Culturally Relevant Computing Lab Director, Dr. Kinnis Gosha, and Google software engineers, developed a course for Morehouse students to learn Android Application programming, along with the Applied Computer Science(CS) content, and received hands-on experience in a for-credit class. The course, titled “Mobile App Development with Advanced Data Structures,”combined lecture, class discussion and in-class assignments targeted at learning Java, advanced data structures, ADS, and other basics for Android programming. The Applied CS classes ran for 75 minutes and were held twice a week for 16 weeks in the fall semester of 2016. These classes, the first at the university for mobile app development, filled up quickly due to the buzz around the collaboration with Google, and 11 out of 12 students successfully completed the course. Applied CS content enabled students to understand, apply and implement advanced data types using a mobile application platform that more than two billion devices run on today.
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Dr. Kinnis Gosha is one of the 31 HBCU Computer Science faculty members selected for the inaugural HBCU Faculty in Residence program. Over 20 HBCUs are represented in this six-week program at Google’s world headquarters in Mountain View, California. Faculty will work to redevelop the curriculum to better align with the latest trends in software engineering
It is no secret the demand for people with information technology and computing skills is growing nationwide, and it is never too young to learn the necessary skills to help land you a career in that field.
Morehouse College and Atlanta Public Schools are doing their part to expose high school students to computing careers through a 4-week coding workshop.
The Xanadu-Computer Application Development Summer Program will be offered to rising 10th-12th grade students from June 5 through June 29.
“This program will provide a unique opportunity for students in the Atlanta metropolitan area to learn computer science even if these courses are not offered at their respective high schools,” said X-Capp co-founder and Morehouse College computer science professor Dr. Kinnis Gosha. “Having computer science training in high school increases the likelihood of retaining students who major in computer science at a significantly higher probability.” ?
During the camp, students will also be able to familiarize themselves with various computing careers through the ComputingCareersNow.org portal which was developed by Gosha in the Morehouse College Culturally Relevant Computing Lab.
“The ideal students for the X-Capp program are high achieving students who have shown and communicated a strong interest in computer science,” explains Atlanta Public Schools’ Gifted and Talented Education Coordinator, Dr. Quail T. Arnold. “This enrichment opportunity will help students explore a field of interest and further prepare them for college and/or career,”For more information about X-Capp, please visit http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/Page/911 or contact the Xanadu Middle/High Program at 404-802-7585
Four members of the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab presented their research this weekend at the ACM Southeast Conference. The title of the poster presentation was entitled “Introduction to Computer Science for Urban African American Students Using Sphero Robotics Workshop”. The four students consisted of Trey Ridley, Ernest Holmes, Kevin Womack and Jordan Scott from Morehouse College. An abstract from the submission is provided below:
This paper introduces the use of an all-day coding workshop as an intervention to introduce and expose African American high school students from a southeastern urban school district to coding and computing careers. The workshop is held at a local HBCU and led by African American undergraduates computer science majors who attend that HBCU. The workshop is focused on a robotic ball called an Sphero that allows users to control its motion and color by writing lines of code. Results from workshop showed an increase of interest in pursuing a career in computing after graduation compared to interest before the start of the workshop.
A group of 25 students from South Atlanta High School participated in the Sphero Coding Workshop today at Morehouse College. Students learned how to write code in the morning session, ate lunch in Morehouse’s Dining Hall and competed against each other in coding challenges in the afternoon. The Sphero Coding Workshop is led by Dr. Kinnis Gosha and his Culturally Relevant Computing Lab. The Culturally Relevant Computing Lab is represented by students from Morehouse College, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Sponsorship for the workshop was provided by Boeing and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Kinnis Gosha was interviewed by Georgia Public Broadcasting on his work funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiatives Annual Reporting Tool, built by Gosha and his research lab, handles the annual data reporting and visualization for over 200 youth detention centers across the nation. Hear the interview here.
Dr. Kinnis Gosha has been quoted in the January 2017 issue of the Communications of the ACM magazine about challenges for African Americans in Computer Science and in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The article is entitled “Bias in Technology“.
Morehouse College has been awarded a grant of $60,011 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation with Dr. Kinnis Gosha as the Principal Investigator. The award is another renewal award from a long-standing relationship between Gosha and the Casey Foundation. The primary task of this grant is to continue to further develop the data analysis functionality of the annual JDAI (Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiatives) results portal. The portal is one of the largest databases of juvenile detention data in the nation, collecting data from over 200 youth detention facilities. The portal as well as the grant was featured on the CBS46 Atlanta website.
A manuscript co-authored by Dr. Kinnis Gosha entitled “Holistic Development of Underrepresented Students through Academic – Industry Partnerships” has been accepted for publication in the conference proceedings of the ACM Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education Conference. The conference will be held in Seattle, Washington on March 8th – 11th, 2017. Co-authors include Marlon Mejias (Howard University), Legand Burge (Howard University), Kamar Galloway (Google) and Jean Muhammad (Hampton University). More information about the conference can be found at http://sigcse2017.sigcse.org.
Kinnis Gosha, PhD 