CCCS Hackathon Project: Reflections and Lessons Learned 

Presenter: Chris Luchs

Co-Presenter: Vicki Eisele, Kate Hagerty, and Kae Novak

Organization:CCCOnline

Role:Associate Dean, CTE

Track:General Presentation

Topic:Effective Blended Learning Practices

Level:For Mere Mortals

Abstract:This presentation will provide an overview of the findings of the CCCS Hackathon Project and it's impact on computer sciences courses at Front Range and CCCOnline. We'll discuss our processes and provide observations on how incorporating an intensive 24 hour event into the curriculum impacted our students performance, attitudes, and interest in computer science.

Bio:Chris Luchs is the Associate Dean of CTE for a statewide online community college consortium. He has taught accounting, agribusiness, business, management, marketing, computer science and multi-graphic design. He spends his free time investigating new technologies and collaborating with other educators on evaluating and exploring virtual worlds and games based educational applications. His current happy place is games based learning, exploring Hackathons, learner analytics, and assessment.

Description:This project was a Round 2 funded project by the CCCS Immersive and Game Based Learning Faculty Challenge grant and ended on June 30th, 2014.

A Hackathon (portmanteau of hack and marathon) is typically an intensive two day event where programmers, graphic designers, webmasters and others compete to develop applications (APIs or Mobile Apps) for a specific platform or organization. “Hack” means that there is a problem to be solved in an unconventional way and the “thon” highlights the competitive and challenge based nature of the event. Some examples are: Code for America, Rewired State, TechCrunch Disrupt, Random Hacks of Kindness, among many others.

While the main purpose of these Hackathons are to develop tangible working software within a friendly and competitive environment, these events also contribute to community building, learning new technologies, live teamwork and active collaboration. Hackathons also provides participants an opportunity to engage their technical mastery, social purpose, and self directed learning as participants self select what projects they want to engage in.

The presenters utilized a hackathon as a blended learning educational event where our students showcased their mastery, created working programs, and fundamentally changed our ideas as to what a computer science class can be.

Presenter Presentation Materials URL (Web Address): http://cccsimmersivelearning.weebly.com/hackathon.html