Can Coding Really Change the World?

Posted on December 9, 2011 by CSTA Blog

Is there any question that technology-based innovations like PCs, the world-wide web, social media and smart phones have fundamentally changed the way we work, communicate, govern, educate and so much more? While Apple and others may wax poetic about the magical properties of their latest devices, all these technological innovations are possible because there were programmers who could write code. Why is it then, that if technological advancement is so rapid and so integral to our society, the study in the field of computer science (CS) has not been keeping pace? And by not keeping pace, I’m not just talking about the overall numbers studying CS being a mere trickle in the higher education pipeline, I’m talking about an epic failure to engage women and minorities in this field. I’m learning that its somewhat of a mystery and theories abound. Some theories lay blame on a dysfunctional educational system that’s moved away from the sciences in favor of going back to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Others suggest it’s the persistence of the lonely, pocket protector-wearing, cubicle-occupying nerd programmer stereotype that is not an appealing career path. I think the answer is all of the above and more.
Efforts to reverse this trend and address the crisis have also been underway, but strategies abound here too. Many highlight the income potential and the projected need. Some work on widening the pipeline to increase participation from women and minorities. Others work specifically on gender equity issues. Again, I think all of these strategies are important, but I don’t think they will really motivate girls, especially middle school girls, which is really where you need to capture their interest because by age 13 girls determine a positive or negative attitude towards subjects like CS. I think deep down, girls and minorities want to change the world because frankly they are living in a world where they are not valued as they should be. I think this is where CS is an exciting avenue, as it really does have the potential to change the world in so many innovative and creative ways.
I teach technology to 4th thru 8th graders and as a career-switcher with a CS background, it seemed only natural that coding would be one element of my curriculum to foster computer fluency. As I thought about how to get my students excited by the idea of coding, I considered how I got interested in CS. It certainly wasn’t the prospect of studying algorithms or learning about logic. It started with my gadget-loving dad bringing home a TRS-80 desktop computer. That’s when I taught myself BASIC because really there wasn’t much else you could do on a computer with a whopping 4K of memory and a cassette tape drive for storage. I was sold on CS after I created my first program in Assembly Language. Although, Assembly is no doubt a very tedious form of programming, the idea that I was in control of the very essence of the computer, that was empowering! I was converted from a mere Astroid-playing computer user to a technology creator.
Over the years, I have introduced students to coding not with the goal of understanding what CS is, but really with the goal of letting them get a peek “under the hood” of technology. I want my students to understand it’s not magic that makes this technology stuff work. Northwestern University, MIT and Carnegie Mellon provide amazing programming tools for free including NetLogo:
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo),
Scratch:
http://scratch.mit.edu
and Alice:
http://www.alice.org/
that I use with students all the time. I must admit, I’m not really that great of a programmer. My CS strengths lie in planning, design, testing and documentation. So while I may be more comfortable getting my students started with these programming tools than a teacher without a CS background, I really do just give them the bare minimum of introduction and I’m working on tutorials to share those introductions with others (http://techkim.wikispaces.com/tutorials). It doesn’t take long for a student to surpass my knowledge in one of these programming environments and I look forward to that moment when I become their student. I want my students to get as much hands-on experience as possible and once they are on, they really fly. It may start slowly, but once they figure out how to do one thing or their classmate does, then they think of the next thing and teach each other and experiment and collaborate and make mistakes and figure out alternate solutions. I see them doing all these things that I think we really want them to learn how to do. Things that will prepare them to be the change they want to see in the world.
I’m not expecting everyone will want to be a programmer when they grow up; I just want anyone to know they can. I want to convert technology users into technology creators, collaborators and activists.
Kim Wilkens, Technology Activist
[email protected]
http://teentechgirls.wikispaces.com

It Is All About the Celebration

Posted on December 8, 2011 by CSTA Blog

CSEdWeek is all about the celebration. We celebrate the teachers who share the challenge and the excitement of the discipline with their students, we celebrate the students who, through their study of computer science, are transitioning from passive users and consumers of technology to creators of technology. And we celebrate the great pioneers of computer science such as Grace Murray Hopper (creator of the Cobol programming language) whose birthday falls in this week.
The beauty of CSEdWeek is that there are an infinite number of ways we can celebrate all of these things. One of our CSTA members, Bill Dunklau, sent us a message about how a couple of activities his school has done so far this week.
For Monday, Dec. 5, the school announcements included:
December 5-9 is Computer Science Week, so chosen to honor Grace Hopper, Rear Admiral, US Navy, an early computer pioneer and developer of the first compiler, whose birthday was December 9. Watch the computer science bulletin board for new student programs to be added throughout the week.
For Wednesday, Dec. 7, the announcements included:
In honor of Computer Science Week, December 5-9: Computer Science graduates now get more offers of employment than any other major. “There are many different types of companies that need to hire computer scientists,’ said Mimi Collins. “One computer science grad may have 10 offers. Annabelle Evans graduated as a computer science major from the University of Southern California in 2008. [Annabelle]…now works at Google.” [From SD Times, August 2011.]
Everything we do to celebrate CSEdWeek is important because it celebrates how far we have come and how far our students can go. As Buzz Lightyear said “To infinity and beyond!”
Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director

Getting Students to Think Beyond the Classroom in CS Ed Week

Posted on December 7, 2011 by CSTA Blog

During CS Ed Week I thought I would find some things that may not be what I normally “teach” in CS. I thought I would find things that would make my students think about the world, think about things bigger than themselves, and think about “things that make [them] go hmm” (yes that was a sad 90’s music plug).
So in my quest I remembered Luis Von Ahn who I had the privilege of hearing speak twice in the past couple of years. I found this interview from 2009 at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/profile-von-ahn.html
It profiles him, captchas, and re-captchas. I thought that this was extremely revelant since all of my students have had to type one at some point.
I started each class with the question ” what is a captcha?” To my surprise at least one student in each class knew. Actually all of my students knew what they were its just that not all knew they were called captchas. After the video we discussed the idea of CS solving a problem that couldn’t easily be solved with just math, science, or another discipline. We talked about what happens behind the scenes with a database, how the words have to be compared and how a computer can create something it cannot solve itself. I saw wonderment in some of their eyes. I saw my students connect real world with CS. I also had one student that said he was going to be more careful when he did a recaptcha since he was actually working on digitizing books. He said he wasn’t going to just type stuff until one of them worked. While it may seem small to some, when a student wants to change a behavior because he has learned something about his world I think it is time well spent.
I told the students that this week we would look at things that were just to make them think and understand the computing world they are living in. It appears to be working and even though it is not “testable” material they may be learning more than on a regular day.
I hope all of you have had a positive experience during CS ED Week!
Stephanie Hoeppner
Ohio CSTA Cohort
Ohio Chapter Vice-President

Happy Computer Science Education Week!

Posted on December 6, 2011 by CSTA Blog

All of our preparations have come to this week, the 2nd CS Ed Week, the celebration of Computer Science in K-12 education.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in making this celebration possible including the law makers and leaders within the CS community. Dedicating a week for the celebration of CS Education helps to bring our subject area onto the front lines, giving it the prominence it deserves.
I hope that you have been able to make use of the CS Ed Week website:
http://www.csedweek.org/
and the many activities and ideas listed within the website.
Please feel free to comment here on the activities that you feel worked best for you to spread the word about CS Ed Week in your classes and or school. Share your triumphs and successes with others here so that they can build upon you success.
I look forward to reading about your experiences with CS Ed Week!
Dave Burkhart
CSTA Policy Task Force Chair

Our CS Teachers: A CS Ed Week Poem

Posted on December 5, 2011 by CSTA Blog

As we embark on the week to celebrate CS Education
Let us pause for a moment in order to make mention
Of computer science teachers, our educational heroes
Who do so much more than teach about ones and zeroes.
Our CS teachers go beyond just the bits and bytes
And help to set off in students many, many lights
So that they may explore, make connections and create
And realize that thinking like a computer scientist is great.
Our CS teachers teach students about Problem Solving and HCI
Programming, Data Analysis and Web Design oh my
And in the process students realize that they can do
So much more than Word and typing and Facebook too.
Our CS teachers help students to become computational thinkers,
collaborators, innovators, and persisting tinkerers
Who are breaking down barriers of who does CS
And showing the world that CS is for all of us
So, “Hello world” lets give a salute
To our CS teachers who help us all to really compute!
David Bernier
Program Manager for the Exploring Computer Science Project at UCLA

Creating a CS Presence at My School

Posted on December 3, 2011 by CSTA Blog

When I started work at North Gwinnett High School a year and half ago, I was asked to teach two computer science courses: AP Computer Science and Computing in the Modern World. Budget cuts had me teaching 3 pre-engineering classes with 30 students in each. I was told that the only way to teach more computer science classes was to increase my school’s CS awareness and interest.
I started by rebuilding our school’s website with a group of students who had already taken AP computer science. I taught them to design sites using Joomla, a stable content management system. The entire school was involved in the project. The computer art teacher helped with the aesthetics of the website, and yearbook and newspaper staff used our site to post their publications online. The new website was very well received, and increased computer science visibility among our administrators.
As a next step, I created a computer science pathway. I drew up a table and a chart of the various computer science courses and their prerequisites. I created flyers and brochures with details on the courses and handed them to all administrators, counselors, parents and students. I placed brochures in the counseling and curriculum offices and at the local middle school information desks. I emailed letters home to all parents about AP Computer Science. I used the College Board’s AP Potential to help me recruit students with strong math skills.
My hard work was rewarded when the recruitment season ended. This year, 120 students have enrolled in Computing in the Modern World, 40 in Beginning Programming, and 30 in AP Computer Science. Our school currently has 3 CIMW teachers, and I teach the other computer science courses. We face the same daunting challenges we faced last year, but we certainly have made progress.
Deepa Muralidhar
North Gwinnett High School
CSTA Leader : Georgia

Good Teaching is Not About the Programming Language

Posted on November 30, 2011 by CSTA Blog

After working for a number of years as a commercial programmer, I decided to become a teacher here in New Zealand. As part of my teacher training, I had to chose three subjects to teach and the main subject I chose was Maths. My teacher training also included working as a student teacher in a number of schools. After observing a Maths teacher in a very poor school I asked him: “Do you ever get bored teaching (such simple) Maths?” You can tell I probably should never have continued with my teaching career! He replied “I don’t teach Maths, I teach students”.
I am often reminded of this when I hear the great programming language debate. Language choice reasons vary. You may be a zealot, an aficionado of a language, someone who teaches a language because they have to, someone who does it because the tertiary their students are headed to will use it. There are many, many reasons and shades of opinion on programming language choice.
But in K-12, we want students to be simply enthused enough with the subject to wish to continue. And it is not language choice which determines that. It is teachers who “teach students”. It is teachers who care about their students and their learning. I would argue that it is completely irrelevant whether teachers care about language A or language B.
And if, towards the end of the course, you can acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of the language you used, your students will appreciate the insights that gives and your academic honesty.
Margot Phillipps
CSTA International Director

Seeing Computer Science Everywhere

Posted on November 28, 2011 by CSTA Blog

I’m the type of person who really does see computers and computer science everywhere. I can turn any situation or location into a discussion or eye-opening opportunity for students. Some are more obvious than others, especially for those of us already teaching computer science.
For example, a couple weeks ago my husband and I stumbled upon a restaurant in the mall that had a different gimmick. Each table had an iPad. At first we thought it was meant for entertainment. But its purpose was to allow the customers to order and customize their food. After the novelty of customizing the food yourself and seeing the cost of each added item (such as adding cheese or tomatoes to your salad changes the price) wore off. We found we missed the human interaction of the server. Would we really want to frequent a restaurant where the people only drop off the food?
The iPad and the software used brought the ordering system that servers use to the customer. It was made more user friendly by allowing customers to drag the ingredients they wanted onto their salad/sandwich/pizza and see it stacked in a visual graphic. I couldn’t help but want to take my CS students on a mini-field trip to the place so they could “deconstruct” the specifications needed for the software used.
This, of course, is one overtly obvious place that computer science is applied. Some variation of the application is used in all restaurants to allow their servers to put orders to the kitchen. Cash registers in retail stores are computers (gone are the days of a traditional cash register), the receipts are merely reports/outputs. Professional football broadcasts overlay the line of scrimmage and first down markers on a live video footage of the field. Disneyland and other amusement parks use software to control their rides. All these are examples of computers and computer science used in the world around us (and these don’t even include the cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices we carry with us).
As CS Ed week approaches, I encourage you to challenge your students to write down every place where computers and computer science are used as they go about their week (include the weekend). I’m sure they’ll be surprised as to all the places it reaches and will lead to some good conversations in the classroom!
Shirley Miranda
CSTA Board of Directors

My Thanksgiving “Vacation”

Posted on November 26, 2011 by CSTA Blog

I just returned from a week in Costa Rica. Unlike many foreign visitors, who land in San Jose to hop in cars and tour buses to get away to the beautiful white sand beaches, active and dormant volcanoes, amazing flora and fauna, and pristine forests, I spent my Thanksgiving week in San Jose, working (along with Wanda Dann, Don Slater and Jacobo Carrasqual) with 60 or so teachers and teacher trainers at the Omar Dengo Foundation running an Alice workshop.
I saw a very different view of San Jose (Costa Rica’s capital) than most tourists. During the past week, in San Jose.

I saw several thousand motorcyclists blocking the traffic on an enormous circle in front of the restaurant where we went for dinner. They were protesting the high cost of motorcycle registration and insurance.

I saw taxi drivers driving ridiculously slowly protesting the limited rates they could charge for fares.

I read about (actually, not being able to read Spanish, had Jacobo read to me) the country’s anesthesiologists who went on strike wanting more vacation, leading to a stoppage of all but emergency surgeries.

I saw the police outside a women’s jail (and later read that they were stopping a riot inside)

walked on the dangerous crumbling sidewalks, and saw a lack of city planning that allowed residences to be alongside restaurants to be alongside factories, etc.

I saw high fences topped with barbed wire on virtually everything.

And yet in a capital city and country without much interest in physical infrastructure, and struggling to deal with a myriad of labor and social challenges, I saw a country with a surprisingly long-term view of education, and technology/computing education in particular.
Foundacion Omar Dengo is a private organization that receives significant government support to strategically plan out the country’s technology education future. The foundation has been in operation for nearly 30 years and coordinates computer purchase (both operational as well as academic) for all of the country’s schools, offers professional development to all its teachers (often through the use of teacher trainers), and handles the challenges associated with this responsibility. Third graders are exposed to computing using Microworlds, fifth graders receive computing education (and problem solving) using Scratch, seventh graders build off of that in Visual Basic, and the 9th graders continue their experiences with Alice. I was stunned to hear that 33,000 Costa Rican 9th graders learned problem solving with Alice this past year (the academic year in Costa Rica actually ends in late November and their summer and winter breaks are the opposite of ours in the US).
On the flip side of what I mentioned earlier:

I saw the amazing worlds created by four 9th graders using Alice to teach about biology. And two of their four presentations were actually in English! These were students from an award-winning school, from some sort of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) competition.

I have been reading the Costa Rican ICT didactics documents (basically the strategic K-12 ICT educational plan, which seems to include a fair bit of discussion in teaching methodologies as well as content) and student learning outcomes document (the focus is on ethics, logical reasoning, creativity, collaboration, and proactivity). It was exciting simply to see the existence of such national standards, as well as seeing the impact of these standards on the four students who were sharing their Alice worlds. After the students gave their presentations and demoed their work, the audience asked the students some rather tough questions. The students huddled together to discuss their answers before replying.

I met and befriended the dynamic teachers and teacher-trainers from across the country, and the committed researchers, teachers, administrators, IT staff and planners of the Foundacion Omar Dengo. These folks were extraordinarily kind, and optimistic.

I found the excitement of our Alice workshop to rival any workshops I have run in the US. And this was despite the language difficulties. Many of the workshop attendees spoke little English. I spoke no Spanish, and we all went around with these earpieces so the translators could let us communicate.

I listened with excitement to the Foundation’s plans for outreach to their “Indian” communities. Much as was done with our Native American population, the Costa Rican “Indians” were relocated to inhospitable mountainous regions where they live without electricity or plumbing for example. But the Foundation is piloting programs where they work with the communities to help develop trust and exposing those communities to ICT (cranks and solar power somewhat obviate the need for electricity), though the cultural barriers are enormous.

I’ve returned to the US with a good deal of optimism. If a small and relatively poor (at least compared to the US) country like Costa Rica can have such a national interest in computing and technology education for its young people, it would seem that all the US needs is a slightly modified mindset, a belief that ICT education is important for our youth.
Pura Vida!
Steve Cooper
Chair, CSTA Board of Directors

When Something Helpful Comes Along

Posted on November 23, 2011 by CSTA Blog

You never know where a resource is going to come from. We have a retired guidance counselor that is back subbing in our building this month. He sought me out to ask if I had seen an interview by Charlie Rose with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. I had not, but the interesting thing was that he said Zuckerberg had talked about how everyone should take a programming class.
So I found the interview at:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11987 or at YouTube http://youtu.be/LFdUEkTzDeI
and at about 15:30 it gets to the part that will make every CS promoter’s heart flutter.
Zuckerberg talks about his number one piece of advice is that everyone should take a programming course. He also goes on to mention how almost all jobs in the future will require some level of programming. This is something that all of us believe but sometimes have a hard time convincing others about.
The great thing about this clip is that it is an unprompted promotion of CS Education by someone that the whole world knows about. The record number of people that use Facebook, who think it would be cool to work there, or who just like to watch the Facebook frenzy in the media, pay attention to what Zuckerberg says. Now I have a clip that I can show it to students, parents, or administrators that echoes my sentiments but comes from a media icon.
Besides this fantastic resource I now have, I have learned something else. I have learned that if you keep talking to others about CS Education then you are the first person that pops into their head when they hear anything about CS. It is just as important to keep pleading your case and talking to people because they have their own circle of influence, knowledge, and experience. You never know when something that they come across will help you. If I was not as vocal about CS Education then the guidance counselor would not have immediately thought of me when he saw the interview.
So keep on talking and promoting as you will never know what it will lead to!
Stephanie Hoeppner
Vice-President CSTA Ohio Chapter

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