[SIGCIS-Members] History courses in CS departments

[Scott Campbell]

I know I’m a bit late to this, but I teach a permanent history of
computing course here at the University of Waterloo in Canada, hosted by
the Faculty of Engineering: STV 210: The Computing Society. 

It’s cross-listed with the History department and open to any student,
including computer science (who are in the Faculty of Math). It covers
the standard pre-electronic history back to the late 18th century up
through to the internet, using the venerable Campbell-Kelly, Apsray,
Ensmenger, and Yost textbook as the background text, but not
exclusively.

I also strongly emphasize historical thinking practices, and wrote a
short pedagogical paper about the course and its value to students:

S. M. Campbell, "From historical thinking to critical thinking about
technology," , Waterloo, ON, Canada, 2021, pp. 1-4, doi:
10.1109/ISTAS52410.2021.9629144.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9629144

Cheers all,

Scott Campbell

--
Scott M. Campbell (he/him)
Director, Centre for Society, Technology and Values
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON
N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567 x35635
http://cstv.uwaterloo.ca



>
> I've been asked by colleagues to narrow down the list to US schools, and
> again only to those with a specific history-of-computing course.
> Many schools offer courses that overlap into computer history, but as I see
> it, the direct ones are Carnegie Mellon, Colorado/Boulder, Cornell,
> Minnesota, and Yale. I've made my best case to our administration, and
> hopefully NJIT can join the list soon.
>