First Week Activity

Posted on August 15, 2014 by admin

Ever wish you had a set of activities for the first week of school to excite your students early on? There is a wonderful set of exercises that can be found at http://introcomputing.org/. These exercises were created by Nick Parlante based on his Stanford CS101 course.

These exercises work very well in introductory programming courses. Very little lecture time is needed as the exercises are written in a self-guided, interactive format.

My students most enjoy the “Digital Images” section. Here, students are guided through exercises where the ultimate product is a photo of the student superimposed onto another photo, using “bluescreen” techniques.

For example, given a photo of a stop sign and a photo of leaves, if all the red pixels in the photo of the stop sign are replaced with the corresponding pixels in the photo of leaves, the result is a stop sign made up of leaves.

This technique can be used to “superimpose” pictures of your students onto a variety of other pictures. I get a large sheet of blue paper from my school’s supply room and take each of my student’s pictures standing in front of the blue paper. The students then search the web for pictures they would like to insert themselves into. That’s where the fun begins. One of my students wrote a travelogue, showing all the countries he “visited” over the summer.

My students found it helpful to have all the commands on one summary page, so I’ve summarized the commands in the “Digital Images” section in this document.

Have fun!

Evelyn Torres-Rangel
CSTA Board of Directors

Report on the CSTA Annual Conference

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Dave Reed

This past July 14-15, 326 attendees converged on St. Charles, Illinois, for the 2014 CSTA Annual Conference. This number continues the impressive growth of the conference, representing a roughly 20% increase from 2013. On Monday, 12 professional development workshops were offered, six in the morning and six in the afternoon, with a total attendance of 386. Tuesday was filled with 24 presentations across a variety of topics, including a new feature this year: 20-minute mini-sessions that focused on innovative classroom practices. Keynote addresses by Yasmin Kafai and Michael Kolling were thought provoking and inspiring.

Putting together the conference is the joint effort of a large community. The program committee (Dave Reed, Doug Peterson, Duncan Buell, Tammy Pirmann, Philip East, Patrice Gans, Kristen Fisher, Dan Wheadon, and Chris Stevenson) has the challenging task of selecting the agenda for the conference, with the help of a large corps of reviewers. Lissa Clayborn and Tiffany Nash organized and ran the event logistics, and onsite volunteers, led by the Chicago and Chicago Suburbs CSTA chapters, kept everything running smoothly.

If you were able to join us in St. Charles, we hope you had an outstanding experience. If not, you can still take advantage of much of the professional development. Many of the speakers’ slides are already posted on the CSTA Web site and more will be posted soon. In addition, many of the sessions were videotaped, including the keynotes, and these will also be going up on the CSTA site in early September. If you are looking for an activity for an upcoming CSTA chapter meeting, showing a session video and basing discussion on it is a great option.

We are always looking for your feedback and ideas to make your CSTA Annual Conference even better. Feel free to post your thoughts here, or contact a member of the program committee directly if you prefer.

Dave Reed
2014 CSTA Annual Conference Program Chair
College Faculty Rep, CSTA Board of Directors

Thousands in Cash Prizes Available in Verizon Innovative App Challenge

Posted on August 6, 2014 by admin

Student teams across the nation are now invited to create novel ideas for the mobile app marketplace in the Verizon Innovative App Challenge. The competition offers middle and high school students the opportunity to apply their STEM knowledge and submit an idea for a mobile technology application that can be used to solve a societal or community problem. Registration for this contest is now open, and eight teams will win “Best in Nation” honors, each earning a $20,000 cash grant for their school.

No app building experience is necessary! Only an app idea is required for submission by a faculty advisor, who guides a team of five to seven students in the conceptualization process. This is the third year for this exciting competition by the Verizon Foundation, in partnership with the Technology Student Association. Registration and entry instructions can be found on the Verizon Innovative App Challenge website.

Contest Opens: August 4, 2014
Entry Deadline: November 24, 2014

Terry Lowe-Edwards
Marketing Manager
Technology Student Association

To Conference or Not to Conference

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Stephanie Hoeppner

To Conference or Not To Conference–that’s not even a question! Of course you want to conference. I am of course referring to the annual CSTA Conference. This year we were in St. Charles, Illinois, at the wonderful Pheasant Run Resort. The attendance was larger this year than in the past and the energy and networking that occurred was great.

So why should you be here? Let me give a few examples of things I experienced and heard:

– At lunch several tables had people sitting and meeting for the first time. I heard people sharing what they had attended in the morning, what they learned, and how they could use it. This benefited the whole table since several were in different workshops. Beyond the workshops they also began sharing experiences from their own classrooms and districts and were able to find commonalities and share ideas.

– In an afternoon workshop the presenter referenced a workshop he had attending that morning and mentioned how something from it fit well with what he was doing. Wow, a presenter learning something in morning and applying that to his information! This allowed for a few comments and discussion among the attendees and it showed how learning connections can be made.

– There was a fantastic Monday night reception at one of the locations of Universal Technical Institute (UTI) with a tour of the facility, great food, and a special 10 Year CSTA Anniversary presentation.

– Tuesday had two fantastic keynotes, with thought provoking presentations that left attendees with conversation topics throughout the remainder of the day. There were also a host of sessions as well as new mini sessions where three small presentations were presented in one time slot. Also new was a vendor specific area that allowed for conversations about new curriculum options, technology to support teaching, and organizations that had resources to support computer science education.

– Lunch on Tuesday again brought a different mix of people to the tables to talk about different topics. The table I was at was comparing and contrasting different programming environments, how different teachers used them, and the age appropriateness of the environments. It was a great sharing of teaching experiences.

– I also saw many different people introducing colleagues to other attendees they met and felt could benefit from talking together. I was introduced as well to someone new from my state that I am going to be able to share information with and hopefully add to our Ohio Chapter. Meeting new people and making connections is one of the best benefits of the conference.

These are just some of the tidbits from the conference and I am sure there are many more. So if you are looking for ideas, connections, pedagogy, curriculum talks, and much much more, grab your boots and your ten gallon hat and mosey on down to next years conference. (Can you guess where?)

Stephanie Hoeppner
9-12 Representative, CSTA Board of Directors

What’s Changed and What’s Stayed the Same

Posted on July 28, 2014 by admin

As I drove home from the 2014 CSTA Annual Conference last week, I reflected on how things have changed in my 33 years of teaching computer science. CSTA is beginning its 11th year and it has been an invaluable resource for those of us who remember the days when there was little to no support from anyone in our field. It is still too hard for us to make sure that others in our school communities know and appreciate how important computer science is, but at least we have each other.

Every time I attend any form of Professional Development, I am overwhelmed with how much I still don’t know about. In just the past 5 years, I’ve learned SNAP, HTML and JavaScript, C# with XNA Studio, Greenfoot, Calico including Scribbler robots, Scratch, Alice, Processing, GameMaker, Python 2.7 and 3.3, AppInventor, and much of the content for the new AP Computer Science Principles course. The AP Computer Science A course has been taught in Pascal, C++, and JAVA with object-oriented programming being a brand new paradigm. However, what I learned in high school in 1973 about using 3 control structures and lists/arrays to represent data is still the foundation for any program development. Designing algorithms is still the hardest part of programming and using pencil and paper still works better than simply starting to code. My involvement in the American Computer Science League reminds me of this as students use newer languages to solve hard problems, but still need to know about computer number systems, recursive functions, graph theory, bit strings, prefix and postfix notation, binary trees, stacks and queues, FSAs & regular expressions, Boolean algebra, and digital logic gates.

As Michael Kölling said in his closing keynote, “Every generation needs a new language. Languages grow or die.” He didn’t mention how exponential the growth is. The Hour of Code did wonders in promoting computer science and CSTA has been instrumental in equipping teachers of all ages and levels K-12 to keep pace and make a difference for the next generation.

Carlen Blackstone
Computer Science Teacher, Emmaus High School

You Can Be An Advocate!

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Myra Deister

Yes, you can! If I can be an advocate you can be one too! It is not difficult to get started. I began by advocating at my school site for computer science with the counseling staff and the administration to help grow enrollment. I continue to advocate with administration because, as we all know, they are more mobile than teachers.

You can be an advocate at your school site. My school has a new principal coming on board in a few days. He held site meetings after he was informed that he was hired for the position. He was reviewing with the faculty all of the “programs” that he was aware of on the campus and what they were accomplishing. I reminded him that he had failed to mention my program. When asked about my program I filled him in on what was happening with computer science and I continue to send him short informative emails about computer science news.

You can be an advocate with your local legislators. I tried unsuccessfully last year to have the California state legislature recognize Computer Science Education week. I was told that I had contacted my local representatives too late. This year I started earlier. My local legislator agreed to take on the task of getting legislation passed. I was asked to supply some sample language. I found sample language on the CS Ed Week website and sent it to him. I learned a couple of weeks ago that it passed! For those in California the legislation is ACR 108 and here is a link to the press release.

You can be an advocate with teachers. The ed tech community is a great place to start. I attend Ed Camps because they are free and you can self-select the sessions. Each of the Ed Camps I have attended has had at least one session on coding. I make a point of attending that session and I urge the teachers to join CSTA to get more resources. I also add information about free resources for teachers. Follow this link for more information about Ed Camps and their list of Conferences.

Another teacher group you can be an advocate to is your local ISTE affiliate. For California, that group is CUE. I have spoken at their local conferences on integrating computer science into the elementary and middle school curriculum and have urged the teachers to join CSTA. They also included me on a Twitter Chat devoted to Hour of Code when I asked what CUE could do to support CS Ed Week and Hour of Code. After Hour of Code, the state organization devoted their entire magazine to coding. I wrote a letter to the editor thanking her for the great issue but I also suggested that they had missed some good resources. I was surprised when she offered to let me write a follow-up article. With the help of Patrice Gans and Chris Stephenson I wrote the article.

The teacher’s union is another group that I advocate to. I have not been as successful with that group, but I have attended sessions on CTE and have shared CSTA to their teachers at the session. I am also a member of the National Education Association CTE Caucus and will be attending the NEA Conference which begins in a few days in Denver. The CTE Caucus will have an information booth and I will have CSTA brochures and my business card available.

I have a listed a few things that I have done to advocate for computer science and CSTA. Please respond with what you have done to be an advocate.

Myra Deister
CSTA At-Large Representative

Do Your Students Still Surprise You?

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Stephanie Hoeppner

As my year concluded I was reflecting on the students, my courses, and the changes I need to make for next year. I was thinking about what students surprised me and which I thought could have done more. That led to me thinking about why some students surprise me. What was it that gave me the impression that they may not do well or like computer science? Mostly the answer was lack of response on the students part or their demeanor in the classroom; however, as the class went on their spirit and their faces lifted. That proverbial “light bulb” turning on is what surprised me in some.

So why would these students surprise me? I was making an assumption that when they walked in my room the attitude or lack there of that they gave me was accurate. I took their first reaction as an true representation and it was a bias of a different sort on my part. It was not a gender, ethnic, privileged, etc bias it was simply a bias based on what they gave me the first few days of class.

While I am excited and completely tuned into computer science I forgot that my students are not initially that way. I forgot that they are used to typical classes and have a preconceived notion what will occur in a classroom when they walk in. I live in my own little world of CS bliss and forgot that not everyone else does ( What? Not everyone else does? Crazy, I know!).

The good thing is that I proceed full steam ahead in my bliss and most if not all students jump on board somewhere along the way. My class plays with toys, makes things, tries new things, eats worms (gummy ones that is, for a project), and many other non-typical classroom activities. This is when the light bulb comes on for some and the students “surprise me”.

So this fall I vow to not believe the opinions and attitudes of the students. I vow to believe that all students love CS and it just has not manifested itself on their faces yet. I vow to excite and challenge them all and expect great things out of them. While this may sound a little fairy-tale-ish, I don’t want to judge any student as I fear it may subconsciously affect how I deal with them. In my reflecting I do not feel there was anything really different in my teaching but I want to look at my students differently and I want to look at them in such as way that they do not surprise me if they do well or really get into what we are doing.

So I challenge you to think about how you look at your students when they come in to your room this fall. What do you believe of them, what do you want from them, and will you make them play, stretch their minds, and just expect that the light bulb comes on?

Stephanie Hoeppner
9-12 Rep

What YOU Think of CSTA

Posted on June 22, 2014 by admin

Once a year we send out a survey link to members. We alternate between a survey that focuses on the landscape of Computer Science education (the National Computer Science High School Survey) and one that focuses on how CSTA is doing to meet the needs of our membership.

As the chair of the Membership Committee, I had the fun task of compiling the results of the membership survey into information for the organization. Along the way, I read every single comment that our respondents wrote. One of them asked if this information would ever be made public, if he would ever get to see how everyone else answered these questions. So here are the highlights:

Why did you join CSTA?
To belong to a community dedicated to excellence in K-12 Computer Science education and for access to resources and instructional materials (tied at 73%). Followed by access to cutting-edge research about current teaching practices and technologies at 70% and preferred access to vital professional development opportunities such as national symposia and workshops at 63%. Having a say in the development of critical policies concerning curriculum, standards, and certification came in last at 53%.

Of all the resources that CSTA provides, which are the most useful to you?
And the ranking is…

1. CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards and resources
2. Careers in computing resources (posters, brochures)
3. CSTA Regional/Chapter Workshops
4. CSTA Research (National Computer Science High School Survey)
5. Advocacy information
6. White papers (New Imperatives, Equity, Certification)
7. CSTA Annual Conference

The CSTA Board has a lot of good ideas of resources that would be useful to our members. We asked you to tell us which of our proposed membership benefits was most important. Here are the results:

1. More computer science curriculum resources
2. Regional conferences and workshops
3. Teacher mentorship program
4. More information for administrators
5. More brochures for students and parents
6. More classroom posters

What do you think of the Website, the Voice, the Advocate Blog?
Almost all members use the CSTA website “once in a while” and rated it “good” in all categories. Most of the respondents read the Voice, in fact only 38 respondents said they never read it. Of the respondents who do read it, most rated it “good” in all categories. This blog, however, did not fare as well. Almost half the respondents have never read the blog and 86% have never posted a comment. The half that have read it, rated it “good” in all categories.

How do you use the CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards, the Crosswalk documents, and our research?
It turns out that there is still a significant population that is not aware of these resources or does not use them because they do not know where to find them. Thirty-five percent of respondents do not use the CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards, and 63% of them indicated that they either are not aware of them or do not know where to find them. Only 21% of respondents have used the Crosswalk documents. The respondents who have not used them indicated that the reason was because they were not aware of them (56%) or do not know where to find them (26%). The results were similar for the research papers.

But, overall, what you do think of CSTA?
Only 1% of the respondents indicated that CSTA does not provide value to them as a professional. The same 1% would not recommend membership in CSTA to a colleague. Has membership in CSTA facilitated connections with other computer science educators? 63% say Yes!

Tammy Pirmann
School District Representative, CSTA Board of Directors
Chair of the Membership Committee

What are you doing this summer?

Posted on June 16, 2014 by admin

The school year is ending soon. For some it is over. AP CS teachers are happy the AP exam is over and many of them are looking forward to the AP CS reading. Others are shaking their heads at the very idea of people being happy to attend an event where they will spend hours on end grading student work. For the most part all teachers are thinking about their summer break. There will be some real rest and recreation for some. Second or third jobs for others. And many are looking forward to professional development.

For me this summer means two big professional development events – ISTE and the Annual CSTA Conference (www.cstaconference.org). I expect to learn a lot at each of those events. I love formal PD events. Over the years I have learned and grown from many of them. They’re wonderful. But they are not my end all and be all. Informal learning is also important and useful.

One of the wonderful things about teaching computer science is the plethora of new programming languages and development tools. OK it does make it hard to keep up at times and we cannot and should not just adopt new things for the sake of adopting new things. On the other hand we have many opportunities to learn new things and bring new interests to our students.

Have you got a coding project you’ve thought would be interesting to use as a demo or assign to students? Or perhaps some new way of doing things that might get students interested? Perhaps mobile phone development or touch computing or maybe using a Kinect for user interfaces? Or web development/programming? Think about using a new tool or programming language to take something on over the summer. Just like for students, working on projects is a great way to learn something new. Just be sure to choose a project that will be fun, interesting or solve a real problem you have so that you have lots of motivation to work at it.

Whatever you do to relax, rest, and recover from the school year try and learn something new as well. You and your students will both be better for it.

Alfred Thompson
At-large member
CSTA Board

CSTA Annual Conference Reminder

Posted on June 11, 2014 by admin

If you haven’t yet registered for the CSTA Annual Conference, time is running short. The conference takes place in St. Charles, Illinois (west of Chicago) on July 14-15. The deadline for reduced-rate housing is June 13 and online conference registration ends June 26. The full agenda for the conference, including keynotes and presentations, can be found at http://cstaconference.org. Be sure to check out the slate of outstanding workshops that are available in two sessions on Monday:

Morning Workshops:
* A Programming Approach to the CS: Principles “Data” Task
* Computational Thinking: from Game Design to STEM in One Week
* Developing CS Materials for the Guided Inquiry Classroom
* Introduction to Programming with Greenfoot
* Learning with TurtleArt
* Media Computation in Python (This workshop is FULL.)

Afternoon Workshops:
* Alice and Friends: Introducing Programming to Students, 5
* ArduBlock: Simple Yet Powerful Graphical Programming for Arduino
* Artbotics with Lego Mindstorms
* Introduction to Programming the HTML5 Canvas
* Mobile Computer Science Principles
* New Labs for the Advanced Placement Computer Science A Course (This workshop is FULL.)

Workshops are outstanding and affordable professional development opportunities, and if you register for two, you get a discount ($100 for two, versus $60 for one). We look forward to seeing you in July!

Dave Reed
Program Chair, CSTA Annual Conference
College Faculty Rep, CSTA Board of Directors