Byron talked about how he is passionate about creating a conceptual bridge from the students’ passions to supercomputing and technology. An example of this happened when Bryon showed a student who was passionate about wrestling, that he already knew and understood calculus. By on related how the circle on the wrestling mat could be used to figure out a radian. The student instantly understood how he could apply this mathematical principal to his passion.

Tom Murphy was very excited about his conversations with Byron, and plans to use some of this conceptual bridging in his classroom. I think this type of innovative teaching will be critical in helping underserved student populations realize that they actually already understand many  advanced concepts in the sciences. The teachers simply need to create the conceptual bridge for them.

An interesting comment from Bryon was that many lower-income, minority students are “already very good at problem solving”, be it figuring out how to get the power turned on, or how to get to school via public transportation. He is advocating for this problem solving to be linked into the classroom.

I, for one will be very interested to see what the results of Bryon’s study reveal. I know that Paul and Tom are going to have Byron back on as guest in the future.  My question to all of you is: how can you build conceptual bridges for your students?

An interesting fact that she shared was that the ACM founded the Computer Science Teachers Association (www.csta.acm.org) as a way to support K-12 computer science education. The association has been helping teachers and students understand how computing fits into their educational goals. It is clear that the ACM is committed to end to end learning for all people who are interested in computing disciplines.

Paul and Tom then engaged Lillian in a very interesting discussion about the tech packs that are being released.  If you do not know what a tech pack is, it is an annotated bibliography of the most pertinent information about a given category. It is a tool that you can use to really dive into a subject and find the latest and greatest material.  Some existing tech packs are Cloud Computing, Security Mobility, Gaming, and the just released Parallel Processing tech pack. (http://techpack.acm.org/parallel)  The Educational Alliance for a Parallel Future (www.eapf.org  was a driving force in the creation of the Parallel Processing tech pack. Interestingly, the tech packs are reviewed by students, faculty, and industry, thus showing that all of ACM is involved in the development of these great sources of information.  

To further make the Parallel Processing tech pack useful, it appears that Dr. Jianfeng Yang of Wuhan University will be translating the Parallel Processing tech pack into Mandarin.  Dr. Yang is a Black Belt for Academia (http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/blackbelt/) and continues to be a leader in bringing parallel programming into the classroom.

The ACM is truly a worldwide organization with approximately 30% of its members being outside of the United States. I learned that there are regional councils being set up in Europe, India and China. These regional councils are helping to oversee the development and expansion of ACM programs.

There are so many great broadcasts going on each day.  I highly encourage you to check the schedule out at http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/IACatSC10/ and tune in to learn about the latest happenings at SC10.

During the show it was also revealed that a brand new Parallel Tech Pack had been released by the ACM.  http://techpack.acm.org/parallel/  According the Tech Pack’s introduction “This tour approaches parallelism from the point of view of someone comfortable with programming but not yet familiar with parallel concepts. It was designed to ease into the topic with some introductory context, followed by links to references for further study.”

I encourage you to check out both of these great resources and make sure to tune into the live broadcasts from SC10. We are broadcasting from 10AM-4PM Central Time November 16-18. Just go to http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/IACatSC10/

Today is the day you can start to Think and Teach Parallel.

I know that you will want to catch at least one of Tim’s talk at SC10. Tim is talking Open MP and Open CL this year.  Here is where and when you can attend Tim talks.

About Tim Mattson

Tim Mattson earned a PhD. for his work on quantum molecular scattering theory (UCSC, 1985).  This was followed by a Post-doc at Caltech where he worked on the Caltech/JPL hypercubes.  Since then, he has held a number of commercial and academic positions with high performance computers as the common thread. Application areas have included mathematics libraries, exploration geophysics, computational chemistry, molecular biology, and bioinformatics. 

Dr. Mattson joined Intel in 1993. Among his many roles at Intel, he was applications manager for the ASCI Red Computer (the world’s first Tera-FLOP computer), helped create OpenMP, founded the Open Cluster Group, led the applications team for the first Tera-FLOP CPU (the 80 core terascale processor), launched Intel’s programs in computing for the Life Sciences, helped create OpenCL (a parallel programming framework for hybrid systems composed of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors), and was part of the team that created Intel’s 48 core SCC processor (the single chip cloud computer).

Currently, Dr. Mattson is a principal engineer in Intel’s Visual Applications Research Laboratory. He conducts research on performance modeling for future multi-core microprocessors and how different programming models map onto these systems.  This work builds on his two most recent books: Design Patterns in Parallel Programming (written with Professors Beverly Sanders and Berna Massingill) and Introduction to concurrency in programming languages (written with Matthew J. Sottile and Craig E Rasmussen).

We have been putting together a great program to keep you informed of the latest happenings at SC10.  It is our pleasure to be working with SC communities and we will be broadcasting from the SC Communities booth, right outside the show floor. See a preview video  

 Here is a peak at some of the activities that we have scheduled during SC10.

I also wanted to let you know that we have a great LinkedIn group that is bringing together folks from around the world to want to know more about what is happening at SC10 and in the Intel Academic Community. I encourage you to join us and let us know what you need or want to more effectively start to Think and Teach Parallel.

If you are at SC10, I would like the chance to meet you and find out what you are doing with Parallelism.  Come by the SC Communities booth and look for me.

See you in the Big Easy.

It has been a pleasure to watch Professor Villeta discover the Intel Academic Community and fully embrace the challenge of preparing his students for the 21^st century by instigation changes to curricula at USC. http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/usc-parallelism/

 Jose is a active member on the Academic Community Advisory Council, where he was instrumental in helping us shape the Intel Manycore testing lab. His contributions to the Intel Academic community have clearly demonstrated his leadership and commitment to parallel programming education.

 Professor Jose Villeta is the instructor for EE-452 Game Hardware Architectures and CSCI-522 Game Engine Development. Also as Director of Technology at Disney Interactive Studios, he oversees the video game development of top Disney titles. For more on Jose Villeta go here

Welcome Jose to the ranks of the Black Belts.  We look forward to celebrating in person with you at the upcoming IDF.

So that is exactly what he set out to do.  Here is an article about the work that he has done. http://www.stolaf.edu/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsDetails&id=4769  Professor Brown has started to do what I hope all of you will, which is to THINK PARALLEL, and better yet start to TEACH PARALLEL.  Together we can all figure out the best curriculums and the best ways to teach these new curriculums.

I encourage all of you to come to the Intel Academic Community often to see what your fellow academics are working on. Let us know what you are working on, and share some of your curriculum.

We had the Black Belt meet up Wednesday night and there was quite a lot of lively discussions happening between black belts and Intel folks. I had the pleasure of sharing IDF with our 2 Belt Belts for Academia, Matt Wolf and Tom Murphy.  They were both interviewed by the BBC radio as we exited Paul Otellini’s keynote on Tuesday morning. Both of them shared their thoughts and even got a mention of the Intel Academic Community in their answers. (Thanks guys)

I have the say the most exciting part was when one of Tom Murphy’s Contra Costa Community College students, Tareq Saif, won the Code Breaker challenge. This is our big developer challenge and it is a multi part competition. There were hundreds of participants and Tarek beat them all. He credits his win to the problem solving that Tom teaches in his Computer Sciences classes. We at the Intel Academic community are excited and proud for Tareq and Tom.  Here is a great example of what can happen when you THINK PARRALLE!!!

I also have the fortune to talk to professors who have already started to THINK PARALLEL, and have started to weave parallel programming into their curriculums. A few weeks ago I was talking to Dr. Joel Adams at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. and he was telling me about how he has been thinking parallel.

I want to share some of the links to his courses and work with the students at Calvin College so that you too can start to Think Parallel. In my many hours of conversations I have repeated heard “I know I need to start to do this, but it seems to be such a huge undertaking”   It is, the advent of multiple processors fundamentally changes the way that Computer Sciences curriculums need to be taught. This is not a trivial undertaking. This requires us to change the way in which we think.

About a year ago, I took up running because I got tired of hearing my own litany of excuses as to why I could not exercise. In January, I joined Team in Training and ran my first ½ marathon on May 31^st.  I went a whole 6 days before I signed up for another ½ marathon. I am running 2 ½ marathons in October. All of this effort started with 1 step out my front door.  Your journey to integrating parallelism into your curriculum starts the same way.  Like my running, you simply need to start to make the changes and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

OK, here is what Dr. Adams is doing to prepare his students for the parallel world we now live in:

“We are trying to integrate parallelism across our curriculum, introducing all students to it in the second course.  Here are links to some of our resources:

The lab in our second course where we first introduce parallelism is here:

   http://cs.calvin.edu/curriculum/cs/112/labs/10/index.html

Our lab where students do this exercise has quad-core CPUs, so they see decent speedup going from 1 to 2 to 4 threads.

Our senior-level HPC course materials are here:

   http://cs.calvin.edu/curriculum/cs/374/

Students also see parallel issues in our Programming Languages course, and our OS & Networking course, but the two links above are our  "bookends".  Students in the HPC course (and those doing summer research) use our Beowulf cluster:

   http://dahl.calvin.edu/

You might especially be interested in our "History" page there:

   http://dahl.calvin.edu/history/

So that should give you some insight into the kinds of things going on here.”

I want to thank Dr. Adams for sharing his work with the Intel Academic Community. If you have started to Think Parallel and want to share your work, please feel free to post some links here.  If you need help, contact me and I will be happy to help you get it posted.

Remember, It takes 2 or more to go parallel.

So I started by calling professors I know and building a list of “new professors” I want to contact. I tend to think of picking up the phone first and e-mailing second.  I would love to know how you like to communicate.  It is funny how doing something that I naturally find effortless becomes an effort when it is my job.  Fear not though, I have taken those first steps and I am off and running. I will be contacting many of you to find out how I can help you THINK PARALLEL

Establishing a new relationship is often started with awkward gestures and some fumbling.  Having been an instructor for over 20 years, it is that feeling of a new class being taught to freshman. They are looking to you to instruct them and you are looking to them for signs that they understand. Inevitability there is those moments of crushing silence, where both sides are looking for clues from the other.    In some ways that is how I feel right now.  I want to help you; I need you to help me. 

I guess I need to just pick up the phone and call.

So what does that mean to you?  It means that you have a conduit to promote and evangelize the awesome work you are doing in Parallel Programming curriculum integration.  It means that I can work directly with you to help you get the most out of your membership in the Intel Academic Program.  That could mean securing Intel software tools, courseware, and possible speaking opportunities with Intel at major conferences. 

Think of it this way, what are you doing that you need promoted!! If it will help other academics I will promote it for you.  I am excited about the chance to get to know you and your programs better. I am eager to help you start to THINK PARALLEL.

Let me know how I can help you.

zander.sprague@intel.com

It is really an exciting day for the Academic world; today the Intel Academic Community announced that the 1000^th university joined the program. In conjunction with this momentous event, I am running a Day of Parallelism here in Chattanooga, TN.  The morning has kicked off with a riveting talk by Dr. Mathew Wolf of Georgia Institute of Technology, talking about his work to integrate Parallel Programming into his undergraduate curriculum.  There is growing number of professors filling the room to participate in this interactive session.  This just underscores the increasing number of professors who are getting on the PP (Parallel Programming) Express.  There is plenty of room and I encourage you to join us.

Dr. Robert Chun from San Jose State University flew in early to the SIGCSE conference to specifically to attend the Day of Parallelism. He stated to me, that he knew he needs to start integrating Parallel Programming into his curriculum. He recently joined the Intel Academic Community and is very excited about all the tools and resources that are now available to him and his students.

Did you know that we have courseware, software tools and access to all kinds of member only benefits in the Intel Academic Community?  If you have not joined, I highly encourage you to jump on the PP Express.

WOW 1000, this is quite a feat. It demonstrates the recognition that action must be taken TODAY to bring Parallel Programming to undergraduates.

That got me thinking. Where do we start with the educator education? I have focused my efforts on universities, but I have heard from a few professors this week that the students do not have the background in math and problem solving that is needed to do concurrent programming. Do we start them in high school or is it really in elementary school? This are questions that I would like to discuss with you.  Are we opening Pandora’s Box? Would this mean a fundamental shift in the foundation of our educational system, and if so how might we go about doing that?

Professor Tom Murphy from Contra Costa College advocates for letting the students fail, as there is great learning in not being successful all the time. It puts the onus on the teacher to figure out how to grade the failure. I would say it is not a failure, but a different outcome than expected.  From a historical perspective failure or should I say an unexpected outcome has led to some great discoveries, like penicillin.

Let the community know how you might change your teaching to encourage unexpected outcomes.  Is it scary or is it thrilling?

I spent the day talking to professors and graduate students in the Intel booth and at their booths. I took the talk to them and went to visit many of the schools that have booths at the show.  I was surprised to find a great deal of universities represented from Japan, and see some great opportunities for the Intel Academic Community there. It is always fascinating to meet folks from different parts of the world and learn what their plans for Parallel programming are.

We had a very spirited discussion at the booth stage between Dr. Ben Gaster, Research Scientist, AMD , Dr. Tim Mattson of Intel and  Professor Kathy Yelick, UC Berkeley, about the why if there is no more sequential programming why are we still teaching it. There was great discussion about what some on the panel are doing and what methods should or should not be taught. Most enjoyable was the repartee between Tim and Kathy, both poking fun at each other’s decided bias one way or another; Kathy talking about the use of Open MP and Tim retorting that when talking to some of her students they did not know about Parallel Programming. 

Again we had great audience participation and as the debate went on we attracted more and more people. I think the format is so different from the other presentations that it struck folks as fresh and new. We will again have another exciting chapter tomorrow morning at 10 AM in the Intel booth.

I hope to see you there.