Welcome
WCCCE (pronounced “Wicky”) is Western Canada’s chance to come together and discuss the challenges, solutions, and opportunities in computing education. With presentation formats ranging from 5-minute blizzard talks to comprehensive panel sessions, there is space for you to share your ideas, be they nifty assignments or complete works of pedagogical research. Come meet with other educators in post-secondary and K-12, as well as industry professionals and government partners with an interest in teaching computing related courses.
Check out the Call for Participation tab for more details, and we hope to see you there!
Submissions due March 4th, 2025 11:59 PM Anywhere on Earth time.
Keynote Speakers
More speakers to be announced shortly!
Dr. John Aycock
University of Calgary
Abstract:
Learn from my teaching experiments, both successful and unsuccessful. In this talk I'll unabashedly reflect on the most unusual and unorthodox things I've tried in my classes over the years, including unessays, ungrading, and pivoting to embrace unintelligent "AI" systems. Be not uninspired!
Bio:
John Aycock is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary. He started teaching as a TA back in 1991 and, frankly, it's been downhill ever since. Over the years, he's created new courses on computer viruses, spam and spyware, retrogame implementation, and reverse engineering; the first two proved controversial and made international headlines. Dr. Aycock routinely builds tools, games, and systems for use in teaching, and has published work at SIGCSE, ITiCSE, SIGITE, and WCCCE. He continually aspires to improve his teaching practice, drawing on areas including storytelling, improv, preaching(!), and the humanities.
Dr. Katrin Backer
Owner, Mink Hollow Media Treasurer, CAID (Canadian Association of Instructional Designers). Adjunct Professor, Mount Royal University (Calgary, AB, Canada). Licensed ARBA Rabbit Registrar #1128
Abstract
We do what we do because we want to help people learn.
I am confident that almost all of us—and certainly everyone currently at this conference—would agree with this. So why do we seem to make it so hard for them to learn?
I have spent much of my last 25 years or so trying to answer those questions, and while I don’t have ALL the answers, I have learned a few. It’s not the appealing visuals, or the badges, points, and leaderboards that make so many games inviting and effective. It is the creation of a safe space to explore, to practice mastery, to exercise agency, to try something that might fail, and the freedom be creative. The elements that support these mind-sets are the same elements we can use to create a classroom that feels safe for learning.
This talk will describe how we can use gameful elements in an informed and thoughtful way to have a positive impact on our students’ perceptions of risk without lowering our standards.
Bio:
Katrin is an award winning, internationally known expert in the design & analysis of serious games and of gamification in the classroom. She holds 2 computer science degrees and a PhD in educational technology. She’s a certified Instructional Designer with a graduate certificate in serious game design and research.
She has over 40 years of teaching experience and has taught computer science (CS), video game design, game-based learning (GBL) and technical writing. Her teaching innovations are widely recognized, and she has many publications, including 4 books.
Finally, to counterbalance a very digital life, she runs a small farm where she has been raising rabbits waterfowl and other animals for over thirty years. This is what accounts for the occasional bit of poo on her shoe.
Dr. Beth Richarson
Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB
An Assistant Professor in Cell Biology and Genetics at Mount Royal University, Beth teaches computational biology classes at MRU and is developing a Bioinformatics course for Biology majors and non-majors, to be offered in Fall 2026.
Dr. Sara Smith
Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB
Sara's research interests were strongly shaped by her time in Informatics, and her current research program focuses on how to use genomics and computational modelling to create more informed projections of where species may be able to persist under climate change scenarios. At MRU, Sara teaches quantitative biology and mentors undergraduate students in computational projects focusing on ecological genomics.
Sponsors
We are grateful to our sponsors who made this conference possible.
Location
Mount Royal University
4825 Mount Royal Gate Southwest Calgary, AB Canada, T3E 6K6Submission period
December 3, 2024 - 13:31 until March 4, 2025 - 23:59
Contact us
If you have any questions, please contact wccce2025@mtroyal.ca .