High school students from the Los Angeles Unified School District visit UCLA for Exploring Computer Science Day
By Andra Lim/UCLA Daily Bruin
Until this semester, high school junior Sharon Friedman used her computer to do homework and socialize with friends. But when she started taking Exploring Computer Science, a class created by UCLA in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, she began to see that computers are more than just a portal to the Internet. “I never realized you could make games using a computer,” the Hollywood High School student said, adding that she created her own version of Pacman during one unit of the course. From 2000 to 2004, a UCLA research team investigated why so few females, blacks and Latinos were learning computer science at the high school level. Out of this research, a team of UCLA-based experts in education and computer science worked with LAUSD, one of the most diverse districts in the country, to build the course Exploring Computer Science. (more...)