Fan Letter to Computer Science Teachers: You are the Coding Heroes

Posted on December 4, 2014 by admin

Posted on behalf of Elizabeth Vandenburg, GEMS Public Outreach Director and Founder of GEMS-Nova Labs Girl Makers.

As we prepare for next week’s Computer Science Education Week as well as the “Hour of Code” initiative, Girls Excelling in Math & Science (GEMS) thanks YOU, the computer science teachers who are walking the walk every day, teaching and motivating students to pursue computer science. GEMS particularly thanks you for creating inclusive girl-friendly computer science classrooms.

Like Computer Science Teachers Association, GEMS is a NCWIT K-12 Alliance member, using and seeing results from research-based strategies to reach an important goal for gender equity in tech, “50/50 by 2020.”

I’ve heard hundreds of great stories about what teachers do to support girls and tech. One teacher, Laura Reasoner Jones, who -founded GEMS, ran a STEM after school club in Northern Virginia for 20 years. She plastered her walls with posters of female role models. One day, a 4^th grader named Maria, who ate her lunch every day with Jones, turned to the “Expect the Best From a Girl and That’s What You’ll Get” poster behind her and asked, “Do you really believe that?” When Jones replied an empathic yes, Maria stood taller. “I could tell she felt differently about herself, “ said Jones.

sphero photo

So here’s a GEMS challenge for your CSEdWeek/Hour of Code event: Tweet a photo of your girls participating during the week of December 8-14 and tag with @GirlsExcelling // #CSEdWeek. Photo ideas include girls (and boys!) holding up posters of female role models, pictures of girls’ actual STEM work, or girls participating in an Hour of Code/CSEdWeek activity. Please remember to obtain consent from your students’ legal guardian(s) prior to posting pictures.

Should you require a poster for this challenge, or just to stimulate thinking in your classroom, Code.org offers two promotional posters featuring women. Everyone who participates will be entered into a drawing for a Sphero 10 pack for your classroom!

Next week’s activities are important for the growth of computer science education, but make no mistake, your daily work is where the change happens.

Inviting all “CS in K-8” Enthusiasts

Posted on December 2, 2014 by Sheena Vaidyanathan

So much has changed in the last five years since I started teaching programming to 6th graders in my district. At that time, it was considered outright strange for a public school district anywhere. Today, some large school districts like Chicago have added computer science (CS) to their curriculum, and entire countries are adding a required computer science class in the K-12 curriculum.

‘Why Should Fifth Graders Learn to Program?’ is an article I wrote in 2011 to help answer the question of why we must introduce CS in the early years. Today, that question has been answered many times over and in response we are flooded with resources from a wide range of “coding in K-8” experts.

Most K-8 CS teachers are not dedicated CS teachers, but classroom teachers or technology specialists who are “CS in K-8” enthusiasts. They find time to integrate CS into the curriculum or carve out a special class to add to the busy school day. These teachers are now deluged with the many ways to do what they love to do – bring the excitement of CS to all their students. How can they wade through this flood of resources to find the one that fits their needs, the one that is right for their class, the one that reflects their unique teaching style, or the one with the research or pedagogy piece they want? Maybe they want a tool that offers a blended solution, or one that maximizes creativity?

With every new tool or resource that comes my way, I rush into an excited experimentation mode to see if I can use it. In my role as the district’s computer science integration specialist, I must do this research but not every teacher has the time. Often, even after my trying out the new tool, I am not ready to test it on my students. I really need is to just ask someone, Did it work in your class?

That is why I need a community of K-8 CS teachers where I can connect and ask these questions. What tool did you use for your second graders? How do you move from visual programming to text based coding and when? How did you convince your administration that the CS department should expand from its current size of one? What do you do with that kid who thinks they will never be able to code or the kid who thinks he should start with Java in third grade?. What are you doing to celebrate Computer Science education week?

I remember my excitement when I first found this CS teachers community at my first Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) conference. Since then, I have benefitted from connecting with these teachers by email or Twitter. I now carefully mark the conference on my calendar each year so I can meet more of these teachers in person. For those who have never attended, it is a must attend event for any CS teacher. Save the date – the next CSTA conference is July 13-14, 2015.

However, the conference is only once a year, and the questions and teacher community support is needed through the year. In addition to the CSTA local chapters, mailing lists, and Twitter, there is now an additional way to connect to this community at any time: a new Google+ community set up by CSTA for K-8 teachers.

As a K-8 teacher who has learned from this community and in my role as the new K-8 Rep for CSTA, I invite all “CS in K-8” enthusiasts to become a CSTA member as well as join the Google+ CSTA K-8 community. Introduce yourself, share a resource that worked for you, post a favorite student project, and ask those questions. You will be welcome. I hope to see you online!

Sheena Vaidyanathan
6th Grade Computer Science Teacher
Los Altos School District
CSTA Board Rep for K-8

Call for Nominations: Announcing CSTA Board of Directors Elections

Posted on November 19, 2014 by admin

Application Deadline: February 1, 2015 (midnight PST)

Term of Service: June 2015-2017

The following CSTA Director positions will be vacated on May 31, 2015. We encourage interested CSTA members to apply or to encourage other qualified members to submit an application. Late nominations will not be accepted.

The CSTA Board is a working Board. All Directors are required to attend two face-to-face Board meetings per year (including the combined Board Meeting and CSTA Conference on July 12-17, 2015) and are expected to contribute meaningfully by participating on at least two committees. Directors are required to participate in the following Board events in Grapevine, Texas:

July 12, 2015: New Board Member Orientation
July 13-14, 2015: CSTA Annual Conference
July 15, 2015 CSTA Committee Meetings
July 16-17, 2015: Full Board meeting

Vacancies:

K-8 Representative (1 position): a classroom teacher who is currently teaching or promoting computer science at the pre-high school level.
9-12 Representative (1 position): A 9-12 classroom teacher who is currently teaching computer science at the high school level.
At-Large Representative (1 position): An educator with responsibilities for K-12 CS education.

CSTA is dedicated to promoting diversity in K-12 computer science education as well as on its Board. We strongly encourage all qualified individuals to apply. The Nominations and Elections Committee of the CSTA Board will select the two best-qualified applicants in each position for inclusion on the ballot.

Nominations deadline: February 1, 2015.

How to submit your application

1. Download the 2015 CSTA Nominations Form at http://csta.acm.org/About/sub/AboutFiles/2015Election.html.

2. Complete the Nominations Form.

The form includes the following information:

Position for which you are applying
Your Name
Address
School or Employer
Current Title/Role
Email Address
Phone Number
Personal Statement that explains your motivation and why you are a strong candidate (limited to 130 words).
Answers to the following four questions (no more than 100 words each):
What experiences and/or interests in K-12 computer science/information technology education qualify you to serve as a leader for the organization?
What previous experience do you have with CSTA?
What leadership skills do you have that would enrich the Board and the organization?
What do you think are the most important issues for K-12 computer science education?

3. Submit the completed Nominations Form and your current résumé of experience to the Elections Committee by emailing them to nominations@csta.acm.org. The documents may be submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format; PDF is preferred.

Each candidate’s personal statement and answers to the four questions will be posted on the CSTA website and included on the ballot. Statements will be truncated at the word-count limit if necessary. The candidate’s résumé will not be made public.

Ballot distribution: The election will take place online, beginning April 2, 2015. All CSTA members in good standing will be eligible to vote.

Voting deadline: The election will close May 4, 2015.

Election results: Results will be posted by May 15, 2015.

Please send election related questions to:

Deborah Seehorn, Nominations and Elections Committee Chair, nominations@csta.acm.org

Celebrate CS Ed Week, Celebrate You!

Posted on November 13, 2014 by admin

CS Ed Week is December 8-14th this year. Here are just a few ways as CSTA members you can get involved.

Faces of Computing Contest: You’ve still got time to submit a video entry for the Faces of Computing Contest. The deadline for submissions is November 20.

CS Ed Week CS Teachers Site: Check out this new resource for CS teachers. You’ll find examples of different events you can host, access to presentations, competitions, and more! Don’t forget to upload your events as well!

State Proclamations: For our members in the United States, don’t forget to ask your Governor to declare December 8-14th Computer Science Education Week.

Participate in Hour of Code: Short on time? There are lots of great activities to do with students and community members that only take one hour. Sign up and join in the Hour of Code.

Get Twitty With IT: Be sure to use the hashtag #CSEdWeek on Twitter to talk about your events, thoughts, and ideas. You can engage parents, community leaders, and even your students in why computer science education is a necessity in our world.

Engage Other CSTA Members: Start a conversation on the CSTA Membership listserv. Not yet a member of the listserv? Join here. You must be a CSTA member to join, but individual membership remains FREE, thanks to CSTA’s generous corporate sponsors: BirdBrain Technologies, the College Board, Google, Microsoft, Certiport, Oracle Academy, and Code.org.

Additional CS Ed Week Resources: Check out more CS Ed Week resources available to CSTA members on our CS Ed Week page. Download a poster, watch a video, or listen to an audio announcement that you can recreate in your own school.

CS Ed Week is really all about celebrating YOU, our CS educators, and all that you do to engage students in learning about computer science and the magic of the discipline. So go out and showcase your skills!

CS Ed Week

Posted on November 7, 2014 by admin

Karen Lang
CSEdWeek website committee

CS Education Week is just around the corner, December 8-14. This week is our opportunity to highlight, celebrate, and promote Computer Science education for students, schools, the community, and the country. Hour of Code was so successful during CSEdWeek last year, introducing millions of people to the joy of coding. And it promises to be just as successful this year.

In addition, many CS teachers are looking for other ways to celebrate CS Education in their school or organization. A team of teachers and community people joined forces to put together some great resources that can be found at www.csedweek.org/csteacher. You can also get to the Teacher Resource page from the main page, www.csedweek.org, and clicking on the big red button for Educator Resources. Ideas for events, classroom based activities, as well as other ways to involve parents, teachers, students, and the community are listed. The activities have links to full lesson plans at each grade level.

Perhaps the most exciting feature of the page is the ability to post your own event or activity. Share what you are doing to celebrate CSEdWeek with the rest of us! There is also a searchable event calendar where you can find out what others are doing across the country. You can search by grade level, type of event, or even geographically. There is an event map where you can see what is going on in your area. Check out the great resources and submit your own event.

Remember, even if you cannot participate on the actual week of December 8-14, you can still celebrate CS Education any week of the year. Let us know about it at www.csedweek.org!

Karen Lang
CSEdWeek website committee

Connecting K-12 CS Educators to Content through Search

Posted on November 6, 2014 by admin

Cameron L. Fadjo, CS Custom Search Project Lead

The recent wave of interest in having students, particularly those in grades K through 12, learn computer science has led to a surge in the development of many new and exciting programs and tools. Whether it is comprehensive curricula, engaging projects, robust online educational programs, extensible programming languages, or after school programs, there is something for just about everyone in CS education. As more programs get rolled out online through various sources, though, it is increasingly challenging to locate and explore these new resources.

At Google, we’re passionate about organizing information and making it universally accessible and useful. Over the past couple of years we’ve heard from numerous CS teachers (many of whom are members of CSTA) that it would be extremely helpful if there was an easier way to access a wide range of different classroom-related CS materials and programs. To address this challenge, we created Computer Science (CS) Custom Search, a search engine that has been customized with over 500 different CS education websites.

CS Custom Search has been designed to support users with different levels of experience with CS. By incorporating suggested search queries into the landing page, we believe this helps less experienced users with their initial exploration of CS and more experienced users discover even more programs or tools.

Please check out CS Custom Search and let us know how it works for you. Our goals are to continue to increase the number of sites on CS Custom Search in parallel with the ever-expanding list of new resources and to ensure that the search experience continuously reflects the needs of its audience – the CS education community.

Want to get started? Visit CS Custom Search to begin your search.

Have feedback? Send us an email at cs-custom-search@google.com.

CSTA Chapters and CSTA International Affiliates

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Fran Trees

CSTA Chapters:

CSTA supports the development of regional CSTA Chapters. A CSTA chapter is a local branch of CSTA designed to facilitate discussion of local issues, provision of member services at the local level, and to promote CSTA membership on the national level. We have 52 CSTA Chapters in 35 states and 4 CSTA Chapters in Canada. The current list of chapters can be viewed at: http://www.csta.acm.org/About/sub/CSTAChapters.html. The goals of a CSTA chapter include holding regular membership meetings and regularly communicating with the chapter membership. Many chapters find it helpful and rewarding to provide professional development activities for their membership.

CSTA International Affiliates:

Due to international laws relating to fiduciary responsibility for chapters, CSTA is unable to support the formation of chapters in countries other than the U.S. and Canada. As part of its commitment to meeting the needs of CSTA members and developing a strong international community of computer science educators, CSTA encourages affiliate relationships with similar organizations in other countries. A CSTA international affiliate is a sister organization committed to supporting improvements to pre-college computer science education at the national level. We have established an international affiliates program and provided a comprehensive guide on affiliate formation. Information on becoming a CSTA Affiliate member at: http://csta.acm.org/About/sub/Affiliates.html.

Both the CSTA Chapter application and CSTA International Affiliate application can be found on the CSTA Web site. We encourage your active participation in supporting CSTA through chapters and affiliates.

Submitted by Fran Trees, CSTA Chapter Liaison

Introducing teens to open source software development with the Google Code-in contest

Posted on October 24, 2014 by admin

Back in 2010 Google realized that with the success of its Google Summer of Code program for university students there was a huge opportunity to reach even younger students and get them excited about software development in their early teens. Thus the Google Code-in contest was born. The 2014 contest will begin December 1st.

Google Code-in is a global, online contest designed for 13-17 year old pre-university students who are interested in learning about open source software development. Over the past four years, 1575 students from 78 countries have completed tasks in the contest. The contest allows teens to work with real open source projects such as Sahana Software Foundation (disaster relief software), Sugar Labs (software for children), Wikimedia, KDE and many others during the seven week contest. The opportunity to work on real software projects helps build the student’s skills as well as their confidence.

For their hard work students can earn a certificate of completion by completing one task, a t-shirt for completing three and a hooded sweatshirt if they are named as one the project’s five finalists. Finally, two grand prize winners are chosen by each of the open source projects and flown to Google’s Mountain View headquarters with a parent or legal guardian for a five day trip.

We hope students will continue to contribute to open source projects throughout their lives and help introduce others to the open source community thus putting more code out in the world for everyone to use.

Because software development requires many different skills, the open source projects create tasks for the students to work on in five categories: coding, documentation/training, quality assurance, outreach/research and user interface. While many of the tasks will involve using C++, C, HTML, Java, PHP, or Python, there are plenty of tasks for students new to software development—maybe they want to try their hand at documentation or perhaps they are artistically inclined and could help design a logo or redesign a web page. There are even tasks where students can create a screencast or a video describing how to use the software or introducing a new feature.

Realizing students can feel a bit intimidated jumping right into a software project they don’t know much about, participating projects assign mentors to each of the tasks so students can ask questions and receive guidance if they get stuck while trying to complete a task. This mentor interaction has proven to be a key part of the success of the program. Mentors are all active community members with the open source projects and are excited to help and to get new, young open source enthusiasts involved in their communities. Every year the #1 feedback we receive from mentors is that the seven weeks they spend working with these students is one of the most rewarding things they do all year. Mentors are not paid for their participation in the contest—instead they receive a t-shirt and a hearty thanks from Google. But time and again we hear that their main motivation for participating is helping students learn and bringing them into their communities.

Community involvement is one of the hallmarks of both Google Code-in and Google Summer of Code. Students have the opportunity to not only see the work they are doing become integrated into the software that thousands and sometimes millions of people will use but they also become part of that project’s open source community. When a student is welcomed into the open source community and becomes an active contributor they feel their work is appreciated. They can make new friends and are able to see the impact their work is having on the project. Ideally, students will continue to contribute to open source projects throughout their lives and help introduce others to the open source community thus putting more code out in the world for everyone to use.

Every year the grand prize winners come to Google as part of their grand prize trip and our team has had the opportunity to meet dozens of amazing students who have shared their stories with us. Since the contest is still relatively young (celebrating it’s 5th anniversary this year) most of the students are still in high school or university but the effect the contest has had on their lives is substantial.

Sushain Cherivirala, one of the Apertium project’s Google Code-in 2013 grand prize winners, recently wrote a blog post for the Google Open Source blog and had the following to say about his experience with the contest.

If I had to pick the single most educational experience of my life, it would be Google Code-in (GCI). I’ve completed MOOCs on topics from Philosophy to Functional Programming, finished my high school’s computer science curriculum, taken a computer science internship and participated in countless programming contests. But I can claim with confidence that Google’s initiative to put high school students into real-world open source development environments is unparalleled in its influence on me.

Google Code-in has helped me not only advance my technological expertise but also, more importantly, exposed me to an environment that few students my age have the opportunity to benefit from.

Out of all the programming contests I’ve participated in, Google Code-in has offered the most authentic experience; there are no synthetic problems designed to test your coding ability, every line of code goes towards improving an open source organization’s software. Working with Apertium during GCI has afforded me a new perspective on software development, made me a strong proponent of open source software, helped me gain valuable experience that will undoubtedly help me in the future and convinced me to remain a lifetime contributor to open source.

Sushain’s experience is something that we have seen time and time again with our contest participants. We have had a number of students go on to become mentors for other students the year or two after they participated in Google Code-in (once they are 18) and many have continued to be active contributors to the open source projects they worked with during Google Code-in. And now that more of the students are turning 18 and eligible for the Google Summer of Code program this year alone we had 16 former Google Code-in students accepted for Google Summer of Code. We expect that number to rise as more of these teens enroll in universities.

Google Code-in 2014 begins December 1, 2014 at 9am PST. We hope to have even more students participate this year than ever before. For 2014, there will be 10-12 open source projects creating tasks for students to work on. For more information on the contest, including rules, FAQs, timeline, sample tasks and slide decks to share with students, please visit the contest site google-melange.com.

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Code-in Program Manager

Faces of Computing Contest Now Open

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Laura Blankenship

In the past few months, several of the big tech companies released their data on diversity at their companies. The data revealed that many of them still skew white and male and that the more technical areas are even more white and male than the company as a whole, because departments like marketing and human resources have more women in them. CSTA has been active in countering racial and gender disparity in Computer Science. At the CSTA conference, there are regular sessions on attracting women to the field, on ways to structure assignments to be gender neutral and/or racially sensitive. One of the key ways to encourage people from a wide variety of backgrounds to pursue Computer Science is to showcase people of different backgrounds doing Computer Science. When students see that “kids like them” are studying Computer Science, they’re more likely to feel that the field is open to them.

Now you can be a part of showcasing students doing Computer Science through the Faces of Computing Video Contest, sponsored by CSTA. Your students can create a video featuring the ways they participate in computing. The format of the video can be anything: a commercial, a short film, a public service announcement. Let your students be creative! Like the poster contests from previous years, the videos will become part of the CSTA campaign to encourage young people to study Computer Science, no matter what their race, ethnicity, or gender. And your students can win prizes. We’ll be giving away robots, either Spheros, Hummingbirds, or Finches for each school level (Elementary, Middle, High School).*

So get to work! The deadline is November 20th, with winners announced during CS Ed Week. I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with. There are so many different kinds of students out there doing so many different kinds of computing. Seeing what’s possible in computing and all the different people participating is a great way to celebrate the power of computing to touch lives around the world.

*Package worth 500.

Laura Blankenship

9-12 Board Rep, Computer Science Teachers Association
Chair, Computer Science, The Baldwin School (http://www.baldwinschool.org)
@lblanken
http://www.geekymomblog.com

Inspire kids to create our future: Apply for a 2015 RISE Award

Posted on September 11, 2014 by admin

Technology has the power to change the world for the better, but today far too few have access to the education or encouragement they need to become creators, not just consumers. Google knows that pre-university exposure to Computer Science education is critically important for inspiring kids to pursue a career in computing.

That’s why we offer the RISE Awards — grants of $15,000 to $50,000 USD — to organizations across the globe working to promote access to Computer Science education for girls and underrepresented minorities. Our RISE partners are changemakers: they engage, educate, and excite students about computing through extracurricular outreach.

In 2014, 42 organizations received RISE Awards—with projects ranging from coding clubs in Europe to web development camps in Sub-Saharan Africa. In April, we brought all of our partners together for a Global Summit that sparked resource sharing and collaboration amongst organizations.

We’re looking for more partners in 2015.
Submit your application by September 30, 2014 in English, French, Japanese, Russian or Spanish. All eligibility information is listed on our
website.

by Roxana Shirkhoda, Google K12/Pre-University Education Outreach

The CSTA Advocate Blog

Category Archives: Announcements