Workshop Overview

Multi-core computers with increasing core counts are here to stay, and distributed cloud computation has become a staple of industry innovation. How can instructors help today's undergraduate computer science (CS) majors to learn the principles and practices of parallel and distributed computing that they need as they begin their careers after college? CSinParallel is an NSF-funded initiative dedicated to supporting CS programs as they transition to incorporating parallel and distributed computing (PDC) into their undergraduate curricula. CSinParallel modules are brief, flexible, and hands-on, enabling instructors to add a productive day or two of PDC content to almost any undergraduate CS course. By experiencing various facets of PDC in multiple courses or in a larger unit or two in a designated course, students emerge with principles, experiences, and a sense of perspective about the rapidly evolving PDC body of knowledge, as called for in emerging CS curricular recommendations, such as the ACM/IEEE CS2013.

Workshop Goals

The first CSinParallel Regional Workshop for the Upper Midwest Region will take place at Loyola University in Chicago on August 3-6. Participants in this 2-3 day workshop and related activities can expect:

• An introduction to the CSinParallel teaching modules and to the software technologies (MPI, OpenMP, MapReduce, etc.) with which those modules provide hands-on experience.
  
• An introduction to different hardware technologies for providing students with practical and realistic parallel computing experiences (remote, local, and/or inexpensive personal Beowulf clusters).
  
• Parallel programming patterns for teaching PDC problem solving and "parallel thinking."
  
• Pre-workshop communications and readings in order to prepare for the workshop and get acquainted with CSinParallel materials.
  
• Making connections with other nearby faculty who are also seeking to add more PDC into their own curricula, towards the formation of a regional (human) network.
  
• Assistance in planning how to integrate more parallel and distributed computing (PDC) into the participant institution's undergraduate CS curriculum.
  
• Ongoing support for implementing such a plan after the workshop, including access to remote parallel computing resources.
  
• Optional sessions for student technical supporters from the participant's own institution.
  

Dates

• Monday, August 3: 7-9pm, Informal reception
• Tuesday, August 4: 7:30am-4:45pm, Workshop sessions
• Wednesday, August 5: 9am-5pm, Workshop sessions
• Thursday, August 6: 9am-5pm, Optional continued workshop sessions

Costs

Regional travel support, including housing, is available for participants on a first come, first serve basis.

Application

Click here for application form

For More Information

Send any questions to csinparallel@stolaf.edu, or visit csinparallel.org. The CSinParallel leadership for this workshop includes Dick Brown (St. Olaf College), Joel Adams (Calvin College), Libby Shoop (Macalester College).