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We are proposing a workshop that instructs K-12 teachers on how to implement fun and engaging projects involving different technologies in their classrooms. These types of projects can be used by faculty to introduce programming skills and other computing concepts, and they are also a fantastic resource for outreach activities. Our students developed these outreach projects in a service learning course as a way to develop and promote their technical skills. We thoroughly documented these projects and developed various tutorial videos and instructions on how to interact with the technologies. We maintain these projects in a searchable online repository that we will introduce during the workshop. We will also share best practices and allow for discussion in utilizing these projects and possibly creating new ones at their institutions. 

Creativity has been shown to improve student learning and retention and is also one of the top skills wanted by employers in computing. However, it is seldom a clear component for most computing courses and is difficult to measure as a course outcome. This paper describes a course specifically designed for student retention with creativity as the central component, and a research study that investigated students’ perspectives on what creativity is, how it pertains to them based on a set of twelve traits, and how this course has impacted their creativity. Students indicated that this course was the most creative course that they have taken and our data shows that it influenced their self-reported creativity. Out of the traits we provided, open-minded and curious were the two selected by our students as top characteristics of creativity. We discuss our observations from this study and provide a qualitative analysis. 

The Technology Ambassador’s Program (TAP) was established in 2012 as an extra-curricular program and has been offered as a service learning course since spring 2016. To investigate the impact on program participants, we launched a longitudinal study in fall 2022 and surveyed the students who completed the course from spring 2016 to spring 2021. Analysis of the survey results discovered that students strongly agree that this program has provided them opportunities to conduct research, to network with other professionals in the field, and apply technical skills. Further analysis also revealed a strong correlation of these opportunities with improving soft skills and career readiness among participants. Overall, this program increased the confidence of the students and prepared them to learn new skills on their own. This paper describes the overall structure of the service learning program and presents the details of this study including the process and survey results.