smart parking meters, traffic control), in industry (e.g., equipment monitoring, asset tracking) and in healthcare (e.g., fitness monitors, drug monitors). Consequently, IoT provides an opportunity to demonstrate the pervasiveness and social relevance of computing. Moreover, today's hobbyist- oriented IoT platforms empower entry-level students to create meaningful, real-world IoT applications. This allows rich computer science topics, such as event driven programming, concurrency, networking, information representation, cloud computing, etc., to be introduced earlier in the curriculum. Most importantly, IoT examples provide a compelling context for students to hone their critical thinking skills while solving engaging, real-world problems. Faculty interested in including IoT topics face several challenges: selecting a suitable set of topics, identifying an appropriate pedagogical approach, and, perhaps most daunting, choosing a cost-effective platform that lends itself to classroom use. This workshop will introduce the basic terms and technologies in IoT, discuss issues that arise when including IoT topics in classes, compare and contrast the most popular platforms for IoT, and walk participants through several classroom-tested, hands-on examples using a classroom-friendly platform (Particle's Photon) where they create both Wi-Fi-based IoT devices and corresponding web apps. Participants will need a laptop (any OS) with Internet access.

Students raised on tablets and smart phones have a lot of expectations: data that is instantly available on all of their devices; social media integration so they can share that data with their friends; and push notifications, so that responses from their friends get the attention that they deserve. Unfortunately, the vendor-specific technologies required to make this magic happen are daunting, to put it mildly, well beyond the scope of a beginning mobile computing course. However, the last 2 years has seen the emergence of a new technology, Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS), that is vendor-agnostic and suitable for novice developers. This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to this technology. Participants will be provided source code for Pigs Ahoy!, an implementation of the famed dice game Pig that lacks cloud storage and social media integration. During the course of the workshop, participants will add that functionality, and in the process of doing so, acquire a sufficiently detailed knowledge of MBaaS that they can confidently incorporate it into their classes.

The Internet of Things (IoT), considered by many to be the next big revolution in computing, refers to the trend to include networking and computing in a wide range of devices, such as watches, appliances, health monitors, toys, etc. Including IoT applications early in the curriculum may serve multiple pedagogical purposes, such as demonstrating social relevance, (e.g., health monitoring applications) and motivating other CS topics (e.g. distributed systems, networking, OOP, event driven programming, computer organization, and databases). This workshop will introduce participants to basic terms and technologies behind IoT. Participants will then work through a hands-on, classroom-ready exercise to build a complete IoT solution. The embedded portion of this solution, based on the popular Arduino platform (hardware provided), will be targeted at students who have completed CS1. The completion of a mobile app that interacts with the embedded devices will require CS2 skills.

Apple recently announced Swift, a new development language for iOS and OSX. While designed with developers in mind, it is also a boon to those who teach programming topics. Its relatively simple and familiar syntax; its integration in a scripting environment, Playgrounds, complete with built-in visualization tools; and the ability to incorporate live code in textbook form means that Swift is far better suited for teaching mobile app development than Objective-C. Indeed, the tools are so learner-friendly and the language so inviting that Swift might even find a place in a CS1 course. The language itself and the migration from Objective-C raise both logistical and pedagogical issues that will be addressed in this Birds of a Feather session.

Swift is a new programming language recently introduced by Apple as a replacement for Objective-C. Considering that Objective-C ranks third on the Tiobe Index and is the progenitor of virtually all the 1.2 million apps in the App Store, Swift is likely to become the dominant language for creating both iOS and OS X apps. While Swift is aimed at application developers, the language and the tools that accompany it are also a boon for CS educators. Many of the features in Swift that aid commercial development, such as type-safety, clean syntax, closures, and named parameters, are also beneficial when learning programming. In addition to the language itself, Apple has introduced a remarkable feature called Playgrounds. As the name suggests, Playgrounds allow students to "play", that is, to interactively experiment, with code. They also provide a convenient visualization tool to graphically depict the impact of iteration, providing crucial insights for novice programmers. It is also possible to use Playgrounds to write tutorials or even entire textbooks with embedded, live code for students to experiment with. The workshop will introduce Swift through the use of Playgrounds. Participants will work through a variety of hands-on, active learning exercises to learn Swift's syntax and semantics. More importantly, they will experience a sample of active learning exercises that can be used in to introduce students to programming with Swift.

The JUnit Generation (JUG) system provides fast, semiautomated feedback to students. It uses a Java-like script to generate unit tests and time complexity tests, then runs those tests to generate reports. The goals for JUG are improved feedback for students, and decreased preparation and grading time for instructors and grading assistants.

The world is increasingly dependent on critical infrastructures such as the electric power grid, water, gas, and oil transport systems, which are susceptible to cascading failures that can result from a few faults. Due to the combinatorial complexity in the search spaces involved, most traditional search techniques are inappropriate for identifying these faults and potential protections against them. This paper provides a computational methodology employing competitive coevolution to simultaneously identify low-effort, high-impact faults and corresponding means of hardening infrastructures against them. A power system case study provides empirical evidence that our proposed methodology is capable of identifying cost effective modifications to substantially improve the fault tolerance of critical infrastructures.