Recently I have heard about and checked out some of the online course offerings by Stanford and MIT. I knew about MIT open courseware and the wealth of knowledge offered with the multitude of classes they provided. Then I recently heard that Stanford was offering courses online where anyone in the world can participate as if they were in the class. Interactive assignments are given, so you are able to take advantage of high level courses from an elite university for free. While you don’t receive college credit, you do receive a statement of achievement if you complete the course. This apparently has expanded to other university partners, as found on www.coursera.org.
The list of courses in various subjects is expanding. MIT has joined in with their own version, MITx, (mitx.mit.edu) where students learn in an online community. MIT students, as well as students around the world, can participate. I also recently came across another website, www.udacity.com, offering online interactive courses geared specifically towards computer science.
I am excited at this fantastic opportunity for new learning, not only for students but for myself. You can listen to university professors and industry standouts teaching actual classes and try the assignments yourself. I have mentioned it to a few of my more motivated and interested students to check out. Some of my students come to me self-taught in programming. They have been learning online for many years, because computer science is not taught in their schools. For students who really show an interest in computer science, this can be a way for them to delve more deeply into some higher level topics where they are supported by university educators and a community of like-minded learners. It can give them a taste for what to expect if they were to pursue a computer science major in college. And for students who don’t have access to computer science courses in their school, it is an alternate way to learn in a guided way.
What do you think of these online courses?
Do you think they will encourage more people to learn about computer science?
How will they change how we learn?
Karen Lang
CSTA 9-12 Representative

A March 29th press release by Northrop Grumman Corporation (1) on STEM education captured my attention. The headline was “Azusa campus recently hosted the Lego STEM project competition, to introduce [middle school] students to the practical application of science, technology, engineering and mathematics”. The goal of this competition was to challenge students to design a solar-powered product with their Lego kits that would benefit the environment.
To support the competition, Stephen J. Toner (VP of Northrop’s Azusa Operations) wrote that “Tomorrow’s leaders in the STEM fields need to be cultivated at an early age during their academic journey in the educational system.” As I’ve expressed in earlier blogs, I fully agree with Toner’s belief that early exposure to computer science increases the likelihood of students’ future interest in STEM careers.
This competition exemplified the core ideals I have been sharing with my students since the beginning of the school year. The information contained within the release provided examples of how other organizations were utilizing computer programming to address environmental concerns. I was busy planning my school’s annual Earth Day celebration, so the timing of this article couldn’t have been better.
Environmental literacy is an important part of a framework developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2). So I decided to focus the students’ energy on investigating and analyzing environmental issues and then coming up with technological solutions. In addition to researching concerns and brainstorming ideas, I was eager to have my students design solutions which would inspire action on environmental issues – another important component of the 21st Century framework.
Using technology as a tool for change is not a new idea. While preparing my unit, I came across a few other programming competitions with similar goals. One such competition, Games for Change (3) states on their website that their mission is to “Catalyze Social Impact Through Digital Games” by “facilitating the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts”.
After I presented the challenge to my students, I was pleasantly surprised when, in addition to the usual onslaught of PowerPoint slide shows and Animoto Videos, a couple of my students set their sights a little higher. They decided to create Scratch programs or design their own websites.
I have always been a big proponent of social action. Thanks to current research supporting social justice initiatives in education, I now have the tools to make this happen and the impetus to see it through.
Earth Day is only three days away. My students are eagerly putting the finishing touches on their projects to share them with their classmates. Their excitement is palpable. They believe their actions can make a difference, and so do I. A popular quote by Bill Gates says it all “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others”. Thanks to technology, my students can now be an instrument for change. What more could a teacher ask for?
1. http://www.irconnect.com/noc/press/pages/news_releases.html?d=250665.
2. http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf.
3. http://www.gamesforchange.org/.
Patrice Gans
CSTA K-8 Representative

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting with Bill Mitchell, Director of the BCS Academy of Computing in the United Kingdom (UK). It was interesting to chat with Bill about the role that BCS has played in the formation of the Computing at Schools (CAS) group and to learn how closely the relationship between the BCS and CAS resembles that between ACM and CSTA.
Both BCS and ACM saw the need to improve how computer science was being taught in K-12 and both took the leap of supporting the development of a new professional organization–grounded in real school realities, built upon full community engagement, and dedicated to teasing out the issues–and then tackled the hard task of making profound and sustained changes to education.
My conversation with Bill convinced me that the experiences of both CSTA and BCS point to four ingredients that provide the foundation for enabling these new K-12 groups to truly impact computer science in schools.
1. A Perceived Need:
Someone has to have figured out that all is not well in computer science education in schools and that there are profound issues concerning who is and is not being taught, what is being taught, and how well teachers are prepared to teach it.
2. An Organizational Champion Providing Financial Support
In order to begin doing the work that needs to be done, CSTA- or CAS-like organizations require financial support and someone in a leadership position willing to make a real commitment. At BCS, this person is Bill, while at ACM it is Executive Director John White. The support of these two leaders is significant to the fact that both BSC and ACM commit a level of annual funding to support their respective K-12 groups.
3. An Industry Champion
CAS has been incredibly fortunate to have the support of Simon Peyton-Jones of Microsoft. Simon, an incredibly dynamic and enthusiastic supporter of K-12 computer science education in the UK plays the role of evangelist, convincing anyone who will listen (and in Simon’s case this means many of the most influential policy-makers in Britain) that improving computer science education in schools is critical to students, to industry, and to the UK’s long-term national economic survival in the global marketplace.
4. Worker Bees
This is the collection of staff and volunteers who dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to work: to planning the events, doing the research, writing the standards and curricula, providing professional development, talking to teachers, and to tirelessly doing the million things that need to be done.
Both CAS and CSTA have been fortunate enough to have these factors in place and the fervent hope is that, with this recipe in mind, organizations will arise in other countries to take on this important task of ensuring that students have the opportunity to learn the skills that will enable them to thrive in a field that truly prepares them for the jobs of the future.
Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director

Recently, Solving the Pipeline Problem: How to Get More Women in Tech and Facebook message: Girls, too, can do computers are two examples of hand-wringing over how few women go into computer science. There’s no doubt there’s a problem – fewer than 20% of CS majors are women, despite soaring enrollments.
What if we’re defining the problem in the wrong way?
We know from computing that the problem definition is an important part of developing a good solution. By using a ‘deficit model’ – where the problem is with all those women who don’t know CS is great – then the solution is to fix the women. What if we think about the problem differently?
I was talking recently to a classmate of Marissa Mayer, in which I was decrying the low numbers of women majoring in CS even at Stanford. She pointed out that Marissa – perhaps the most famous female computer scientist in the US right now – hadn’t majored in CS. She majored in something called Symbolic Systems which combines computer science, math, and cognitive science.
At DML, Leah Buckley encouraged me to think about subgroups – the geeky group in the computer lab and the robotics team are important, but so are the digital art club and the group building websites and the finance club who build fancy spreadsheets to calculate their investment returns and net worth.
What would happen if we focused on including everyone who is doing and learning computer science, even if they don’t identify as “computer scientists”?
Michelle Friend
CSTA Past Chair

Need a little extra motivation to encourage young women (or anyone for that matter) into your CS courses? Take a look at the 25 Best-paying Jobs for Women reported by CareerBuilder:
http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2965-Salaries-Promotions-25-best-paying-jobs-for-women
Explanations of why women earn 81.6 cents for every dollar men earn, while making up nearly half of the workforce and graduating college at a higher rate than men, include the career choices women make. Women often pursue careers they find interesting and fulfilling over work that is lucrative. This crazy thinking needs to stop! It’s time to point out to the young women in our schools that CS can provide careers that are interesting and fulfilling as well as lucrative.
Here are the top 20. It should be no surprise that five of them are pure CS and several others involve CS at a basic level. Share the list with your students and with their parents. Provide your counselors and principals with a copy of the article and have a chat with them about how students in your classes have a step-up toward these careers.
1. Pharmacists
Median weekly earnings: $1,898*
2. Lawyers
Median weekly earnings: $1,631
3. Computer and information systems managers
Median weekly earnings: $1,543
4. Physicians and surgeons
Median weekly earnings: $1,527
5. Chief executives
Median weekly earnings: $1,464
6. Nurse practitioners
Median weekly earnings: $1,432
7. Software developers
Median weekly earnings: $1,388
8. Operations research analysts
Median weekly earnings: $1,326
9. Human resources managers
Median weekly earnings: $1,273
10. Psychologists
Median weekly earnings: $1,244
11. Computer programmers
Median weekly earnings: $1,238
12. Physical therapists
Median weekly earnings: $1,216
13. Occupational therapists
Median weekly earnings: $1,193
14. Management analysts
Median weekly earnings: $1,174
15. Physical scientists
Median weekly earnings: $1,167
16. Medical and health services managers
Median weekly earnings: $1,166
17. Computer systems analysts
Median weekly earnings: $1,144
18. Architecture and engineering
Median weekly earnings: $1,140
19. Marketing and sales managers
Median weekly earnings: $1,127
20. Medical scientists
Median weekly earnings: $1,127
Pat Phillips
Editor, CSTA Voice

As a student at an all-women’s college, there are no barriers to my exploration of typically male-dominated fields. Before taking an introductory computer science class, I had very little knowledge of programming languages and the internal processes of computers. So far, I have greatly enjoyed the class and plan to continue developing my skills in the field. However, I can’t help but wonder whether I would have ever decided to take a CS class had I attended a coeducational institution.
How is a single-sex environment conducive to women entering CS? First, it erases any potential tension and distractions that may arise in a coeducational environment. It also allows women to see other women understanding the material and succeeding in the classes. Before I came to college, I never met a woman who had earned a degree in computer science and I had never considered pursuing a degree in a technical field. When I arrived, not only were all of the computer science majors women, so were those who had majored in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Seeing such women graduate makes those fields all the more accessible to the next classes of students.
I found that, in particular, those women who had studied CS were very nurturing of younger students in the introductory classes. There were many times when my friends and I would be discussing what we learned in class and an older student standing nearby would join the conversation to answer our questions and recommend professors. There was also a student who created a Google Group in order to foster a supportive community for students interested in careers in the tech industry. The camaraderie in the CS department has been very energizing, and learning computer science in a single-sex institution has had an immeasurable influence on the confidence I have in my abilities.
Emily Grandjean
Wellesley College
Class of 2015

Communication is an important part of every aspect of our lives, especially when choosing a career. Recently, Kelly Flowers, guidance counsellor at West Muskingum High School in Zanesville, OH, sent out an email communicating the top fifty high-wage occupations that are in demand for Ohio.
Attached to this email was a chart:
http://ohiolmi.com/proj/projections/ohio/Buckeye50.pdf
listing the top fifty high-wage occupations which are in demand for the period of 2008 to 2018. Since my son is a freshman at West Muskingum High School and hasn’t decided on his future after high school, I decided take a look at the information.
The bottom of the chart lists the occupations for the Information Technology, Engineering, and Science fields. I didn’t find it surprising that eight of the fifty occupations were technology related. High demands occupations in Ohio include:

When I read this list, I thought about all of my colleagues around the state who preparing students for these occupations and wished that there was some way I could pat them on the back for their efforts. The average annual earnings for these occupations range from $41,746 to $111,821 and the total annual openings for the occupations range from 138 to 22,090. These are occupations can enable our students to make a decent living for themselves in difficult economic times, in our state and across the country.
Thinking back to my original idea of how important communication is, I decided to forward this information to the guidance counsellors at my school and to ask our school librarian to make a poster size copy of this chart to hang in my room. I want my students to know about the opportunities in the Computer Science work force. Maybe more of them will consider this as their career path.
Thank you Kelly Flowers for making me aware of this very valuable information.
Dave Burkhart
Task Force Chair
CSTA Board of Directors

I write this having just read Richard Rhodes’ biography of Hedy Lamarr, Hedy’s Folly. It isn’t a long book, and it was an easy read. Rhodes writes well (as we would expect for someone who has won a Pulitzer), and the book covers an interesting history of how an actress and a composer came up with an idea that has changed the world.
The story is becoming better known, but is still not common knowledge. Lamarr and a musical composer colleague George Antheil patented in 1942 the basic notion for what is now known as frequency hopping spread spectrum communications. In a frequency hopping system, the devices hop rapidly from one frequency to another to prevent an adversary from jamming the signal. This is a basic technology for much of wireless and cell phone communications; in addition to the anti-jamming capability, spread spectrum methods allow for a larger number of devices to share the radio spectrum without undue interference. Because the patent was assigned to the US government for patriotic purposes, the technology remained classified for years and did not become commercially usable in the United States until a change in the FCC regulations in 1985.
I have often in my smaller classes assigned to students the names of those who have contributed to computing, and then asked one of them in the next class for a quick statement of why that individual should be remembered as part of the history. Hedy Lamarr is one of those names that students don’t recognize, but one they should. Rarely does an individual have such diverse accomplishments as she did, from being labeled “the most beautiful woman in the world” to being recognized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation with a Pioneer Award (1997) and having a web posting on the IEEE Global History Network (http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Hedy_Lamarr).
Duncan Buell
CSTA Board of Directors

Inaccurate stereotypes about what computer scientists look and act like abound. Our students see them in popular media and hear about them from friends and family. The good news is that if we look a little bit we can find a wealth of diverse examples of computing professionals for students to identify with. Let me point you to a few. Tell us about your favorites and how you incorporate them into your classroom activities.
The latest CSTA podcast at:
http://csta.acm.org/Communications/sub/Podcasts.html
is an interview with Miral Kotb, a dancer, choreographer, entrepreneur, AND a computer scientist. You may have seen her in the iLuminate performance that placed third in the final competition of America’s Got Talent television. Invite your students to listen to her describe how she has combined her passion for dance with computer science to create an innovative new form of dance and an exciting career.
Check out the “I Learned to Program because” site at:
http://www.ilearnedtoprogram.com/
Each time the site is refreshed a new quote appears. Many have links to the professional sites of the authors with photos, resumes, and current projects.
Explore the videos from the University of Washington at:
http://www.cs.washington.edu/whycse
and listen to students and professionals in A Day in the Life and Reasons to Choose CSE talk about cool CS careers, the job market, and new technology careers.
NCWIT provides NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes is a series of magazine-style audio interviews highlighting women entrepreneurs in information technology (IT) careers at:
http://ncwit.org/resources.res.interview.php?action=category&id=1
NCWIT Heroes are women innovators from startups, small companies, and non-profits, whose ideas and products are changing the way we think, work, play, and communicate. Listen as these successful, creative, and technical women discuss their lives and their work – how they first get involved with technology, why they chose to be entrepreneurs, and what advice they would give to young people interested in IT or entrepreneurship.
Women in Technology (UK) invited members to share their stories. Learn about their careers in the United Kingdom at:
The Black Collegian Online lists 10 African-American Role Models in Science and Technology who are phenomenal individuals holding top-level management positions in cutting-edge disciplines. They make decisions that affect the quality of our daily lives. You can find more information at:
http://www.black-collegian.com/issues/1stsem07/role_models.htm
Are you thinking about setting up your own mentoring program or just interested in inviting computer scientists from the community into your classroom to share their stories? Take a look at the Resource Guide and Toolkit from Techbridge at:
http://www.techbridgegirls.org/RoleModels.aspx
This is a resource guide to help role models and corporations host effective classroom visits and worksite field trips. A toolkit CD supplements this guide, containing sample hands-on activities, icebreaker activities, a Future Engineer Certificate, and other resources to make outreach fun and engaging.
Check out Career Forward Review Guide interview lesson plan on DigiGirlz site at:
http://www.microsoft.com/about/diversity/en/us/programs/digigirlz/default.aspx
And don’t forget the other CSTA resources for teaching about computing careers. Posters, brochures and videos are ready for your classroom at:
http://csta.acm.org/Resources/sub/BrochuresPostersVideos.html
You will find several described in the January CSTA Voice newsletter, now available online at:
http://csta.acm.org/Communications/sub/CSTAVoice.html
Pat Phillips
Editor, CSTA Voice

10. January 12, 2011- A Joint Call for Research Why Computer Science Education is Important for K-12. This post is well worth a second look to provide a good reminder that we make many statements about the necessity of CS for all, but we need to get more research behind that!
9. February 21, 2011- Election Data And Socially Relevant Computing. Something to think about with our upcoming National election in 2012.
8. March 9, 2011- Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Attend SIGCSE. Yes, a gratuitous self-re-posting of another Top 10 List. But let it serve as a reminder to think about attending SIGCSE in North Carolina this year!
7. April 26, 2011- CS Sock Monkey Begins Work. Lucky Guy! He gets to meet all the cool kids in CS Education! Look for him in other posts as he does his work meeting with key leaders in CS Education!
6. May 16, 2011- CS&IT And Summertime PD. A friendly reminder that YOU can still contribute to the program for the upcoming CS & IT conference in 2012!
5. June 19, 2011- Priorities. The never-ending question for teachers: How do you decide what’s important?
4. July 10, 2011- E-Books for Learning (Or Not)?. Another hot topic for teachers! What’s the best way to deliver your content to your students?
3. August 13, 2011- Free Course Gives Rise to Interesting Questions. Great questions raised by Steve Cooper on this post. Lots of free courses are being developed, but is it the best way to learn CS?
2. September 20, 2011- . Great reminders for us all, no matter what time of year!
2.1- OK- I decided to do one for each of the twelve months, but a Top 12 list just doesn’t sound as exciting. So this is entry 2.1:
October 24, 2011- Activities for CS Ed Week. Even though we have just passed the 2011 CS Ed Week, it is never too early to start planning for next year!
2.2- November 30, 2011- Good Teaching is Not About the Programming Languages. You’ve heard it before, but let this serve as a great reminder to us all!
Drumroll Please!
Your #1 Blog Posting of 2011:
December 2011- Top Ten CSTA Blog Posts of 2011. Who doesn’t love a good loop?
Here’s to a great 2012!
Mindy Hart
At-Large Representative