The School Leadership 2.0 blog reports on an interview with Bill Gates and Vicki Philips (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) during a recent visit to Atlanta.
“Now the foundation is working with the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington on a free, online game called Refraction. As students play, their progress is visible to the teacher on his or her computer, allowing the educator to see instantly what concepts students understand.
“The idea is that in coming years, there could be a digital mall full of low-cost or free online games teachers could download to use with the entire class or individual students.
“‘Part of what we’re trying to do is make more robust the array of things teachers have access to at their fingertips that are aligned to standards, that are high quality, that engage kids though technology and let [teachers] be the orchestra leader,’ Phillips said.
“It’s early in the development phase, and the foundation is still trying to figure out how to do this game-based technology well, Gates said.
“The foundation will play a role in researching and developing this new technology, work that isn’t likely to be done at the federal or state level.
“‘It’s definitely going to make a contribution,’ Gates said. ‘Motivation is such a huge part in what ends up differentiating student outcomes. Everyone has the ability to do fantastic work at a high school level. It’s just without the right teacher and the right motivation you don’t always get there.'”
Read more here. Learn about UW’s Center for Game Science here. Read more →
The San Francisco Chronicle picks up Nick Wingfield’s New York Times profile of UW Computer Science & Engineering:
“Some budding entrepreneurs and computer whizzes based in the Pacific Northwest are starting to turn heads down in Silicon Valley …
“Although Stanford is considered the Hogwarts of techdom, UW has quietly established itself as the other West Coast nexus of the information economy. And while Seattle-area tech icons like Microsoft and Amazon have long relied on UW – pronounced “U-dub” by locals – as an incubator of talent and ideas, the Valley’s hottest companies have been getting the message, too.
“Their executives have begun streaming up the coast to Seattle, fueled by a talent arms race for programmers. Facebook, Zynga and Google have opened offices in the area, trying to woo UW engineers who’d rather live here …”
Read the article here. “What?!?! No photographs?!?!” Read it with photographs here. See more photographs here. Read more →
Decide.com, a Seattle startup created by UW CSE professor Oren Etzioni and four students, is featured in today’s New York Times:
“If you are thinking about buying a new laptop, stop thinking and do it. At least that’s what the algorithms at Decide.com say to do.
“Decide.com is a Web site created by artificial intelligence experts that tracks millions of price changes on consumer electronics and appliances and uses algorithms to to predict when buyers are most likely to get a deal. The site claims 77 percent accuracy since its inception in June 2011.”
Read the rest here. Read more →
“Imagine if kids poured their time and passion into a video game that taught them math concepts while they barely noticed because it was so enjoyable. We’ve been supporting the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington, which has developed a free, on-line game called Refraction. The goal of the game is to rescue animals whose ships are stuck in outer space. The ships require different amounts of fuel, powered by lasers. So the players have to manipulate fractions to split the lasers into the right amount of fuel.
“As the kids play the game, the teachers watch a dashboard on their computer that tells them how each student is doing, so they know instantly if the student is getting it or not. Teachers no longer have to wait for the unit test to find out if their kids understand the material.
“Teachers have not had these tools before.”
Read Gates’s speech in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution here. Learn about UW CSE’s Center for Game Science here. Play Refraction here. Read more →
“For decades, Silicon Valley has provided Oregonians a powerful demonstration of the impact of higher education muscle on high-tech economic outcomes …
“Now, Oregon is seeing another massive expansion much closer.
“As The New York Times reported Sunday, the University of Washington computer science and engineering program – with substantial assistance from corporations such as Microsoft and Amazon and individuals such as Bill Gates and Paul Allen – has become the seventh-ranked graduate program in the country …
“Recently, the program scooped up hot new faculty members from Carnegie Mellon, Penn and Stanford – with the aid of professorships newly endowed by Amazon.
“And the state, which had been battering the university in the past few years of budget crisis, left the UW budget intact this round – on condition that the university increase the engineering program’s budget by $3.8 million.”
Read the rest of this editorial here. Read more →
University of Washington President Michael Young has recognized 11 professors for their innovative spirit, naming them as Presidential Entrepreneurial Faculty Fellows.
The 11 new Fellows, who will serve two-year terms, were chosen for their abilities to turn research into products and therapies, initiate groundbreaking programs for commercialization, collaborate with industry, and share knowledge with other researchers.
Dan Weld, WRF / Thomas J. Cable Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, is one of the 11. Dan’s superb research and teaching are complemented by a wide variety of entrepreneurial activities, including founding multiple companies and serving as a Venture Partner with Madrona Venture Group.
Adjunct Professor David Baker, whose collaborations with CSE include the breakthrough game Foldit for protein folding and protein structure calculation, also was included.
Last year – the first year of the Presidential Entrepreneurial Faculty Fellows Program – UW CSE’s Oren Etzioni and Yoky Matsuoka were named. (Matsuoka was so darned entrepreneurial that she subsequently bolted for Nest, the “learning thermostat” startup.)
Read more here. Read more →
“With a recent string of hires, the university has seriously beefed up its faculty in the area broadly known as ‘Big Data,’ becoming increasingly important in as the Web continues to grow and spread via mobile computing …
“A New York Times profile of the department published last weekend … paints a picture of a computer science department on the rise, adding big names in academic circles to its previously established group of leaders like department chairman Hank Levy, Bill & Melinda Gates chair Ed Lazowska, and Oren Etzioni – a crucial kind of professor who straddles the worlds of research and start-ups …
“As documented in this recent Seattle Times story, that recent surge of hires added heft in machine learning, statistics, and data visualization. Those new recruits came from top programs: Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Pennsylvania.”
Read the post here.
Read more →
UW’s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering (Ed LaCasse photo)
“A few weeks ago, I interviewed Madrona Venture Group’s Matt McIlwain and asked him pointedly to name one missing ingredient that’s holding back Seattle’s technology community. The veteran venture capitalist didn’t hesitate, suggesting that outsiders (and even Seattleites to some degree) don’t fully appreciate what’s being built around them …
“Well, at least some in New York City are paying attention. The New York Times published a fabulous piece today on The University of Washington’s computer science and engineering department, raising the profile of a department that often lurks in the shadows of MIT and Stanford.
“Reporter Nick Wingfield, who is based in Seattle, writes that the computer science department – through the leadership of professors Oren Etzioni, Ed Lazowska, Hank Levy and others – has ‘quietly established itself as the other West Coast nexus of the information economy.’
“That’s pretty high praise, and it comes at a time when the UW CSE department is gaining momentum. It recently hired a number of highly-regarded faculty members, including Carlos Guestrin from Carnegie Mellon University; Ben Taskar from The University of Pennsylvania; and Jeff Heer from Stanford University. Tech leaders, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen; Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and many others, have stepped up to help with financial support.”
Read the rest of the post here. Read more →
