Overview of the Discipline of Computer Science - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 29

puter science topic that includes a 10-min presentation about the history of
computer science.
Many online resources are available on this topic. One of them is the Com-
puting Research Association's report on Us i ng History To Teach Computer
Science and Related Disciplines . 5
• Stage C: Presentations
The prospective computer science teachers present their 10-min presenta-
tion in front of the class about the history of computer science.
For illustration, we present two topics chosen by students in our MTCS
course and their contributions to the students' perspective on the discipline.
− The history of object-oriented software development: Specifically, dif-
ferent progra mming languages that marked the development of this
paradigm (e.g., Simula, C, C++, Java) were mentioned. Furthermore,
the students' realization that the concept of object-oriented develop-
ment was first introduced in the early 1960s, highlighted the fact that it
sometimes takes time for new ideas to be accepted by a community of
professionals. This presentation formed a basis for a discussion about
questions, such as: Why was a new paradigm needed? Why were sev-
eral programming languages developed for the implementation of the
object-oriented paradigm?
− The history of computers : The fact that the first computing machines
were developed about 200 years ago (and even earlier) led to a sequence
of discussions. One of them addressed the question: “When did such
machines start being computers?” That discussion was followed by a
discussion about the definition of the term computer. This presenta-
tion formed a basis for a discussion about topics related to the teaching
of computational models (e.g., Turing Machine) that, in fact, have not
been actually constructed, and about connections between the concep-
tual and technological developments of computer science.
• Stage D: Class discussion
After the prospective computer science teachers present their presenta-
tions, the question that opened the lesson—What do you know about the
history of computer science?—is re-examined. Naturally, by this time, the
one-line answer given at the beginning of the lesson (“It is short; about 60
years”) is widely and deeply enriched. The lesson ends with a discussion
of whether the history of computer science is really that short.
This lesson can be continued in different ways, including a task that delves
into some of the topics discussed in the lesson, a lesson about computer
scientists (see Sect. 3.4), or another lesson that explores how to integrate
the history of computer science into the high school computer science
curriculum.
5 See http://www.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/workforce_history_reports/using.history.
pdf .