Computer Science for Fun in the Western Cape

Making Computer Science fun for teachers and learners in Western Cape High Schools Prof Derek W. Keats Deputy Vice Chancellor (Knowledge & Information Management) The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg http://kim.wits.ac.za [email_address] The University of the Western Cape

Context is important South Africa Western Cape Univ Western Cape Poverty is a majority phenomenon

http://scns.uwc.ac.za

a free instant messaging software application developed in South Africa that runs on GPRS/3G mobile phones with java support
widely popular among youth
Highly available due to high cellphone use among young people
XMPP based

Drug Advice Services Chisimba MXit Google Talk Service : 3-5pm daily, expanded to 3-7 pm due to demand

Project A proof of concept with 1-3 schools that are part of the SCNS project to participate in an online CS4Fun competition as a means to develop interest in computer science among high school learners

Components

CS4Fn type magazine articles on the site

Authored by CS students at UWC

Problem solving puzzles

Solvable using cell phone (MXIT)

Develop an AI bot using AIML editor

Built on Chisimba, MXIT, Google Talk
Talk via cell phone (MXIT)
Create a bot editor (AIML editor) for the learners to use to create their bot

Example

Your own intelligent bot

Study the basics of AIML
Create an AIML file and load it into the bot via a web interface
Chat with the bot via a web interface and improve on it by iteratively changing the AIML
Chat to the bot using MXit

Attribution file: http://www.dkeats.com/usrfiles/users/ 1563080430/attribution/attrib.txt