A day for CS education

For this column, I'd like to share a few ideas that came out of Bay Area CSE Day 2005. Bay Area CSE day was one-day gathering of CSE people, started with a simple invitation on the SIGCSE list. The event was not elaborately prepared --- I just asked a few people to give 15-minute presentations about topics of interest, and then left a lot of time in between for discussion. The regular SIGCSE conference has a lot of high quality prepared material in the presentations, but there never seems to be enough time discussion and interaction. As a low-effort gathering, CSE Day gave us a few interesting presentations and then lots of time to go around the table and share ideas. At a basic level, I find it refreshing and energizing just to be in a room with other people who care about the same things that I care about, so I encourage others who are thinking about organizing one-day events.