Stephen Howell (@saorog) is a computer science lecturer with the Institute of Technology Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland, where he lectures on Software Development and Interactive Media Design & Development. He focuses on creative coding and interactive art using technologies such as Processing, openFrameworks, Cinder and OpenGL. A native of Louth, Stephen attended Dublin City University and was awarded first class honours in B.Sc. (Hons) Computer Applications in 1998. After graduating he worked as a software engineer for IBM.

Stephen is the author of Kinect2Scratch, a bridge from the revolutionary Microsoft depth-camera to Scratch, a widely-used toolkit for teaching programming to kids. At ART && CODE, Stephen presents a Kinect2Scratch workshop for kids (8-13), parents and teachers alike.

Kinect2Scratch forms one component of Stephen’s PhD research in educational computer game design at University College, Dublin. Stephen has presented his research at the first Scratch conference at MIT, and has written and presented several other papers and workshops on Scratch, Processing, Kinect, game design, and techniques to support the education of computational thinking. When he is not lecturing, Stephen consults with industry on how to build the next generation of natural user interfaces for marketing, content production and e-learning systems. For fun, he likes to hack together games, digital art and educational materials using C++, C#, Processing, Scratch, Lego and Kodu with his four kids.

Some of Stephen’s recent presentations and workshops include:

• Making Programming Cool (Again) with Scratch & Kinect. Microsoft, Dublin. 6th September 2011.
• Scratch Teacher Training. Irish Computer Society, Dublin. August 2011.
• Workshop: Developing Kinect applications in Scratch. 3DCamp 2011
• Building Games with Scratch & Kinect. Scratch Day Madrid, Spain. May 2011.
• Storytelling in Education Workshop: Telling Stories with Scratch & Kinect. ICT in Education Conference. May 2011.
• Digital Storytelling with Scratch & Kinect. ICT in Education – Changing Landscapes. Computers in Education Society of Ireland Conference 2011 (CESI).
• How to build your own Computer Games. SciFest 2010. IT Tallaght.
• Developing Educational Games for Free. CT2: Creative Technology in Challenging Times. Computers in Education Society of Ireland Conference 2010 (CESI).
• 3DCamp 2010 Unconference. Organiser. IT Tallaght. May 2010.
• Developing 3D Applications with Processing. 3DCamp 2010, IT Tallaght.
• Building Educational Games in the Classroom. ICT in Education Conference.
• Scratch in the classroom. CESI Meet 2010.
• Scratch as a Game Design Teaching Tool: Benefits and Limitations. Scratch@MIT Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge July 2008.
• Making programming fun with Scratch. CESI Meet 2008.

Stephen Howell’s participation at Art && Code is made possible through the generous support of the Institute of Technology Tallaght, Dublin.