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  1. Distributed computing, computer networking, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are all around us, yet only computer science and engineering majors learn the technologies that enable our modern lives. This paper introduces PhoneIoT, a mobile app that makes it possible to teach some of the basic concepts of distributed computation and networked sensing to novices. PhoneIoT turns mobile phones and tablets into IoT devices and makes it possible to create highly engaging projects through NetsBlox, an open-source block-based programming environment focused on teaching distributed computing at the high school level. PhoneIoT lets NetsBlox programs—running in the browser on the student’s computer—access available sensors. Since phones have touchscreens, PhoneIoT also allows building a Graphical User Interface (GUI) remotely from NetsBlox, which can be set to trigger custom code written by the student via NetsBlox’s message system. This approach enables students to create quite advanced distributed projects, such as turning their phone into a game controller or tracking their exercise on top of an interactive Google Maps background with just a few blocks of code. 
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  2. Historically, female students have shown low interest in the field of computer science. Previous computer science curricula have failed to address the lack of female-centered computer science activities, such as socially relevant and real-life applications. Our new summer camp curriculum introduces the topics of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and other real-world subjects to engage high school girls in computing by connecting lessons to relevant and cutting edge technologies. Topics range from social media bots, sentiment of natural language in different media, and the role of AI in criminal justice, and focus on programming activities in the NetsBlox and Python programming languages. Summer camp teachers were prepared in a week-long pedagogy and peer-teaching centered professional development program where they concurrently learned and practiced teaching the curriculum to one another. Then, pairs of teachers led students in learning through hands-on AI and ML activities in a half-day, two-week summer camp. In this paper, we discuss the curriculum development and implementation, as well as survey feedback from both teachers and students. 
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  3. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are common in students’ everyday lives, but connecting these devices to a programming environment for educational use is not always straightforward. This paper presents a framework, IoTScape, for connecting IoT devices to an online block-based programming environment. This system automatically provides both a novice-friendly interface and more advanced tools integrating cybersecurity concepts. By allowing new device types to easily be added to the system, a more diverse set of curricula is possible, ideally attracting more students who may not find the existing curricula engaging. Examples are provided of IoT devices used with this system, both physical and virtual, connected to NetsBlox through this platform, along with potential pedagogical uses of these devices. 
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  4. Creating pathways that stimulate high school learners’ interest in advanced topics with the goal of building a diverse, gender-balanced, future-ready workforce is crucial. To this end, we present the curriculum of a new, high school computer science course under development called Computer Science Frontiers (CSF). Building on the foundations set by the AP Computer Science Principles course, we seek to dramatically expand access, especially for high school girls, to the most exciting and emerging frontiers of computing, such as distributed computation, the internet of things (IoT), cybersecurity, and machine learning. The modular, open-access, hands-on curriculum provides an engaging introduction to these advanced topics in high school because currently they are accessible only to CS majors in college. It also focuses on other 21st century skills required to productively leverage computational methods and tools in virtually every profession. To address the dire gender disparity in computing, the curriculum was designed to engage female students by focusing on real world application domains, such as climate change and health, by including social applications and by emphasizing collaboration and teamwork. Our paper describes the design of curricular modules on Distributed Computing, IoT/Cybersecurity, and AI/Machine Learning. All project-based activities are designed to be collaborative, situated in contexts that are engaging to high school students, and often involve real-world world data. We piloted these modules in teacher PD workshops with 8 teachers from North Carolina, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York who then facilitated virtual summer camps with high school students in 2020 and 2021. Findings from teacher PD workshops as well as student camps indicate high levels of engagement in and enthusiasm for the curricular activities and topics. Post-intervention surveys suggest that these experiences generate student interest exploring these ideas further and connections to areas of interest to students. 
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  5. null (Ed.)
    The Covid-19 pandemic has offered new challenges and opportunities for teaching and research. It has forced constraints on in-person gathering of researchers, teachers, and students, and conversely, has also opened doors to creative instructional design. This paper describes a novel approach to designing an online, synchronous teacher professional development (PD) and curriculum co-design experience. It shares our work in bringing together high school teachers and researchers in four US states. The teachers participated in a 3-week summer PD on ideas of Distributed Computing and how to teach this advanced topic to high school students using NetsBlox, an extension of the Snap! block-based programming environment. The goal of the PD was to prepare teachers to engage in collaborative co-design of a 9-week curricular module for use in classrooms and schools. Between their own training and the co-design process, teachers co-taught a group of high school students enrolled in a remote summer internship at a university in North Carolina to pilot the learned units and leverage ideas from their teaching experience for subsequent curricular co-design. Formative and summative feedback from teachers suggest that this PD model was successful in meeting desired outcomes. Our generalizable FIRST principles—Flexibility, Innovativeness, Responsiveness (and Respect), Supports, and Teamwork (collaboration)—that helped make this unique PD successful, can help guide future CS teacher PD designs. 
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