Java engagement for teacher training: an experience report

Starting with the 2003 academic year, the advanced placement (AP) exams in computer science conducted by the College Board moved from a C++ to a Java based curriculum. In order to assist high school computer science teachers with the transition from C++ to Java, the ACM together with the College Board conceived of Java engagement for teacher training (JETT) workshops. In the fall of 2003, Indiana University organized such a workshop. The outreach workshop was held over two days and was attended by 35 high school computer science teachers from Indiana and several nearby states. The workshop was conducted as an interdisciplinary effort with faculty and support from computer science, information systems, informatics, and the school of library and information science. Sessions spanned the gamut of foundational concepts of object-oriented programming in Java to network games. A theme of the workshop was to address the problem of the ever-shrinking pipeline of women in the IT field. With this in mind, we also conducted a separate session titled "Where have all the women gone?" Judging by participant feedback, the workshop was a resounding success. This paper describes our experience in organizing the JETT workshop, the lessons learned, and outlines our plans for the future to build upon this K-16 relationship-building exercise.