Workshop: It's more than coding- using video scenarios to engage students in computing

Studies indicate that students, particularly females, find computing most engaging when it is presented in relation to real-life problems, rather than when it is presented in ways that emphasize computing for the sake of computing. Video scenarios are a novel tool for encouraging students to explore computing in a problem-centric, rather than a code-centric, manner. Video scenarios are short films (2-5 minutes long) that depict individuals facing problems in life-like settings. The scenarios emphasize the diverse and often ill-defined nature of real world problems, and the potential for creative and entrepreneurial computing they present. The video scenarios and their associated discussion/exercise questions are freely available on the web at www.Virt-U.org.