ICER 2011 Core Dump
11 Aug 2011I heard so many interesting talks, met so many provocative people, and thought so hard about computation that I’ll never hear the words “this is a test” the same way again.
One highlight for me was talking with Mark Guzdial about pictures and sounds as transformations of binary information. As I continue to think about intersecting possibilities for our brand of scientific inquiry and what promise it might hold in CS, I’m definitely going to turn my attention toward core concepts in how we represent information. More importantly, perhaps, are issues of how we generate, modify, and understand information.
Another was raising issues of what counts as evidence, and how we define learning. I really look forward to having more interesting conversations about what we think we’re studying when we try to study student learning.
A third was getting to continue ongoing conversations about education with friends, both old and new. To me, the heart of a good conference is the way our interests and ideas about central problems in the field spill outside the bounds of sessions and talks. These conversations are what excite and energize me.
Finally, I had an amazing time at the pre-conference Doctoral Consortium (DC). I was able to meet colleagues from across the world who are starting (or, in some cases wrapping up) their dissertations. It was a thrill to see the variety of problems people are taking on and an amazing opportunity to both get and give detailed feedback on our work.