Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Attend (or Should Have Attended) SIGCSE
10. It has a long tradition (42 years to be exact!) of bringing together people from all around the world to discuss computer science education!
9. Where else can you got that everyone laughs at quips such as “there are 10 types of people in this world…”?
8. Everything is bigger in Texas!
7. And in a similar vein… You do not want to mess with Texas by not coming to SIGCSE!
6. Special tracks (and prices) just for K-12 teachers!
5. Awesome Keynote speeches by Matthias Felleisen, Susan Landau, and Luis Von Ahn
4. Two Words: Tex-Mex and Barbecue!
3. For a large number of us… Better Weather!
2. Great resources and ideas available for every interest!
1. And the number 1 reason to attend SIGCSE 2011 is… (intentionally left blank for you to comment on your favorite things about SIGCSE)!
Mindy Hart
CSTA Board of Directors

The federal government asks for advice about education fairly regularly. But it isn’t often that it asks specifically what is needed to advance K-12 computer science education. So we were pleasantly surprised when one federal program asked some key questions about K-12 CS education. Members of our community have the opportunity to speak up about what they think is needed for a stronger K-12 CS education. Comments can be submitted at this site until January 31. If you miss this deadline you can send comments until February 28 to pcast2010comments@nitrd.gov.
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Some of the most popular activities at CS&IT conferences in past years have been mini-workshop sessions – in-depth, hands-on sessions where attendees could learn about teaching tools, new pedagogies, funding opportunities, or whatever. Unfortunately, attending one of these sessions meant missing out on other talks taking place at the same time.
To help address this, the upcoming 2011 CS&IT conference, to take place July 11-13 in New York City, is expanding to include a full day of workshops. The call for proposals will be coming out soon, but it’s not too early to start thinking about taking your innovative ideas and practices and developing them into a CS&IT workshop.
In the meantime, I’m curious what characteristics you look for in a workshop. Think about the best workshops you’ve attended:
How were they structured?
Did you leave feeling you had a blueprint of something you could apply, or was it more the inspiration that the workshop provided?
Likewise, what characteristics kill a workshop, turning it into hours of pain and tedium?
Are there particular topics you would like to see covered at a CS&IT workshop this summer?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Dave Reed
CSTA Board of Directors

There have been exciting developments in the Los Angeles Exploring Computer Science program.
This past week, the university-district-CSTA partnership received a large NSF grant from the Math-Science Partnership program of the National Science Foundation. A major part of this grant supports the development of a mobile phone computing curriculum for Los Angeles math, science, and computer science classrooms. Using smart-phones and a customized Android app, students will work in teams to collect data which describes a particular social or environmental issue in their community. Groups will then analyze their findings to create new knowledge about the community issues to present to others.
What I’m really excited about is that this experience explicitly connects computer science concepts with the experiences (and equipment) that students encounter daily. The curricular activities will reinforce the idea that computer science is all around us and can be used for social and environmental inquiry.
As I begin to think through possibilities for student engagement, I am curious about how other computing educators might be using mobile phone technology to collect data for computer science projects.
Have you heard of any great mobile phone computing projects for K-12?
Joanna Goode
CSTA Equity Chair

Many of you are familiar with the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) curriculum, developed in partnership with CSTA as part of an NSF grant. Though initially developed to broaden the participation in computing for Los Angeles Unified School District high school students, many teachers and educational leaders throughout the nation have adopted some or all of the ECS curriculum in a variety of school and informal educational settings.
This spring, we made some substantive changes (along with minor edits) to strengthen the curriculum. As in years past, our revision cycle relies on the feedback of Los Angeles teachers who have taught the curriculum to students and have ideas for improvement. Newly released version 3 includes several large edits to Unit 1 (Human Computer Interaction) and Unit 2 (Problem Solving) with some smaller edits to Unit 3 (Web Design). We are excited about these changes and feel really good about the improvements made in this 3rd edition. The pdf document with daily lesson plans and associated electronic files are all available to download in a zip file from the CSTA website.
Also, in collaboration with UCLA’s Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS) and Google, we recently piloted an alternative Unit 6 (Data Modeling) with a small group of Los Angeles teachers. In this new pilot unit, students were given smart-phones to document the assets and concerns in their community. They used the phones to map these chill/stress locations, and used the statistical programming language of R to synthesize their findings. With the decreasing cost of smart phones and the knowledge students already hold about their community, we found this to be a dynamic unit for teaching students about the relevancy and power of computer science. It is our hope that we will eventually get enough funding for classroom sets of smart-phones for all of our Los Angeles computer science teachers.
Stay-tuned for more updates on Exploring Computer Science.
Joanna Goode
CSTA Equtiy Chair

Last week was a huge one for computer science education in the Nation’s Capital. Congressmen from both parties introduced two pieces of legislation — The Computer Science Education Act and the Computer Science Education Week Resolution — intended to help strengthen computer science education. I’ve written before that the road to education reform is long, and progress will come in fits and starts. Both pieces of legislation represent another step along this road and the beginning of a much broader engagement to bring attention to computer science education issues in the United States.
The Computer Science Education Act is a new effort by Representative Jared Polis (Colorado) intended to catalyze state and local reforms, and expand teaching of K-12 computer science education. The legislation has five major provisions to meet this goal:

This is the first time that any Member of Congress has introduced major legislation to address the numerous policy issues with K-12 computer science education. It will serve as “marker” representing the critical reforms the computing community thinks Congress should adopt as part of broader reforms to the overall K-12 education system, which are tentatively on the agenda for the fall.
It will take support and activism from the community to educate the public on the issues and push Congress to support its goals. The good news is that we have the beginnings of a great coalition of non-profits and the computing industry already behind the bill. Last week ACM, Google, Microsoft, Intel, SAS, the Computer Science Teachers Association, the Computing Research Association, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, and the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology sent Congressman Polis a joint letter announcing their support for the legislation. As we continue down the long road of reform, this coalition will be working with Congress and the larger computing community to ensure this legislation is part of the education policy landscape.
The second piece of legislation — the Computer Science Education Week Resolution — introduced by Vernon Ehlers (Michigan) is similar to last year’s resolution of the same name. The resolution would honor noted computer scientist Grace Murray Hopper by supporting the designation of the first week of December as Computer Science Education Week. Like last year, the community will be working together to raise awareness of computing and its role in society.
Taken together, these two bills are a watershed for many fledging efforts to ensure that K-12 computer science education is part of a student’s core education. Now is the time for the community to stand up and let federal, state and local policy makers know that K-12 computer science education is critical national need and should be part of the core knowledge students are exposed to in K-12 education.
Cameron Wilson
Director of Public Policy
Association for Computing Machinery
Website http://www.acm.org/public-policy
Weblog http://usacm.acm.org/usacm/weblog

By Chris Stephenson
We don’t usually do job postings here on the CSTA Advocate blog, but this one is rather special and we want to let you know about the opportunity.
Evan Glazer is the Principal of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology and I had the pleasure to serve with him on an NSF Review Panel.
Evan let us know that his school is looking to hire two teachers of advanced computer science.
If you are a computer science teacher looking for a new job at an amazing school, check out the job description.
Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director

By Fran Trees
On April 20, 2010, the school budget in my township was PASSED. In an average year, approximately 70% of school budgets in NJ are approved. On April 20, 2010, close to 60% of the school budgets in NJ were defeated.
Politics probably contributed to the defeat of the majority of school budgets, but this degree of defeat has not occurred since 1976. The new governor of New Jersey recently proposed mass cuts in state education funding, freezing aid promised to districts this year and cutting $820 million for fiscal 2011.
Today, April 27, thousands of high school students across New Jersey walked out of classes to protest education funding cuts proposed by the governor. The protests were initiated by an 18-year-old college student who set up a Facebook event page about a month ago encouraging the walkouts. This event page has over 16,000 members.
Many students fear the loss of teachers, extracurricular activities, and special programs. In most areas of NJ, computer science is a special program. Will these budget cuts affect computer science education in NJ?
We, CSTA, strive to improve education in our schools. We seek to educate our constituencies about the importance of computing disciplines in our curriculum. We dream of a national K-12 computing curriculum in our schools. These cuts affect our progress.
What suggestions do you have for the NJ folks? How do we continue to move forward?
Resources:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/thousands_of_students_expected.html
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/nj-governor-and-njea-react-to-student-walkout
http://www.njea.org/page.aspx?a=4145

http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2010/03/gov_chris_christies_school_cut.html
http://blog.nj.com/njv_publicblog/2010/03/an_open_letter_to_governor_chr.html
http://www.goodporkbadpork.com/2010/03/teachers-open-letter-to-governor-chris-christie/
NOTE: The New Jersey Education Association did state that they do not support or condone students walking out of school.
Fran Trees
CSTA Chapter Liaison

By Cameron Wilson
K-12 computer science education might get a boost from a recently released document called the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). This initiative is historic for the United States. For the first time forty-eight governors have come together to propose a common set of English arts and mathematics standards — which are key drivers of the curriculum students are exposed to — for their states. Until the common core standards initiative, state standards were generally disconnected from each other.

The exciting news is that computer science is listed as a potential fourth course in their model pathway, which is described below. Or, put another way, the Common Core State Standards Initiative is proposing that computer science be part of the students’ core curriculum. States are not bound by these standards or this model, and this doesn’t mean that once the draft is made final computer science will count as a mathematics credit in high schools across the nation. But political momentum for the initiative is building and being a part of it gives computer science a much needed boost.

To better understand how computer science fits into the Common Core State Standards Initiative we need to dive deeper into policy landscape and context.

Most education policy discussions revolve around standards and a student’s "core" curriculum requirements. Every state has standards for education, and many assess student progress toward meeting these standards. But each state sets is own standards. For example, a Virginia 11th grade mathematics standard might be in a different grade in North Carolina or might not exist in another state. The Secretary of Education Arne Duncan believes the main cause of the problem is that we’ve given states too much flexibility on setting standards and too little in implementing them through rigid testing requirements. The initiative is part of an attempt to change this dynamic.

The second piece of the policy framework revolves around core curriculum — i.e. what "counts" toward a student’s requirements for high school graduation. Of the states that have credit requirements, many are moving toward a "four by four" plan. For example, students will have to take four courses of mathematics and four courses of science to graduate. Typically other disciplines such as English arts, social studies, etc. are in the "core."

When it comes to computer science education in K-12 we have two major policy issues: 1) most states do not have specific computer science standards, and 2) if computer science courses are in schools, they don’t count toward a student’s core credits. Some states like Texas, Georgia and Virginia have moved to count computer science courses in high school as either a math or science; however, in most states computer science is an elective. This leaves computer science courses starved for attention, resources and student interest.

The mathematics standards in the draft document are split by grade level from K-8; certain concepts would be taught in certain grades. In high school, the framework splits the remaining standards into threads to be taught in some sequence. To help guide course development in high school, the initiative developed a model four-course pathway for mathematics, which is part of the Appendix to the standards. The standards only reflect three years of courses, but the model reflects what they would consider appropriate courses for additional study. Computer science is one of those additional courses in the mathematics pathway.

ACM and the Computer Science Teachers Association have met with the leaders of the initiative and advocated that it computer science should be part of a student’s core subject. The draft of the common core standards initiative gives us a foothold in meeting this goal.

Now the community can support this breakthrough by sending letters for support for the inclusion of computer science in the final document. The initiative is taking comments on the draft until April 2. There are two ways to comment. The first is by taking the survey, which as an additional comment area where you can express support for computer science. (Follow this link and click on the "submit feedback" to get to the survey.) The second is by sending letters to commonstandards@ccsso.org.

Cameron Wilson
Director of Public Policy
Association for Computing Machinery

By Cameron Wilson
The President released his $3.8 trillion budget on Monday setting off a flurry of activity in the Nation’s Capital. The budget sets the Administration’s priorities for the big stuff, like how much he wants to spend on education and defense, down the minutia, like how much money the Department of Agriculture wants to spend on slug research. (Ok, I made that program up.) Budget season also gives agencies the opportunity to unveil changes to existing programs or the creation of new ones.
One such change, that quickly made its way around the computing community, was a rethinking about how the Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate (CISE) at the National Science Foundation approaches education and workforce programs. More specifically, CISE staff announced that it was combining the Pathways to Revitalized Undergraduate Computing Education (CPATH) and the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) programs into a broader computing education program. CPATH tended to focus on higher education, while BPC issued grants for the entire pipeline, largely focused on improving diversity in computing. These two programs have funded numerous education proposals including the current work to reform the Advanced Placement Computer Science course, the Exploring Computer Science course developed in LA, and national alliances focused on diversity.
I had a chance to talk about the new program with NSF staff. I should caveat this that no one really knows what the program will look like until the new solicitation is out (more on that below), so this is my fairly high-level take.
The described intent is to evolve CISE’s work into something broader. That is the new program would look at the entire pipeline but with special focus in two areas:

• moving earlier into the pipeline with specific engagements in middle/high school to bring computational thinking/computer science concepts into this space
• widening the program to be inclusive for all populations, built around a theme that “computing is for everyone”

It would also add a specific education research component that would seek to build education research capacity at the university level and to provide a greater understanding of how children come to understand computing concepts. At the center of this new program would be some big ideas in K-12 education that BPC has forwarded in recent years — including reform of AP Computer Science and the so-called CS 10K project. Assistant Associate Director of CISE Deborah Crawford posted the following on a post about this topic Mark Guzdial’s blog:
“In the summer of 2010, CISE plans to release a new broadly-scoped solicitation that will incorporate the most promising components/promising practices of the CPATH and BPC programs, with increased focus on middle and high school education in computing (making its scope consistent with the CS AP and the CS 10K projects, so no need for Mark to worry there) and education research. Like the BPC and CPATH programs, the new program is likely to draw on partnerships among academic institutions, as well as other organizations similarly committed to ensuring broad participation in the computing disciplines and to more effective computing education.”
There are still challenging issues around the level of focus that the program may have on diversity efforts that are causing concern within the community. These are details that will have to be worked out as the program moves forward.
In the past few years, the computing community has recognized the tremendous challenges that face computer science education in the K-12 level. This helps explain why there is so much energy around projects like AP CS reform and CS 10K. Yet, despite the obvious need, there is little funding for this type of work across NSF. It appears that CISE is going to step into this gap with a new program focused on the big ideas and add a much-needed research component to inform the overall education and workforce goals.
But it will likely be a small step until the community can start leveraging other parts of NSF. One potential for this new program is leveraging funding from the Education and Human Resources Directorate at NSF, which has about $800 million dedicated to education and workforce programs. Tapping into this resource could bring major resources for reform to the table.
This is a fairly significant transformation of what — at the federal agency level — is the only game in town when it comes to systemic computer science education funding. It will be very interesting to see what the summer solicitation brings. Hopefully the community will work together in helping shape a very strong program.
Author’s Note: I got one e-mail this week confusing this new program with another new initiative in the budget called Cyber-Learning to Transform Education (CTE). These are distinct programs with CTE being focused on using computing to transform education generally. Funding from CPATH and BPC is not being redirected into CTE.
Cameron Wilson
ACM Director of Public Policy