Enabling power of computing has winning appeal

His students are learning about Buddhism. They are reading "The Tao of Pooh."                  Michael Buckley
They also go on visits to a center for children with disabilities,  and
then are asked to design technologies that can improve the way these children live and learn. The Assistive Technology Laboratory that Buckley and Kris Schindler UB teaching assistant professor, have both created on-campus is now a popular hangout for computer science undergraduates.

Buckley calls his movement "computing for a cause," or socially relevant computing. He thinks it could save computer science from its current slump where according to the Computing Research Association America's 2007 graduating was down to just 8,000 graduates nationwide, the lowest number of majors in a decade.

"Creating practical solutions to socially relevant problems focuses incredible philanthropic and creative energy," said Buckley. "When students work on these projects, they see themselves less as geeks and more as citizens."

Microsoft in agreement
The software giant has been a funder for Buckley's efforts since 2004. He currently has about $60,000 in support from the company and visits with Microsoft executives on a regular basis to discuss the project.

"Microsoft is excited to support Professor Buckley's commitment to engage more students to pursue majors in computer science," said Gus Weber, Greater Northeast Microsoft academic relations manager. "His socially relevant computing programs assist in problem-solving for real-world applications and map to Microsoft's commitment to innovation."

Buckley teaches freshman courses in introductory programming and systems design in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Students in the UB Assistive Technology Lab have designed and developed more than 20 socially valuable technologies, several of which have now been licensed to companies and are being introduced to the marketplace.

"We are pushing socially relevant computing as a means to attract a diverse population of students to computer science," said Buckley. "Students don't know that they can address societal concerns with computer science."
Eventually, the goal is to attract interest from high schools so that students come to college with some awareness of the societal value of computer science.

With the support of Microsoft and Applied Sciences Group, Inc of Buffalo and with colleagues at Rice University, Buckley has developed a Web site: http://www.sociallyrelevantcomputing.org -- to make it easier for computer science departments at other institutions to start courses in socially relevant computing.

It's a vanilla blue and slightly naive site, headed Socially Relevant Computing in navy blue. But the project slides are eye catching, the projects listed:  'handicapped children' "nursing" "fire department" are quick triggers.

"Too often, undergraduate computer design courses lack social relevance," says Buckley. "They don't help students figure out how it's relevant to society's technology needs, like helping people with a range of disabilities, or establishing a region's safest evacuation plan in case of a natural disaster."

Every semester, Buckley takes his "Software Engineering" students to the Center for Handicapped Children's Learning Center in Williamsville, N.Y. The clients of the center have multiple disabilities and are too severely disabled to attend public schools.

Improving life approach
"I ask my students, 'How can you use technology to improve their lives?'" says Buckley. Initially, he expected that some would be uncomfortable with the level of disability that they saw at the center and that some might opt to choose another project. "But in the end, all participated and each student was changed by the experience," he said. "Suddenly, they were working on projects that could impact real families."

One of the first projects to come out of the UB Technology Lab, the UB Talker, was customized to allow a 43-year-old stroke patient to communicate for the first time in 20 years. The technology uses voice synthesis and a touch-screen laptop computer to allow for natural, two-way conversations.

Kris Schindler

"This gentleman could think and move, but not speak," said Schindler. "We simply turned our students loose and their creative energy came through."

A subsequent team of students then adapted the technology for children at the Center for Handicapped Children. The UB Talker is now available from Applied Sciences Group and hundreds are expected to be delivered to disabled children and adults this year.

Students also developed a programmable light and sound station used to teach physically handicapped, autistic and developmentally delayed children. "It's very difficult to teach cause and effect and choice-making to severely disabled children," said Buckley. "It can take years."

Through the use of light, music, spoken words, even fog machines, the systems developed by the students provide positive feedback to the children through enhanced sensory experiences, encouraging them to learn to make choices and to begin to understand cause and effect.

Another  team has developed an Incident Response Monitoring System to monitor the vital signs of emergency responders in the field and  notify others when an individual is in trouble.

Buckley's lab is now developing the system into a prototype, with help from Spectracom Corp in Rochester and researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology and Syracuse University.

Source: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~imhusain/SRC/index.html
Web:http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/mikeb/