Paul Curzon - Public Engagement Champion via CS4FN
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: Sch of Electronic Eng & Computer Science
Abstract
This programme will support Prof Paul Curzon to act as an ICT public engagement champion. It will (1) turn UK teachers into local ICT research engagement champions within their schools by empowering them to act as intermediaries (2) build a pipeline of engagement with UK ICT research from primary school onwards by working with children directly, and indirectly through their teachers, to inspire them about ICT research, and (3) deeply embed public engagement in the research culture of ICT researchers to feed the pipeline via a community of practice. An explicit focus will be to emphasise the diversity of computer scientists and the wide-ranging ICT research that they do, both in the UK and beyond, and the diversity of new and future job roles that use ICT, directly or otherwise. We will build upon our existing CS4FN family of public engagement vehicles to do this: a key aspect is to scale up our pilot work with primary schools.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Paul Curzon (Principal Investigator) |
| Title | Colour-in mini Christmas zine from CS4FN |
| Description | A foldable paper zine with computing-themed puzzles and Christmas-themed pictures to colour in, for kids at home or in school. The product can be used as just a fun thing to colour in and complete puzzles, but can also be used to talk about some computer science, e.g. logical strategies deployed to solve the puzzles. There are two versions, one A4 for UK printers and a resized version for US letter size printers. This product was inspired by the popularity of colouring in pages on Etsy, in particular 'colouring in placemats' used to keep younger children occupied at the dinner table. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This free resource has now been downloaded a total of 250 times from our website and 107 times from the TES site. |
| URL | https://cs4fn.blog/colour-in-mini-christmas-zine-from-cs4fn/ |
| Title | Encrypted deckchairs (and More Encrypted Deckchairs) |
| Description | Inspired by NASA's "Dare Mighty Things" message woven covertly into Perseverance's parachute, these creative 'makes' for home or the classroom illustrate the principle of steganography, through stripey steganography (there is a message in the stripes in the deckchair). This was created by a QMUL colleague, Ho Huen (who also created video instructions), in consultation with Curzon and Brodie. "Encrypted deckchairs" is an origami deckchair + sun lounger project, which also includes a blank file for readers to create their own message. "More encrypted deckchairs" is a follow-on project in which a deckchair is made from craft and cocktail sticks. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The deckchair files have been downloaded over 100 times. 2023/2024 update The files have now been downloaded 210 times. |
| URL | https://cs4fn.blog/2022/07/04/encrypted-deckchairs/ |
| Title | Program a Pumpkin - Hallowe'en special |
| Description | This is based on our popular 'Emotion Machine' activity. Several facial features (eyes, eyebrows and mouth) are linked to a letter A, B or C and so young people can 'program' the overall face by declaring the letters which determines which features are shown. This is a simplified pumpkin-based version aimed at primary aged children just using a pumpkin's eyes and mouth. The activity can be done with just paper, or the pumpkin can be placed on a glass jam jar with a safety tea-light for extra spooky glow. Versions were made for both UK and US printers and we included classroom activities and drew links with why computer scientists might research the expression of human emotions (e.g. for companion robots, text sentiment analysis and use of emoji). |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | The pumpkins have been downloaded 56 times from our website and another 20 times from the TES site. Those doing the activity will have gained understanding of how expressions can be programmed algorithmically and understood a little of the computer science research around emotions |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/the-program-a-pumpkin-activity/ |
| Title | Write-a-postcard |
| Description | We created an unplugged activity based on Strachey's Love letter writing program for use in science festivals and workshops to illustrate the idea of how an AI can generate text and why AIs can 'hallucinate'. It consists of sets of templates for lines to go in a postcard and an algorithm to create "AI' generated postcards, together with an illustrative program implementing it. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | A series of children / families explored following algorithms leading them to a better understanding of how AIs are algorithmic and why they make things up. |
| URL | https://cs4fn.blog/postcard/ |
| Description | PECS mailing list (Jiscmail) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| URL | https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=PECS |
| Description | PEEECS Internal Group and public website |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| URL | https://peeecs.wordpress.com/ |
| Description | Support for colleagues starting a new professional mailing list |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Impact | A new mailing list now exists for astro- science communication / public engagement practitioners to communicate about their work. |
| URL | https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=astromailbox |
| Description | RI |
| Organisation | The Royal Institution of Great Britain |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Curzon has given a series of Computer Science and Mathematics masterclasses and summer schools for the Ri both at the RI and elsewhere as well as stepping in at short notice when others have dropped out. We have run an RI masterclass series at QMUL. 2023/2024 update (these are detailed in the Engagement Activities section) • We are about to run the 2024 QMUL / Ri Masterclass series in Computer Science in our department • Our department screened the livestream of the Ri's Christmas Lectures recording in December 2023 (on Artificial Intelligence). The Ri also shared links to our free AI-themed activity sheets as part of its marketing and with other organisations taking part. Curzon gave a talk at a physical and live streamed special celebration event for all those who had been involved in their masterclass series • Curzon has run more workshops for primary- and secondary-aged children at the Ri's site and elsewhere.this year. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The RI has provided a representative on the advisory panel and we have had separate discussions on ways forward. They provide organisational support and recruitment as well as rooms, allowing Curzon to engage with a wide variety of diverse school children and focus just on workshop development and delivery. While we had worked with the RI before which led to the collaboration on the grant, the grant has allowed us to increase the mutual support and number of workshops delivered. This included developing a new careers inspired usability consultant workshop. 2023/2024 update • The Ri is providing school registration support for the masterclasses and is also providing speakers for the first three sessions from Google DeepMind • QMUL was invited, through Curzon, to be one of the 'Xmas Lectures' livestreaming venues (particularly relevant given the AI topic). The Centre for the Cell (another department at QMUL) was also a streaming venue. • The Ri organised DBS checks for Brodie and Curzon |
| Impact | RI/ QMUL Masterclasses Workshops for a non-academic audience (various) - Ones listed as RI-linked. QMUL / RI Masterclasses |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | 'Techy talks' listing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | There are a number of computing-themed talks, events and workshops happening online, in London or beyond that may be suitable for a school or general public audience, as well as of interest to teachers. The listing is a blog post, published every couple of months, with a round-up of suitable events that are coming up (the post is shared on Twitter and elements also incorporated into the next newsletter). The listing is also shared on the PECS Jiscmail mailing list. The intentions behind the listing format are to showcase a variety of events (and the venues which host them), to help teachers hear about events which might be suitable for their pupils to attend, or for the teacher to attend and discuss with pupils, and also to showcase further examples of public engagement with computing research to the PECS group. Academic seminars are largely excluded from the listing (unless the information specifically states that it's also suitable for a non-academic audience). 2023/2024 update Another 4 posts have been published with information about upcoming talks taking place over the next couple of months. The content is also shared through newsletters and our social pages. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023,2024 |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/techy-talks-for-non-techy-people-public-engagement-with-computer... |
| Description | Article for Sapientia - computing educators' newsletter from ICT for Education |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Paul Curzon was invited by ICT for Education to write an article, about teaching computer science, for the Sapientia newsletter. It was emailed to their subscribers (teachers) in March 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.ictforeducation.co.uk/sapientia/ |
| Description | CS4FN Christmas Advent Calendar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Based on an advent calendar we published a blog post each day during Advent 2023. Each 'door' had a Christmas-themed image which was linked to the theme of the blog post. For example Day One displayed a Christmas jumper which opened to a post about the algorithmic instructional links between knitting and coding, about hiding messages in code or knitting (steganography). A pair of mittens for Day Two opened to a post about pair programming, digital twins, pairing devices and gestural gloves, as well as a magic trick. Most of the posts included a puzzle with the answers given the following day. The Christmas Eve post included information about how NORAD, FlightRadar and Google track the position of "Santa's Sleigh" and other flights, using Rudolph's nose as the transponder and his antlers as the antennae. We also included information on how to spot the International Space Station which was passing overhead at roughtly the same time on Christmas Day. The Advent series of posts were originally created in December 2021 but updated for December 2023. The suite of pages has been viewed 680 times. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://cs4fn.blog/cs4fn-christmas-computing-advent-calendar/ |
| Description | CS4FN issue 29 on Diversity |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | One of our objectives is "...to emphasise the diversity of computer scientists and the wide-ranging ICT research that they do, both in the UK and beyond, and the diversity of new and future job roles that use ICT, directly or otherwise." In June 2023 we published issue 29 of the CS4FN magazine, called "Diversity: computing by all, working for all" with a print run of 21,000 copies of which 20,532 free copies were posted to our 2,572 subscribing schools and home educators; another ~500 copies were given away at other events. As with all our magazines a free PDF is available to download (130 downloads) and the magazine's landing page has been visited 400+ times (this doesn't include page views of individual articles from the magazine). We've also shared excerpts from the magazine through our social media pages. The magazine included articles about computer scientists from a variety of backgrounds (including ethnicity, disability and sexuality) and about a range of topics including facial recognition technology and bias in algorithms. We also included a link to our Diversity portal https://cs4fn.blog/diversity/ which had over 140 additional visits (again this doesn't include views of individual articles which we blogged separately). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/issue-29-diversity/ |
| Description | CS4FN magazine issue 28 - Cunning Computational Contraptions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This issue focused on the history of computer science and computational devices and creating the online version was part-funded by EP/K040251/2 (Ursula Martin). The magazine had additional contributions from Ursula Martin and Adrian Johnstone. This grant supported creating and distributing the physical copies. 21,000 printed copies of the magazine were sent to >2,400 subscribing UK computer science school teachers, librarians and home educators, with numbers varying between 1 (e.g. a home educator or for a school library) and 200; the most popular request is for a class set of 30. Copies of the magazine were also given away at a professional event held as part of the Imagining AI exhibition at Oxford University https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/imagining-ai organised by Ursula Martin and colleagues. At time of writing (8 March 2023) PDF copies of the magazine have been downloaded from our download site 394 times in 2022 and 68 times in 2023 (462), however the magazine is also available in web-form on our CS4FN website, with individual articles republished as blog posts. The landing page (portal) for the issue has been visited 341 times, https://cs4fn.blog/cunningcontraptions/ We also make the magazine available to our undergraduates and postgraduate students as well as visitors tot he department, and we give out copies at talks/workshops. Informal feedback indicates that teachers enjoy using CS4FN magazines in a variety of ways: leaving for pupils to read as a non-fiction resource, photocopying article for discussion in class or using articles as a springboard to teach about computer science research directly as well as teaching about or reinforcing the wider themes (ethics, diversity, that the topic has a history, that computing touches all areas of our lives even if we don't all become programmers etc). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| URL | https://cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/issue-28-cunning-computational-contraptions/ |
| Description | Computing-themed magic science festival stall for venue re-opening |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | For the re-opening of the 4th floor of the Electronic Engineering and Computer Science department at QMUL (the Peter Landin Building) Paul Curzon gave a version of his computing-themed magic science festival stall for colleagues, including senior managers taking the opportunity to draw attention to this as an unusual way to engage people about computer science (and cognitive science) research. This was part of a Show and Tell event in which other colleagues also took part. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Diversity Day By Day portal |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This is one of our thematic portals focusing on Diversity (a major strand of our grant) and contains a mix of new content and links to previously published content on the CS4FN blog. This is a recently-begun, longer-term project which is both a novel way of highlighting the many different backgrounds of computer scientists and also lets us tap into the popularity of the 'On This Day In History' style of sharing information in its historical context. We are continuing to add to this so its initial presentation is sparse however the project has had 80 views so far. 2023/2024 This has proved a little more time-consuming to complete than originally anticipated but we continue to gradually add more items. Our main focus remains on writing longer articles about a diversity of people, which we can also link to here. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://cs4fn.blog/diversity-day-by-day/ |
| Description | Festival of Communities 2022 and 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The Festival of Communities is an annual event organised by QMUL's Centre for Public Engagement (Platinum Engage Watermark from NCCPE) in which all departments across the university participate, in partnership with the borough of Tower Hamlets. Curzon and Brodie ran a stall in June 2022, engaging with visiting families about computer science research. We hosted a number of fun activities including close-up table magic illustrating the links between magic and computer science, colouring in (making a half-human, half-computer 'cyborg' hat) and Pixel Puzzles. We also gave away lots of free material to primary and secondary-aged children and their families and chatted with them about computing stories in the news, and answered their questions. We also had with us a 3rd year undergraduate student as a helper and we got her involved in doing some of the magic tricks and explaining the science, and engaging with families too. Workshop at QMUL's Festival of Communities Curzon delivered an interactive fun family magic show for approx 30 people in Tower Hamlets Park, demonstrating how magic is linked to computer science and how magicians and computer scientists actually think alike. QMUL's Festival of Communities is a two-day engagement event. On the first day QMUL staff go into the community and put on an event in the park, on the second day we invite the community to come to QMUL with events on campus. https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/2022/05/25/colour-in-a-computer-and-see-the-magic-of-computer-science-at-qmuls-engageqms-festival-of-communities-11-12-june-2022-free-family-fun-jb/ 2023/2024 update Festival of Communities 2023 We were successful in our bid to host a large stall and received additional funds both from QMUL's Centre for Public Engagement as well as local funding from our department with Curzon's time from the grant. This let us develop a new activity and pay for two PhD students to take part in the event, supporting our young guests and gaining confidence in engaging with the public. 'Program A Postcard' (see Creative Works) was a fun activity (based on Paul Curzon's Christopher Strachey letter text-generating workshop) which we used to illustrate how Chat GPT / AI tools can work using autocomplete. The activity provided guests with a partially filled postcard containing several sentences (for older children they could pick from a range of sentences and make their own post card) and then complete the task by adding nouns, verbs, adjectives, from piles that were shuffled for randomisation. The end result was an amusing nonsensical post card which families could then post to themselves or someone else (putting the post card in our specially created CS4FN post box; we then posted these through Royal Mail). The cards had a link to a page on our website and participants were given a brightly coloured sticker. It was a very enjoyable event and we also gave away lots of magazines, booklets and colouring-in puzzles. The suite of pages and blog posts relating to this activity has had over 200 views. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/2023/05/22/free-family-festival-fun-in-stepney-green-from-qmul-t... |
| Description | Festival of Open Research in AI |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Paul Curzon was invited to talk about "Public engagement with AI through CS4FN" and how to promote public outreach and accessible participation in computer science research as one of the speakers at an afternoon event at QMUL on transparency and openness in AI research. (Others spoke about open source / open data, artefact preservation, reproducibility and scientific misconduct.) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.com/e/festival-of-open-research-and-ai-queen-mary-university-of-london-ticket... |
| Description | Foreign language translations of our classroom activities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We are regularly contacted by people who wish to translate our material into other languages and most recently in 2023 three of our activities have been translated into Dutch. We have a dedicated page for foreign language editions where copies of our translated material can be found. 2023/2024 update The page has had nearly 3,000 views (in total) as of February 2024. Since the grant began it has been viewed nearly 700 times. A new request is for part of an activity to be translated into Italian for a STEM book. Languages include • Spanish • German • French • Dutch • Italian • Greek • Russian • Welsh • Chinese |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/interdisciplinary-computational-thinking/computing-and-language/ |
| Description | I'm A Scientist - British Science Week 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | For British Science Week 2024 (11-15 March) "I'm A Scientist Get Me Out of Here" co-ordinated hundreds of live, fast-paced, online, text-based chats for UK schools. Jo Brodie took part in multiple live-chats answering teachers', schoolchildren's and young people's questions about computer science, science in general and her career. Typically each chat had 30 pupils involved. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://imascientist.org.uk/profile/jobrodie2/ |
| Description | Livestreaming the Ri Christmas Lectures on Artificial Intelligence |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Through Curzon because of the project partnership, the Royal Institution invited our department (QM EECS) to be one of the livestreaming venues for the 2023 Ri Christmas Lectures, on artificial intelligence. We were one of around 25 venues selected. We provided a catered and wheelchair-accessible 'satellite' venue for all three streaming events and welcomed a general public audience to watch the recording of the lectures, for the BBC, as they were given live at the Royal Institution. Our classroom activities were also shared by the Ri with the other streaming venues, along with other activities which could be used during downtime in the recording (e.g. when a piece needed to be re-recorded). The audience enjoyed seeing 'the making of' Prof Mike Wooldridge's "The Truth About AI" lectures and we sent reminders to attendees that they could watch the end result during the Christmas holidays on BBC Four. This also prompted us to create an overview page of 'AI at Queen Mary' which was shared with all participants https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/2023/12/26/ai-at-qmul-artificial-intelligence-at-queen-mary-university-of-london/ and QMUL has also created an overview page for students https://www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/course-info/ai-hub/ with a series of talks planned for prospective students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/free-livestreaming-events-the-christmas-lectures-from-the-royal-... |
| Description | Lunch and Learn: CS4FN and Diversity in Computing: Supporting diversity representation in computing in UK schools through CS4FN |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Jo Brodie was invited by QMUL's EDI team to give a lunchtime presentation about the work done by the CS4FN project on Diversity in Computing. This was an opportunity to inform colleagues in our department, and in others, about the free resources we've made available for teachers who are trying to increase diversity representation in their computer science classes in the UK. The talk focused mostly on our work for Black History Month and referenced issue 29 of the CS4FN magazine, as well as our wide range of diversity posters. It also covered our many articles both about Black computer scientists but also about things like biases in algorithms and devices that are designed with too-narrow a demographic in mind. It provoked an interesting discussion, with colleagues saying they'd also use our resources in their undergraduate teaching or tell their children's school. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/lunch-and-learn-supporting-diversity-representation-in-computing... |
| Description | Portals on the CS4FN blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We have created a number of curated portals on our blog / website to help readers access our information organised by topic, and to increase usefulness for calendar events. This also lets us re-surface older posts by linking them together thematically with others, into a single themed page (which we can share on Twitter, in addition to individual posts). We are explicitly creating diversity portals as part of our diversity programme. The full set of portals created during the project are listed individually below, also found here https://cs4fn.blog/portals/ June 2022 Computer science in space: https://cs4fn.blog/computer-science-in-space/ Victorian computer science: https://cs4fn.blog/victorian-computer-science/ - interdisciplinary portal with history July 2022 Wearable computing and fashion: https://cs4fn.blog/wearable-computing-and-fashion/ Lego computer science: https://cs4fn.blog/lego-computer-science/ Dec 2022 Natural language processing: https://cs4fn.blog/natural-language-processing/ Mini beasts and computer science: https://cs4fn.blog/mini-beasts-and-computer-science/ Christopher Strachey: https://cs4fn.blog/christopher-strachey/ - also part of our LGBTQ+ portal Jan 2023 Alan Turing: https://cs4fn.blog/alan-turing/ - also part of our LGBTQ+ portal LGBTQ+ Computer Science Greats: https://cs4fn.blog/lgbtq-computer-science-greats/ - ready for LGBT History Month in February Feb 2023 Diversity Day By Day: https://cs4fn.blog/diversity-day-by-day/ Teachers https://cs4fn.blog/teachers/ - highlighting the resources that we offer March 2023 For teachers we've created two Women portals (for International Women's Day). One on the Teaching London Computing website https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/women/ and another on our downloads site which gathers all our free material relating to Women in Computing https://cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/women/. We've also created one for students https://cs4fn.blog/the-women-are-still-here/ Combined, the portal pages have been viewed over 600 times - this includes the post-June 2022 viewing figures for Cunning Computational Contraptions (the page was set up before EPSRC funding began, https://cs4fn.blog/cunningcontraptions/ ready for the magazine being distributed on the grant). 2023/2023 update We have added another twelve portals to the CS4FN site, and updated the content in these and our previous portals. • A CS4FN look at Computer Science PhDs (10 April 2023) • Diversity in Computer Science (11 April 2023) • Disability in Computer Science (14 April 2023) • Black History, Present and Future (5 May 2023) • Asian Computer Science Stars (6 May 2023) • Muslim, Middle Eastern and North African Heritage (6 May 2023) • CS4FN Magazine Issue 29 : Diversity (18 May 2023) • Bias (27 May 2023) • Jewish Computer Scientists (28 May 2023) • Career paths in computing (29 May 2023) • Computing in the Americas (29 May 2023) • CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar (1 December 2023) Combined, the portal pages have now been viewed 2,800 times (excluding views before the project began). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023,2024 |
| URL | https://cs4fn.blog/portals/ |
| Description | Ri Masterclasses in Computer Science |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We run an annual Royal Institution Masterclass series at QMUL in the Spring (six consecutive sessions for local school children aged 13-14). Curzon also delivers several other masterclasses in maths and computing for the Royal Institution at various other locations (the Ri, schools, online). 2022/2023 QMUl / Ri Masterclass series - 15 school students from diverse backgrounds, selected by their teachers, attend six Saturday morning workshops in the department to learn about computer science research beyond their curriculum, in partnership with the Royal Institution. Curzon was invited (initially in 2015) to support the Ri Masterclasses in Computer Science programme by hosting a series at QMUL and we continued to do these. However the activity was stopped in 2020-2022 because of Covid. The grant has supported us in restarting the programme with Brodie part of the organising team in 2023. Curzon presented in 2023 on artificial intelligence. These are hugely popular sessions and feedback is excellent. • Saturday 18 June 2022: Ri Masterclass at Gladesmore Community School The Royal Institution hosts Ri Masterclasses at a variety of locations. Curzon was asked to step in at the last moment to give his magic workshop (an older version of that below), for approx 14 young teenagers. • Monday 15th, Tuesday 16th and Monday 22nd August: six workshops at the Royal Institution Curzon gave six workshops to primary aged children as part of the Ri's Holiday Workshop programme. He gave three different workshops twice on each day, one for children aged 7-9 and one for 10-12 year olds. Approximately 80 people attended (combined). - The magic of computer science x2 - AI, but where's the intelligence? x2 - Becoming a usability expert: Why are gadgets so hard to use? x2 https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/2022/08/08/paul-curzons-doing-some-holiday-workshops-for-young-people-ri_science/ • Saturday 21 January 2023: Ri Masterclass at Gladesmore Community School An AI workshop for approximately 20 teenagers.. 2023/2024 update • 4 March 2023 'Artificial Intelligence - but where is the intelligence' as part of QMUL's on-site Ri Masterclasses in Computing series, for 15 students, given by Curzon • 18 March 2023 'Artificial Intelligence: The Mind of the Machine' - at Trinity School Croydon ~50 students/teacher/RI staff KS3 mixed gender, ethnicity. Positive feedback from teachers and some students in break and as they left. • 5 April 2023 'Ri Easter Holiday workshops' Magic of Computer Science 1 of 2 (for 7-8 year olds), mixed, 24 Magic of Computer Science 2 of 2 (for 9-11 year olds), mixed, 24 Children spontaneously doing magic in corridors to parents outside. • 15 June 2023 'Searching To Speak' - Maths Ri Masterclasses held online via Zoom for several school classrooms (~ 50 children and their teachers), hosted by the Ri. The workshop is based on https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/searchspeak/ • 15 July 2023 'The Illusion of Good Medical Device Design' - at the Royal Institution, Faraday Lecture Theatre for 200 students (parents in an overflow room). This was a last-minute addition as a previous speaker had to drop out. It was live streamed and more watched online >100) Audience wanted to take photos, asked questions and parents involved in conversations too. The talk is based on https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/the-illusion-of-good-medical-device-design/ • Monday 14 August 2023 'Holiday workshops: Artificial intelligence, but where is the intelligence?' at the Royal Institution for ages 7 to 8. https://cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/artificial-intelligence-but-where-is-the-intelligence/ • Monday 14 August 2023 'Holiday workshops: Artificial intelligence, but where is the intelligence?' at the Royal Institution for ages 9 to 11. • Friday 18 August 2023 'Holiday workshops: The magic of computer science' at the Royal Institution for ages 7 to 8. • Friday 18 August 2023 'Holiday workshops: The magic of computer science' at the Royal Institution for ages 9 to 11. • 14 October 2023 'Searching To Speak' at Royal Institution, Conversation Room for 32 students, rated 4.9 out of 5 in the feedback, example comment: "Today was amazing! I had so much fun! I have learned loads! :-)" • 24 February 2024 The next series of QMUL / Ri Masterclasses in Computer Science (held at QMUL) starts, this year in partnership with Google DeepMind who are delivering the first three sessions, with QMUL / EECS department staff delivering the last three. Paul Curzon is giving the session on 16th March. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
| Description | School Talks/ Workshops (various) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Curzon is regularly asked to run unplugged computing and other workshops (including magic shows about computing) for primary and secondary aged children. • Tuesday 14 June 2022: Magic of CS workshops at Chingford C of E School Two in-person workshops / magic workshops about the Magic of Computer Science for 60 pupils. 2023/2024 Update • 19 June 2023 'Artificial Intelligence: The Mind of the Machine' at Cranmore School for 120 Year 8 and Year 9 students. • June 2023: Magic of CS workshops at Chingford C of E School Two in-person workshops / magic workshops about the Magic of Computer Science for 60 pupils. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| Description | School talk: "The illusion of good medical device design" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Paul Curzon has given this talk based on his research a number of times in schools and at Science Festivals • Friday 10th June 2022: Talk given to approx 100 older secondary school pupils and their teachers, for the Barts and Queen Mary Virtual Festival https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/the-illusion-of-good-medical-device-design/ • Thursday 30 June 2022: TCS Digital Explorers An online talk given to approx 100 Y10 - Y12 students and their teachers as part of a careers event organised by TATA Consultancy Services https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/2022/06/10/tcs-digital-explorers-2022-y10-y11-y12-teachers-free-tech-careers-event-27-30-june-with-tcs-paul-curzon-cs4fn-speaking-on-30-june-jb/ • Wednesday 6 July 2022 - Isaac Discovery Day event: Humans and Machines Isaac Computer Science held an in-person discovery day for 100 A level students at QMUL and Paul was the keynote speaker giving the talk on good medical device design and human computer interaction. March 2023. Gave talk to ~400 boys (across three 1-hour talks) at Salvatorian College in Wealdstone on "The illusion of good medical device design", on the topic of human-computer interaction and design. He received very positive feedback from staff and pupils with follow-up questions about career options. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/the-illusion-of-good-medical-device-design/ |
| Description | Social Media |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We post regularly cs4fn related posts on social medias. Newly added posts (to either the CS4FN blog or the sister Teaching London Computing site) are regularly cross-posted to Twitter. This is now done manually (after Twitter changed the rules of how automated posting systems can use its API) and sent to the 3,552 people following @CS4FN on Twitter (in addition to the 85 CS4FN and 831 Teaching London Computing email subscribers). We have recently created CS4FN accounts on Mastodon and BlueSky and are beginning to share our posts there. At the start of 2024 Curzon started to use his LinkedIn account to share posts and post other cs4fn too, having not previously posted there. In 2 months since started to post for cs4fn his account has gained another 162 followers (baseline 557), with 18,000+ impressions overall. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023,2024 |
| Description | Talks for teachers (various) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Curzon is regularly asked to speak at events for teachers . Talks since the project began and supported by it include - • Tuesday 28 June 2022: Digital Schoolhouse An in-person workshop for teachers on "Semantic Waves and Teaching Computing Unplugged" with examples including research-linked unplugged activities (eg Create A Face) that teachers might use in their classroom to teach computing concepts https://twitter.com/dunoongs/status/1541724546809692160 (includes brief video of the session). • Saturday 25 February 2023 - invited keynote talk (detailed in Awards section) Organisers from the "I Love Computing 2023" STEM Learning conference asked Curzon to give a talk at the event, for 126 teachers. His talk, on Christopher Strachey's programmed love poems included a workshop element where teachers created their own poetry supported LGBTQ+ month. Curzon also interacted with teachers at a stall giving out CS4FN magazines and diversity posters. • 20 June 2023: Digital Schoolhouse An in-person workshop for teachers on "Semantic Waves and Teaching Computing Unplugged" with examples including research-linked unplugged activities (eg Create A Face) that teachers might use in their classroom to teach computing concepts |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| Description | Teaching London Computing - Newsletter |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This is a regular newsletter emailed to our subscribing UK computer science school teachers (primary or secondary). Informal feedback includes people sending thanks, forwarding to colleagues who then ask to be subscribed. People also suggest items for inclusion. The content typically includes information about CPD courses or workshops, events that are about (or adjacent) to computing research that teachers might like to attend themselves, or might take their pupils to. A number of these events will have been blogged on the Teaching London Computing website, so the newsletter gathers them together and adds anything new. Some of the workshops or talks are organised externally, some are our own. The November 2022 newsletter in particular included a recommended book list for A level students thinking about taking up computer science at university as well as a focus on Christmas-and-Computing-themed activities that teachers could deploy in the week before schools break up. These activities are designed to be fun first and foremost but which also give the opportunity to talk about certain aspects of computer science, or to draw links and parallels with computing themes. Also included was a link to a website where we are collecting permanently searchable and browsable copies of job descriptions and person specifications for jobs in computer science and jobs that use computer science skills (intended as a sort of horizon-scanning / situational awareness of the computing job market for careers discussions about 'what's out there' and what skills are needed). A copy of the newsletter is also placed on our public website increasing its reach. Periodically the collection of newsletters (and the interim blog posts that feed into it) is used as a marketing tool to increase our subscribers' list. 2023/2024 update Another two newslettrers (#12 - Summer 2023 and #13 - Winter 2023) have been published, highlighting our own and others' events, courses and resources. These are emailed to around 500 subscribing teachers, placed on our website and shared through our social pages. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023,2024 |
| URL | https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/2022/11/14/teaching-london-computing-newsletter-11-november-2022... |
| Description | TechDev Jobs website - a repository of information about digital jobs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The website is a collection of job adverts, job descriptions and person specifications for a selection (currently just over 40) of 'tech' and tech-adjacent jobs including software engineering, data analysis, web development, IT support etc. The idea is to provide anyone interested with a curated, time-saving, 'ready to print' way of showcasing the range of different types of jobs and the different types of organisation and sector that digital and other skills (sociotechnical). As the information is stored on the website itself it's accessible beyond the short timeframe in which a job is advertised. Although the website was initially created before EPSRC funding began we are also now using this site in the project to support the careers programme. We have created a page (linked below) that organises the jobs by sector (universities, health charities, journalism, community groups etc) and are now actively sharing the website with teachers through our own newsletter and via the CAS (Computing At School) forums. Brodie was also asked to write a blog post about the resource for the CAS (Computing At School) website https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/news-and-blogs/2023/february/free-collection-of-job-ads-andjds-and-pss-for-computingplus-jobs 2023/2024 Update Another 28 job adverts, job descriptions and person specifications have been archived on the TechDev Jobs repository since March 2023. We are beginning to link these in to blog posts about computing research on the CS4FN site that are more linked to careers. For example we have written Dr Heather Turner's "Sustainability and EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) in the R Project" EPSRC #EP/V052128/1) and linked that to several roles on the jobs site about Research Software Engineers. Similarly our article about Dr Mei Yii Lim and Prof Ruth Aylett's AMPER project ("Agent-based Memory Prosthesis to Encourage Reminiscing (AMPER)", EPSRC #EP/V056131/1) was linked to some job adverts for PhD roles in the Netherlands on the Dramaturgy for Devices project, mixing robotics and theatre performance to improve the behaviours of social robots. We are also planning to expand a page on both the CS4FN and Teaching London Computing websites about careers information in computer science aimed at young people and teachers respectively. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| URL | https://techdevjobs.wordpress.com/jobs-organised-by-sector-theme/ |
| Description | The CS4FN blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This is primarily a blog website which publishes medium-length articles about (1) computer science research, (2) computer science topics and (3) computer scientists (people) (4) computer science history, written in our CS4FN-style, aimed at a school-age audience and teachers. The aim is to provide reading material covering the full range of the computer science discipline as a research topic, school subject and hobby / entertainment. It is also a primary way we engage teachers with research topics. The blog posts can be used in different ways: for general interest and informing about a particular aspect of research or a particular topic, use as a springboard to discuss a topic in class (e.g. the dark side of algorithms), highlighting the sheer variety of subtopics within the genre of computer science and the variety of people who 'do' it. We're also sharing our own enthusiasm for the topic. There are also static pages (portals) which focus on a particular theme, such as diversity, LGBTQ+ computer scientists and the use of Lego as a learning (and teaching) tool. The portals are expanded on as a separate engagement activity submission. We are in the process of reposting as blog posts articles from our original CS4FN website as a way to resurface our back catalogue including from the original EPSRC cs4fn grant, as well as writing new content. Some of the newer articles will also become published in a later edition of the CS4FN magazine. All blog posts and themed pages are tweeted and our tweets are regularly liked, commented on and retweeted by teachers. Visitor numbers and views since the project began are below (views in brackets) Q1 June-Aug 2022: 1,031 (1,872) Q2 Sep-Nov 2022: 1,191 (2,003) Q3 so far Dec 2022-Feb 2023: 1,769 (3,501) <-- this includes December which is generally our most popular month The majority of our visitors are from the UK (2,000+), with the US coming second (1,000+). We have visitors from many countries with India, Canada and European countries typically sending 100+ visitors. Our UK visitors (Jan - Dec 2023) were 5,490, US visitors (3,203). We have also started to make use of TES (formerly Times Educational Supplement) as a way to reach teachers who are looking to download classroom activities and who may not already know about CS4FN / Teaching London Computing. This has given us another 440 downloads of the 10 items we've added there so far. 2023/2024 update Q4 Mar - May 2023: 1,818 visitors, 2,879 views Q5 Jun - Aug 2023: 1,745 visitors, 2,742 views Q6 Sep - Nov 2023: 1,912 visitors, 3,361 views Q7 Dec - Feb 2024: 2,753 visitors, 5,289 views Across the project we have published 221 blog posts and 45 pages (266 published items), just over 3 items published every week. From June 2022 - February 2023 we had almost 4,000 visitors, from June 2023 - February 2024 we had over 6,000. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023,2024 |
| URL | https://cs4fn.blog/ |