Computer Science Teacher

Some Thoughts About MOOCs

2013-05-23T10:10:00.001-04:00

Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs) seem to be a major topic of conversation in higher education these days. Online courses for high school students tend to be neither massive or open where open means that anyone can take them. Online education in high school (and younger) seems to be viewed as a solution for students who don’t do well in traditional schools, credit recovery or offering courses that a local school doesn’t have the resources to offer specific courses. No one (or few at least) seems to be suggesting that MOOCs or online education will revolutionize secondary school education. Thankfully.

I can’t see online education being a general solution for secondary school students. Since no one is trying to make that happen I am relieved. Not just because it means my own job is safe for a while either. But I have some concerns about MOOCs in higher education.

My recent post (Would You Hire Your Graduates?) drew some real indications that universities value diversity in their faculty. They value it enough to not hire their own graduates so as to avoid becoming inbreed. On the other hand many large universities seem to be embracing MOOCs as parts of consortiums such as EdX, Udacity, and Coursera. Where is the concern about diversity there? Could we wind up with a handful of courses that an overwhelming majority of students (how ever we redefine students) are taking? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? I tend to think it would be bad.

So why are universities who clearly want diversity in faculty so quick (in many cases) to embrace a system that seems to be going in the opposite direction with regards to teaching? I suspect two reasons:

Increasing income while reducing expenses
Direct more attention to research over teaching

MOOCs seem to offer an education to a lot of people for very little money compared to traditional teaching. There is a lot of high minded talk about bringing a first class education to more people in more places around MOOCs. And clearly some people believe that talk. It sure sounds good in theory. But how is the practice? I think the jury is still out on that.

With reductions in income because of the economy while at the same time costs are rising many university administrators are looking at their schools more like a business. Cutting costs and increasing tuition revenue seem to be higher goals than quality of education in many places. We’re already seeing trends like more courses being taught by adjunct faculty who are generally paid much less than tenured faculty and also get fewer (if any) other benefits. I’ve seen universities where discussions are taking place about shorter “terms” so that more terms can be taught in the same calendar year. And of course online education as a way to reduce costs for classrooms and similar resources that bricks and mortar teaching requires. MOOCs much seem like a logical next step for many administrators. Even if most students take the course without getting credit if enough students do pay for credit the potential profits look pretty good.

I’m heard university faculty say things like “teaching is what I do the get the opportunity to do the research that is important to me.” With grants getting harder to come by I can easily picture some faculty wanting to see MOOCs do the teaching and bringing in the revenue to support faculty with lighter teaching loads and more time for research. I haven’t seen data but I would not surprised if faculty whose first love and reason for being at the university is teaching are less supportive of MOOCs than faculty who live for research.

MOOCs do have the potential to provide more education for more people but is the MOOC education going to be as valuable as a bricks and mortar education? I remain a skeptic because I believe that a good university education is about a lot more than what happens in the classroom or lab session. I don’t think we’ll ever get there with a completely online education. I also worry about a loss of diversity in what is taught and how things are taught. Every university is unique and that has value to society.

A lot of things that people thought the Internet would bring – greater understanding, more transparency, higher levels of cooperation – have not materialized. Theory and practice are often not the same thing.

Sexism and Women in Technology

2013-05-21T21:24:00.001-04:00

There seems to be a lot of discussion on the Internet about women in technology. More specifically the troubles they have with. The Girls in IT–Infographic and Report from NCWIT I wrote about talks about the shortage of women and girls in information technology. A couple of recent articles give some clues about why that shortage of girls in the field may be.

How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’ is an article in the New York Times by a woman software developer recounting some of the sexist and down right anti-women experiences she’s experienced. I find this sort of thing aggravating. Not the post but the behavior it reports.
This is not my web is a response to Audrey Watters’ decision to turn off comments at her blog Hack Education. Like many women writing on the Internet Audrey gets a lot of very sexist and even threatening comments.

Women I know in industry say that things are better then they once were but that there is still a lot of sexism in information technology roles. It drives me crazy.

I hear/read men saying that women are just not good at computing but that is opposite of my experience. I remember back in the middle ages when I was a college student the women had a curfew and had to be back in their dorms by 11 PM. Men had no restriction and often pulled all-nighters to get code done. In spite of spending less (often a lot less) time on projects the women in my classes never seemed to miss deadlines. Not a sign of “less ability” to me.

I’ve worked with professional developers for many years and the women I worked with all managed to be just as good or better than the men. AND they had a life outside of work which is more than some of the so-called “rock star” male developers didn’t seem to have time for. That’s not data but I have seen some data that strongly suggests that men often over estimate their abilities and women often under estimate their abilities.

So what brings on the aggressive sexism we all too often see, especially on the Internet? I don’t know for sure but I wonder if some of it is fear. Are some men intimidated by the way women work? Are they afraid that people will expect them to change the way they work and ask them to work smart rather than hard and long? At some level do some of these men realize that they don’t compare well to women? Not that they’d admit it to others of course. That would be a bit much for them.

What ever the problem is with these guys the rest of us need to speak out about the issue. We need to avoid laughing as the “jokes”, tolerating the snide comments, and reject actions that make women uncomfortable or unwanted. We don’t need to tell women to “toughen up” or “let it slide.” We need to tell other men to grow up.

Girls in IT–Infographic and Report from NCWIT

2013-05-21T05:18:00.000-04:00

I found an info graphic from NCWIT on Girls in IT to be pretty interesting. I can’t get it to format right in this blog format but you can see it here. I’ve got one snippet of it below.

It is shocking to me how under represented women are in the Advanced Placement Computer Science program and in undergraduate CS programs.

There is a lot more in the graphic and the accompanying report - Girls in IT: The Facts. I’m also reading the report which “aims to bring together this latest research so that readers can gain a clearer and more coherent picture of 1) the current state of affairs for girls in computing, 2) the key barriers to increasing girls’ participation in these fields, and 3) promising practices for addressing these barriers.”

Would You Hire Your Graduates?

2013-05-20T18:30:00.001-04:00

I was reading a blog post by a university professor on the subject of adjunct faculty (Tenure-track’s untouchables) when I can across the statement that “the university has a disinclination to hire their own graduates.” This seemed weird to me. I teach at a high school that has a good number of their own alumni on the faculty. On a recent visit my my university alma mater I noted that there were a good number of graduates who had returned to teach there as well. I always saw this as a good thing.

I struggled to think of why a university would have this sort of disinclination and the only thing I could think of was a fear of becoming “in breed” in some way. The flip side of that is that it can also contribute to maintaining a mission, culture and environment. Maybe if you don’t like your mission, culture or environment you’d want to go outside for faculty but in general I’d think a mix of “old” and “new” would be closer to ideal.

The cynic in me wanted to ask “are the students you are turning out not good enough to teach at your school?” What does not wanting to hire your own graduates say about your program? After a bit of this sort of non-productive thinking I refocused on myself and my own teaching. If I were starting a new company or hiring for an existing company would I want to hire my former students? Am I preparing my students for the world they are entering after graduation?

Teaching high school I think mostly about if I am preparing them to succeed in university. I’m frankly less interested in what school they attend next as I am that they are prepared for what they find when there get there. I am also concerned about their ability to perform in industry jobs. Oh I know, I know. I hear it all the time No one gets a job in computer science right out of high school.

Bah, not true at all. Most do not of course but I have had a good number of students get great summer internships and even year round jobs while still in high school over the years. They have done well enough that the companies that hired them have returned with the question “any more like so and so?” It does happen.

So would I hire my graduates? Not all of them. At least not out of high school. But some of them? In a heart beat. I can think of several I would want to hire me if I were leaving the classroom again. While I wouldn’t think of taking full credit (or in some cases any credit other than not screwing things up) I like to think I have helped prepare a few students pretty well.

The goal should be to give students the knowledge and skills they need at a level were you would feel comfortable either hiring them yourself or at least giving them a strong recommendation for someone else to hire them. It’s not about passing time or giving them the minimum to get by but giving them, at least the opportunity to acquire, the knowledge to succeed either in industry or academia. If you would not recommend a student for an appropriate job/university you should be able to answer the question “Did they not work hard enough or did you not give them enough opportunity to learn the right things?”

Yes, I want to turn out graduates I would like to hire.

Interesting Links 20 May 2013

2013-05-20T05:21:00.000-04:00

In case you missed the announcement last week the CSTA Election results are announced. Thank you very much to those of you who voted for me. I’ve really looking forward to helping out on this board. The school year is nearing an end. The school I teach at had their senior prom over the weekend. I hope to see pictures today. I’m also starting to think about how I am teaching next year. We’re creating two new courses to replace some existing but dated courses. Some of the links below will play into my thinking.

I’ve been working a lot more with TouchDevelop lately. I really want to use it with students. I’ve posted one of the bits of code I’m playing with as a web app at https://www.touchdevelop.com/users/AlfredTwo/spinWP/ I’ve also been experimenting with TouchDevelop Presenter. Presenter lets me display want I do on my phone on a wi-fi connected computer. I understand it currently only works with the Windows Phone 7 app. It was developed before the web based version of TouchDevelop was created. I’m hoping to upgrade to a Windows Phone 8 soon so I will probably use the web version for demos with students.

Microsoft Touch Develop is looking for adventurous Windows Phone 8 mobile app creators for a beta of the WP 8 app of TouchDevelop. Yep, this is one more reason I want to upgrade my phone.

Ray Chambers in the UK has developed a Touch Develop - Scheme Of Work for teaching. I’m taking a good look at it for my own use.

Doug Peterson wrote a very thoughtful response to one of my posts at Life in a Browser. It was in response to my little rant Why Web Apps?

Washington State passed a bill that gives students graduation credit for AP Computer Science. This is a great thing and now 10 states allow this sort of credit. Still a long way to go though. But there continues to be discussion of this sort of thing in the media.

Giving Students Credit for Programming Classes – the New York Times
"Why High Schools Should Treat Computer Programming Like Algebra” by Jordan Weissmann in The Atlantic
STEM graduate shortage? Computer science is where the future jobs are an opinion piece on The Seattle Times

Dear Learn to Code Startup is a great post with words of advice for all those companies what think they are going to “solve” the problem of not enough computer science students written by Laura Blankenship (@lblanken)

Do you remember the Incredible Machine? It was a great game all about problem solving/ Well it looks like The Incredible Machine Is Back, Spiritually at least. Read about it in Wired.

Why teachers do what we do is a recent post by Doug Berman @dougbergmanUSA that you should read.

Why Web Apps?

2013-05-16T12:25:00.001-04:00

I have a bias in favor of applications that run locally and take full advantage of the hardware and OS of the base platform. These days it seems like everything is moving to the web in some form or other. Scratch 2.0 runs completely in the web browser for example. Twitter is shutting down the TweetDeck AIR app that I love so much in favor of some sort of web based version. I’ve been using some web based email (unhappily) for a while now. It seems as though everything is moving there.

I can understand some of the logic. The web (or more specifically web browsers) are a common baseline that can be programmed against. Write it once and it runs on any system with a compatible web browser. A developer gets the benefit of ubiquity without having to write and maintain multiple versions. It’s cheaper.

Web apps also have the benefit that the developer can make fixes once in one place and all of the users have the benefit of changes, improvements, and additional features transparently. No update routines. No version mismatches. It just seems like a dream.

The elephant in the middle of the room is of course that you have to have Internet connectivity to use these tools. Sometimes that has to be very fast Internet as well. While Internet access is becoming more wide spread it is not yet ubiquitous. Where it is available it is often not cheap. Or fast. Internet on airplanes, where it exists, is expensive and slow. On trains (Amtrak for example) it can also be spotty. Cars? I haven’t tried it while moving as I am usually driving but given how often I find poor cell coverage for calls I don’t know that I want to bet on it there either.

School Internet connections can get pretty slow as well. We’ve had some issues lately with slow wi-fi and Internet in my school.

Even if you assume wi-fi that is fast and affordable applications can not always easily take advantage of device functionality. For example with the TouchDevelop app I can handle a “shake” event. Not so on my iPad (thought that is “coming”). It takes more work to make all the hardware available to a web app. For security reasons giving a web app too much access to hardware and local storage is not always a good idea either.

It still seems like a locally run application that is targeted to the hardware (or at least a specific operating system) is going to give users the opportunity for better performance, more functionality and less dependence on external factors like Internet connections. Maybe I’m a Luddite or maybe just a cranky middle aged man but I really want real applications over web apps.

2013 CSTA Board Election Results Announced

2013-05-14T06:15:00.000-04:00

CSTA Election results are announced Congratulations on reelection to Patrice Gans, Dave Reed and new member Stephanie Hoeppner. Oh and I have been elected too. Pretty excited about that.

The Computer Science Teachers Association is the professional organization for K-12 computer science educators. If you are a computer science educator you should belong to the CSTA. And also think about attending the 2013 CSTA Annual Conference this summer.

Computer (and Math) Humor

2013-05-13T12:35:00.001-04:00

I like this one in part because it is subtle. There are two basic standards for opening the curly brace in C-type languages. Not everyone will pick up on it. Is it important which way you do it? Actually no. It may not even be important if you stick to it. But some people really do insist that their way is the one true way and that everything else is wrong.

Of course there is also the group of people who think that curly braces and semi colons are crutches for compiler developers and that real programming languages don't need them.

I’ve seen this time and again. OK perhaps even felt the same way. When nothing seems to be working programming can be frustrating and even something to hate. But lots of us persist. And when it works it just feels so good.

OK it’s math not computer science. But is sure is fun.

Interesting Links 13 May 2013

2013-05-13T05:51:00.000-04:00

Just about a month left of this school year for me. In between trying to keep things going with grading and teaching I’m starting to think about what I want to learn over the summer to use in class next year. Some of the links below are about some of these things. A lot going on in CS education these days.

Ray Chambers who is one of the very innovative teachers I have run into over the past few years has posted his Scheme Of Work for Touch Develop. I've downloaded most of it myself to look at how I might use Touch Develop in my own classes.

For more on Touch Develop take a look at Getting in touch with TouchDevelop (Think 'From What to Wow") from Channel 9 @ch9

Four ways to kick start zombie coders is another great post by a UK CS education blogger. Zombie coders are those students who just don’t know where to begin. Some great ideas here. BTW I follow her @CodeBoom on Twitter.

Peter Beens in Canada (@pbeens) pointed his Twitter followers to this great article written by Mitchel Resnick of MIT and Scratch fame. Learn To Code, Code To Learn.

Speaking of Scratch, there is a new upgrade to Scratch 2.0! Check out the updated website: http://scratch.mit.edu/

Computer Science Concepts in Scratch - Free textbook and more. Set up for Scratch 1.0 but still useful now. Updates are planned as well.

Chris Lehmann: Students as Active Agents is a new interview by Ken Royal. Chris is one of the outstanding high school principals I know.

More genius from @drenton72: NoNeed4Green - The Green Screen without a Green Screen is a Kinect application with a lot of good educational possibilities.

Sorry, College Grads, I Probably Won't Hire You. Not without programming knowledge. Some controversy about this one. See this contrary view at Sorry, Digital Ad Exec, I Probably Don’t Want To Work For You

From Google to Botball, check out what NCWIT Aspirations in Computing recipients have done lately.
Kinect Magic Cursor version 1.7 with Gesture support /by @drenton72 http://feedly.com/k/1739cJ8 Good read

Expeditous - Time Lapse is a video by one of my wife’s students. I’d like to see it get some views to encourage them for the future.

Ingenious app for the deaf! Help @Bookwormlexa reach her goal.

See how this Texas CS classroom inspires students and teaches skills for in-demand careers.

CS Resources Abound But There’s Still a Crisis in CS Education an insightful look at what is going on in CS education by Joe Kmoch.

How Many Fart Apps Do We Need

2013-05-10T09:57:00.001-04:00

The satirical publication TheOnion released a fart application on GitHub. One can add it to their web page and people who visit it will hear fart sounds when they scroll on it. Sophomoric? Obviously. But as an advertising gimmick it seems to be working as there is apparently a lot of Internet chatter about it already. No doubt some more main stream media will take it up as well. But is this really the sort of app we want students to emulate?

Fart apps, in my mind, is short hand for a whole category of apps that are simple to make, usually amusing (to some people), occasionally (somewhat) useful but basically not significant. We tend to create a lot of these sorts projects for students. We want them to create someone that demonstrates mastery (or at least some level of ability) with specific concepts. These days we’re also looking to have students create their projects to run on phones, tablets, and other hand held devices. A simple app that shows an RSS feed, random pictures from the Internet, or plays some sort of sound (i.e.. farts) fits into the process easily.

But ultimately how many such apps do we really need? Not many. The problem though is creating applications that are both legitimately useful and yet within the abilities of students. Can we do it with scaffolding? Or does that cause its own problems? (Beware the Scaffold That Becomes a Crutch) Can we do it with group projects? Or does that create a different complexity for beginning students.

I’m just tired of “fart apps.” I want students to create meaningful apps. A big part of my summer planning is going to be about what sorts of projects students do. I want students to know that they can and should create meaningful work.

Visualization–can you see it in your head?

2013-05-07T21:04:00.001-04:00

I had dinner tonight with several computer science professors. The topic of conversation turned to the question of “can everyone learn to program?” One professor is pretty sure the answer is no. He believes that some people just can’t think that way. I fear that he may be right. But we moved on to how can we make it so that more people CAN learn it? Even if we can’t teach it to everyone how to we get more people to understand programming or more broadly computer science concepts. We decided that one problem at least is that it is hard to visualize some concepts.

Recursion for one is hard to some people to picture. I know it took me quite a while. To this day my mental picture of it is cloudy but at least usable. Many concepts that computer scientists picture in their heads almost as if second nature are opaque to other people. The tools we have to create images that will help others picture these concepts too often seem inadequate. They are too hard to use or too limited in scope. After all most of the concepts we want to teach are not static. Images that don’t move do little justice to the concepts.

Honestly I wouldn’t know where to begin with an animated image of recursion. My own image is too cloudy. I suspect that others have a much better image but converting that to a useful tool is non trivial.

Other concepts lend themselves to visualization more easily. Linked lists, trees, stacks, and arrays for example. We can sort of do them using tools like PowerPoint but it sure does take a lot of work. We can draw them on the board. But as anyone who has demonstrated something like adding and removing nodes in a linked list can tell you this can get messy very quickly. I’ve always wanted to try using pieces of something (paper?) and strings (you know the fiber ones) to show links and lists but the logistics of that takes someone more handy than I tend to me.

Sometimes there are physical objects we can use. I can’t be the only one who bought a giant Pez dispenser to demonstrate stacks right? Or labeled boxes all in a row for arrays. Ideally though what I would love was something that students could actually manipulate themselves to see things work. Something they could ask themselves “I wonder what happens if I do this?” and then try it out.

We have more and more new tools for programming and implementing things. Where are the tools that help beginners picture how it works though? Are there things out there I am missing? What do you use to help students visualize the concepts?

Interesting Links 6 May 2013

2013-05-06T05:26:00.000-04:00

About five weeks left to my school year. I’m behind in grading. I’m behind in lesson planning. This means less time on the Internet for the next week or so. Somehow I managed to collect a bunch of interesting links last week though.
Makey Makey is cool stuff that lets you use all sorts of items (bananas?) as input devices. I‘ve seen a demo and it looks cool. This post reminds me I need to look closer at it. via @drenton72
Programming for kids is a good list of programming environments for kids which includes a few I need to look into. (via David Wees @davidwees)
Most everything you need to know about CS education and jobs . Includes a lot of statistics and links to information you can use.
Education Week: N.Y.C.-IBM Partnership Focuses on Students' Tech. Skills Things keep happening in New York City with regards to computer science education. I have to wonder were it will all lead.
The Role of HyperCard in Today's World interesting post on the blog@CACM from Communications of the ACM. Remember HyperCard? It may be coming back!
Gwinnett pilot hopes to draw students to computer programming highlighting a new program in Georgia.
Is that a mouse on your face? Or your face acting as a mouse? Both? FaceMouse is some new Kinect related software from Channel 9. See also KinectMouse.
The May, 2013 edition of the SIGCT newsletter is now available for downloading http://sigct.iste.wikispaces.net/file/view/SIGCT_Newsletter-May2013.pdf/428064912/SIGCT_Newsletter-May2013.pdf (PDF)
Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers? There are good paying jobs out there with good clean change the world work so why are more people not entering computer science fields. This posts asks that question in detail.
Are you going to the CSTA Annual Conference this summer? Microsoft opens the doors to the NERD Center for CSTA 13 attendees. Don't miss this tour! NERD stands for New England Research and Development. I used to spend a good bit of time there and there is lots of interesting things going on there. And the views of Boston are amazing.
Super Computer Science: Why you Need a Popcorn Maker in your classroom Fun idea from Rebecca Dovi . Not sure I can get away with it but it’s a thought.
Madlib Madness is about a fun project that Mike Zamansky uses with his programming students.
Benefits of Teaching Kids To Code That No One Is Talking About

“Teaching kids to code is not about programming itself. It’s about promoting creativity, curiosity, teaching persistence, and giving young people a sense of how they can create technology.”

Why Search Engines Can’t Replace Teachers (yet?)

2013-05-01T11:47:00.001-04:00

My programming students are working on some projects these days. I have them working of teams of two to four. As they work I am listening to their conversations and occasionally stepping in to help with a problem they can’t figure out on their own. Yes they can and do use the Internet. And they are learning a lot that way. But sometimes searching the Internet doesn’t work.

Why doesn’t the Internet search work? A couple of reasons account for most of the problem. The primary reason is that students often don’t know who to ask the right questions. They often lack the vocabulary for asking a search engine for what they want. Other times they are asking for the wrong thing because they just don’t know enough to know what it is they need. Honestly, a lot of high school students are just bad as using search engines in general which is a whole other problem.

Another issue is that they don’t understand the solutions the search returns. Sometimes this is because the person who wrote what they found assumes knowledge that the student hasn’t acquired yet. Sometimes this is vocabulary and sometimes this included advanced concepts. Not all students are ready for the way a professional would do it but need something, maybe less powerful, that will just get the job done simply.

Sometimes the students are in too much of a hurry. Students today wanted to insert a line feed in a string and kept entering “/n” when what was needed was “\n” not realizing that not all “slash” marks are the same. Noticing little details like that sometimes escapes even the best of us but is a particular problem for beginners. Teachers are good at helping find these nits that can otherwise cause a lot of wasted time.

As a teacher I often need to ask “what problem are you trying to solve?” Starting from what the student thinks is the solution often wastes more time than first trying to understand the problem. Search engines don’t have that sort of dialogue with searchers. Maybe they will at some point but they are not there yet.

I also need to help them understand the answers they find. Or perhaps I should say help them apply solutions to problems similar to theirs to their actual problem. Helping them move from general to specific (or specific to specific but slightly different) solutions is an area where teachers add value that search engines are not yet ready to do.

There is a difference between knowing something (a fact, a concept, a programming syntax) and being able to apply it in a specific situation to solve a specific problem. Teachers can help a lot here. And yes I know that there are self taught “wizards” in many fields. Even before the Internet there were autodidacts who taught themselves from books. The Internet lets people teach themselves a lot. But that sort of learning is not for everyone. In fact I doubt it works for more than a relatively small number of people. Teachers are education for the rest of us.

New Toy–Raspberry Pi

2013-04-30T10:10:00.001-04:00

It is hard to resist a new technology toy. I’ve been hearing about the Raspberry Pi computer for some time now. A couple of weeks ago I talked to a teacher friend who was using some to help teach computing and computer science concepts. It is an attractive idea. A very small computer yet still reasonably powerful. It doesn’t appear to run Windows (though I haven’t done an serious research on that) but does a lot with Linux. So I bought one.

I still have to get some software for it but it is pretty cool to have a computer that fits in my pocket. I’m not sure what all I’ll do with it. In the long run it depends in part on what I am doing for work after this semester. For starters though I’m going to be playing with Linux and some open source software. I need to see where Linux has come in recent years. Plus there may be some applications for this as part of some hardware projects. Smart robots anyone?

I’m also starting to look around at what others are doing with these devices in education. I’m trying to be as open minded about these sorts of things as possible. So let me know if you are or know someone doing cool things with these devices.

Interesting Links 29 April 2013

2013-04-29T06:04:00.000-04:00

Last week was school vacation week and I was away with less than ideal Internet. I’m still not sure if that is better or worse than no Internet at all. In any case I spent a lot less time on the Internet than usual. That doesn’t mean I didn’t come up with a few interesting links to share. Hope you had a good week and that you find something of interest in this list.

Eugene Wallingford @wallingf had an interesting post Towards a course in reading code in which he gives some thoughts about what such a course might look like. It makes interesting reading on a subject that I have been interested in for a while.

As a favor for a friend I wrote a guest blog post about Changing Computer Science Teaching on Planet Promethean. It is about how new tools and other emphasis are changing how we teach computer science to get and keep student’s interest.

Latest edition of CS Bits & Bytes is here! Published by @NSF_CISE w/ Einstein Fellows. This is about how computers are helping save whales.

Young Kodu designer showcases at 2013 White House Science Fair on the Microsoft Citizenship Blog - via @msftcitizenship The president has been having an annual science fair to help provide the sort of attention to students doing cool things that normally goes to athletes.

The legislature in Washington state passed a bill to count computer science for math, science credit. About time we had another state give graduation credit for computer science. I sure hope this spreads.

KinectChooserEx - Making Kinect Interactions even easier (Channel 9) via @ch9

Announcing: A Platformer Game Starter Kit for Windows 8 games! Includes free game art. This is a JavaScript based game.

What we talk about when we talk about CS Great post by Laura Blankenship @lblanken

Ken Royal ‏@kenroyal talks to Patrick Larkin and asks Are Tablets Solutions or Problems?

An Embarrassment of Riches

2013-04-24T11:12:00.001-04:00

It seems like hardly a week goes by without hearing of some new development tool, web site or online training course for the teaching of computer science to beginners. Last week there were two – Tynker and Hopscotch. Yesterday I received an email about a site from a new startup called LearnStreet that has online learning resources including a course available in JavaScript, Python or Ruby. Sometimes it seems like everyone who knows how to program has their own idea of how to teach programming “the right way.”

Many of these people have no previous experience teaching anything let alone programming and computer science. That doesn’t mean the tools are not good. It don’t mean they are great either. How do we know if a new tool is good, bad or indifferent? Generally we don’t unless we try it ourselves in our own classrooms with our own students. Risky at best. Or we can look to the early adopters who like to try out new things and listen to their stories. The CSTA Conference usually has a number of workshops or sessions on new teaching tools presented by people who use and like them. So does the SIGCSE conference.

Many of these tools have no serious research to back them up. A few teachers who use them and get good results if fine as far as it goes. But it is hard to tell how much of the success is to to the tool and how much to some combination of the teacher’s ability and the type of students they work with. Some of the academic developed tools (GreenFoot and Alice come to mind) do have some research attached to them. The results, including for many people’s favorite Alice, show mixed results though.

What’s a teacher, especially a new teacher, to do? Even an experienced teacher has to wonder “am I doing it right?” Am I using the best tool, the most effective teaching tool, available to me? Should I stop teaching the way I have been teaching which for many of us is the same as the way we learned? Probably but if so what do we take on?

There is no independent body doing the research and making impartial recommendations. Given how much computer scientists like controversy there is probably never going to be such an organization. And maybe there shouldn't be. Those sorts of organizations have the effect of stifling creativity and innovation once they become institutionalized. We could really benefit from some independent research comparing methods and tools though. REALLY!

Interesting Links 23 April 2013

2013-04-23T05:23:00.000-04:00

Yes I’m a day late with this post. It’s school vacation week in New Hampshire and I’ve had other things on my mind. These things happen. I have limited Internet access this week so there may or may not be a list next week. We’ll have to see. But I do have stuff to share now so here goes.

Passed on by @intelswblog: Future Developers: Why Kids Should Learn the Basics of Code

Mike Zamansky ‏@zamansky writes about using using real data in his computer science education classrooms:

Top Ten Ways to recruit HS girls into computing classes. New from @ncwit

Should kids be taught to program? Join the debate!

Are you ready for the 2013 CSTA Annual Conference on July 15-16, 2013! CSTA Annual Conference Keynote Speakers Announced. This looks to be a great event.

Fun look at how the internet of things/big data comes to life on the Microsoft campus. If you’ve ever wondered about smart buildings and how information can help keep costs down this is the read for you.

What Makes Code Readable: Not What You Think via @jsonmez was an interesting read. he notes that what is good for beginners is not always as good for more experienced people. And the other way around.

Thinking outside the Xbox: Fourth-grade teacher using online avatars to facilitate learning That looks like fun!

Last week I heard about Tynker http://tynker.com which is Scratch-like but with more features. Or so I am told. I just got access to it and haven’t had a chance to try it out for myself. The Tynker team is on Twitter at @gotynker

Hopscotch–Visual Programming for iPads

2013-04-19T05:15:00.000-04:00

is a new programming environment for the iPad. It is heavily influenced by Scratch from MIT but has nothing like the features of Scratch. It’s only in beta and the developers are talking about making it “Turing Complete” which will make it a lot more useful than it is now. Little kids may play with it for some time but I ran out of ideas in about 5 minutes. Of course having many much more capable tools available and usable by me may be a factor there.

The main advantages of Hopscotch are that it is available on the popular iPad and that it is really optimized for touch. The only other touch enabled development I know that is optimized for mobile programming is TouchDevelop and that is a bit much for very young children. It’s not as cute and colorful as Hopscotch either.

At the present stage of development Hopscotch is a less than full featured turtle graphics program. It can be fun I’m not convinced that it is ready for prime time - school and/or after school programs to introduce programming. The potential is there and I’ll be looking to see how development does.

By the way I have a collection of other tools for Teaching Programming with block programming elsewhere.

Google Fellowship Opportunity for Up to 20 CS Teachers

2013-04-18T07:55:00.001-04:00

For the past 3-4 months, Google has been working on a program that focuses on diversity and CS pipeline. They will be starting up a program to increase opportunities for middle and high school students in NC, SC & GA (where they have data centers), particularly girls and underrepresented minorities, to learn programming and computer science. Google will be hiring a number of newly-credentialed STEM teachers to become Google CS Fellows for a 2-year program that will be run in one of the data centers.
Google's plan is to hire 15-20 excellent new teachers to learn the latest in CS tools and pedagogy and spread it via after-school and CS clubs throughout the south. These teachers will work through the barriers and policy issues in the local region, with the goal of scaling up over the 2 years and getting CS into the classrooms in the south. Google's hope is that these teachers become leaders in CS education through this experience, after they finish their fellowship.
You can apply for the Google CS Fellowship at:
https://www.google.com/about/jobs/search/#!t=jo&jid=1241001&

Fear of Being Boring

2013-04-17T18:33:00.001-04:00

I recently came across Shawn Cornally‘s blog titled ThinkThankThunk and noticed that the subtitle is “Dealing with the fear of being a boring teacher.” That is a fear I can relate to. To me being boring in front of students is the kiss of death. A boring teacher is usually perceived as teaching a boring subject. Why would anyone want to learn something that is boring from someone who is boring?

Passion is the first step in not being boring. If you are excited about what you are talking about or teaching it is harder (though not impossible) to be boring. That is the low bar though. You also have to know your audience and present the material in ways that is interesting to them. In computer science that means picking projects that students can relate to; that they will find interesting and not boring. that can be a struggle sometimes for someone as far away from the students ages as I am. It occurred to me that I am as much as four times the age of some of my students. Old enough to be their grandfather. Ouch!

I do try to keep in tune with students and plan projects accordingly. In fact many of them are designed with the help of the students themselves. I want them to be motivated to do the work because of interest and not just for the grade.

One can present in a boring fashion as well. I was fortunate enough to take a number of public speaking courses while I was working in industry and I try to bring what I learned there into the classroom. Boring is bad! BTW I don’t understand why teachers do not get regular public speaking courses as part of their professional development. If anything people who speak as often as teachers do need it more than people who speak infrequently because it is very easy to become stale or lazy from repetition.

It has been said that those who think education doesn’t involve entertainment don’t understand either. I think there is real truth there. It is something I worry about regularly. So to my fellow teachers I say “Let’s have fun out there and leave boring to others!”

BIG Projects

2013-04-17T08:40:00.001-04:00

I’ve been trying some different things this year. One experiment was to assign my C# students (this is a second programming course for most of them) to modify a large project. OK maybe not large by professional standards but definitely a lot larger than students are likely to create on their own. I gave them some starter kit projects (from Microsoft) and let them find some significant open source games on their own to start with. As an example one starter kit had something around 20 code files, four projects and a whole lot of image and other resource files. I asked the students to propose and then execute real modifications to the programs.

I had a couple of goals with this. One was to get them to demonstrate what we had covered in class so far. But I also wanted them to experience reading other people’s code, figure out how to navigate though complex code bases, and find out through experimentation how to use other concepts we had not yet covered. My hope was that this would make discussing those concepts more real and perhaps more important.

One unexpected side benefit for me was that though their questions I gained some understanding of what sort of things I should be covering in more depth. This was partly in terms of programming syntax but more importantly in design considerations. Having been programming for a long time (on average ore than twice as long as any of my students have been alive {gasp} it is easy to forget what is and is not obvious to beginners.

Over all I am really pleased with how this went. Students were able to work their way through the code. Most of them spent a lot more time reading code then I think they expected. I see that as good. They all managed to make improvements on their projects. They learned how objects can make their lives much easier. Sometimes I think they don’t get that from using standard GUI objects. Since they had to use user written classes whose only documentation (available to them anyway) was the code itself they were forced to figure it out. They also had a first hand view of design considerations for large OOP programs. This makes it more obvious why OOP is a good thing than a simple (more typical student created program) that might as well be written in old style code practices.

The next step is helping really understand creating and using classes they write themselves. We’re doing our second class/object related project now and they seem to be doing well with the concepts. And I’m thinking about the bigger projects we will be working on for the next month.

2013 CSTA Annual Conference Keynote Speakers Announced

2013-04-16T06:23:00.000-04:00

The Computer Science Teachers Association is proud to announce the keynotes for the 2013 CSTA Annual Conference (formerly known as the Computer Science & Information Technology (CS&IT) Conference).

Hadi Patrovi
As the co-founder of Code.org, Hadi Patrovi’s vision is to fill the world with computer programmers. Code.org is an education non-profit dedicated to growing computer programming education. Hadi grew up in Iran under the Khomeini regime, including through the Iran-Iraq war, and went on to study Computer Science at Harvard, paying his own way through by working as a section leader teaching CS to underclassmen. After working at Microsoft (twice!), he went on to co-found Tellme and iLike. As an angel investor/advisor, Hadi has been involved in the early stages of many giants like Facebook, Dropbox, and Zappos.

Selena Deckelmann
Selena Deckelmann is a woman who knows what it is like to be a woman in high tech. She is a major contributor to (PostgreSQL)[http://postgresql.org] and a data architect at (Mozilla)[http://mozilla.org], makers of the Firefox web browser. Selena has been involved with free and open source software since 1995 and began running conferences for PostgreSQL in 2007. In 2012, she founded PyLadiesPDX, a Portland chapter of (PyLadies)[http://pyladies.org]. She speaks internationally about open source, databases and community. She is an advisor to the Ada Initiative, an organization dedicated to increasing the participation of women in open source and technology communities.

The 2013 CSTA Annual Conference will be held at the Boston Marriott Quincy on July 15 & 16. For more information on sessions, workshops, and to register, visit www.cstaconference.org.

Dave Reed

CSTA Annual Conference Chair

P.S. Workshops are filling up fast. Don’t delay! www.cstaconference.org

Interesting Links 15 April 2013

2013-04-15T08:20:00.000-04:00

Income taxes are due the end of the day today in the US. Thanks to computer software mine are done and in with a minimum of pain. It is amazing how much easier good software can make ones life. Of course software mistakes can do the opposite. That’s one reason I think we need more people knowledgeable about how to write good software. And with that thought, here now are this week’s links.
Excellent compilation of learn-to-code sites from @shamblesguru
Writing Apps to Empower Girls and Help the World from Patrice Gans @reesegans on the CSTA blog
Calling all educators - apply for the Microsoft Expert Educator Program A great program not least of all because it opens the doors for sharing with many other great educators.
What Programming Language Should I Teach With? via @twistedsq Is a thought provoking discussion of various pros and cons.
Windows 8 Game Development Links Updated with a link to a new post by @Tara Walker called Windows 8 Game Development using C#, XNA and MonoGame 3.0: Building a Shooter Game Walkthrough – Part 5:
Techie Camp 1-week programs for elementary & middle school kids. http://techiecamp.org enroll now!

Techie Camp is a full day, week long program designed to engage elementary and middle school students in hands-on, interactive STEM-related activities. Students take a deep dive into subject matter focused on Robotics, Programming, Android App or Web Development and emerge with skills that are useful in today’s' classroom and tomorrow's workplace.

UC San Diego Computer Scientists Develop First-person Player Video Game that Teaches How to Program in Java that looks pretty interesting. Casting spells using Java.
I have moved and updated my post on Resources For Teaching Binary Numbers since I found this new video called Understanding Binary: a 60 Second Mindmeld
Computer Science is a No…um…Full-Brainer a new post by educational consultant Will Richardson finishes with this money quote “Start everyone early, and offer those who are passionate about the subject limitless room to grow.”
Irina Frumkin, Game Changer: Celebrating the Women of Xbox is an interesting video with one of the women on the Xbox team at Microsoft. Shows that even gaming is not totally male dominated.
Computer Science as a Teaching Strategy ianother good post on the CSTA Blog. This one by written by Myra Deister @shhsMath
Help spread the word for Go Code Girl, a learn-to-code event for high school girls on April 20 at the University of Ottawa in Ontario Canada (I try to keep a look out for things up north.)

And for south of where I live, in my favorite state south of the Mason-Dixon, STEM Innovation Camps in Austin, TX ages 6-14 Register by 4/30 and get 15% off
Requiring Computing Education: An Impractical Path to Computing Literacy is a great post by Mark Guzdial that has had me thinking all weekend. Check it out and read the discussion in the comments as well.
Teaching Computer Science Honors: Continuing Turtle Graphics! shows how someone else is using Turtle Graphics in teaching computer science. Good stuff.

The Book Reimagined by Video Game Makers

2013-04-12T10:38:00.001-04:00

VIDYA BOOKS: the book, as reimagined by video game makers is a Kickstarter project that is being spearheaded by someone I met while I was at Microsoft. Joe Booth and I have had several conversations about the intersection of games and education. The problem with a lot of educational games is that they are not fun. The problem with a lot of fun games is that they are not really educational. Joe’s vision for some time has been to create games that are both fun and educational. He’s put together a team and this is a step in that direction. This project starts with reading.

A lot of reluctant readers are also avid gamers. The hope here is that this sort of book will attract some of these readers and get them hooked on the idea of reading. At least it may get them reading something and we know that reading is a gateway drug to learning.

There is only a short time left for the kickstarter part of this project. They are hoping to reach a stretch goal to allow them to make their book at different reading levels. If it means anything I have contributed some of my own money to this project. I’m hoping to help find more supporters as well. Take a look at their kickstarter site for more information - http://kck.st/15Q4Mlz

Vidya Books is an interactive book experience delivered as an iPad/iPhone app. It’s a novel you play with – it’s a book that is a game.

Vidya Books leverages the best elements of Choose Your Own Adventure storytelling, classic adventure games, traditional novels, and modern action games to create something fresh and magical.
Upon opening the app and selecting a book, you’ll watch as the story materializes on screen, one word at a time. You interact with the words as they appear -- your interaction directs the main character. You swipe the screen, touch words, and manipulate the device -- and that moves the story forward!
In a Vidya Book, you matter! The story unfolds in front of you and around you and you control the pace. In a traditional novel the story has one path - it doesn't matter if you're paying attention or not. Here, your attention is integral and your choices matter.

Resources For Teaching Binary Numbers

2013-04-11T10:22:00.001-04:00

Several years ago I wrote a post on my old blog with resources for teaching Binary. Since I no longer have access to that site I can’t update it with more links. So I decided it was time to take a copy, update it and repost it here were I can update it as new links come in. BTW all of these links were good as of this posting. I removed some from the old post that were no longer available.

This was inspired by the most recent resource I found:

Understanding Binary: a 60 Second Mindmeld This 60 second video moves fast but makes for a great introduction.

MathmaniaCS Lesson Plan

A lesson plan/activity for teaching Binary numbers from the MathamaniaCS web site. Includes a graphic on counting in Binary on ones fingers.

How to Count to 1,023 on Your Fingers

This site talks about base ten, base six, Binary, Binary Coded Decimal and Hexadecimal and includes a cute applet that demonstrates counting in those bases on your fingers. As always beware the Binary value for four.

Binary Counting Cartoon - http://www.instructables.com/id/Binary-Counting/

This cartoon (available as a downloadable PDF file) demonstrates how to count to over a thousand by using binary numbers and your fingers.

The Binary System

A guide to a quite confusing concept by Christine R. Wright with some help from Samuel A. Rebelsky. Written for college students and fairly comprehensive.

Cisco’s binary teaching game - http://forums.cisco.com/CertCom/game/binary_game_page.htm

This game challenges students to set and reset bits to display a binary representation of specific decimal numbers. It is an interactive way for students to practice what they know about binary numbers.

Exploring Binary blog - http://www.exploringbinary.com/

This blog is completely focused on binary numbering and data representation. It is written by Rick Regan who has a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in computer science.
Some outstanding sample posts are:

The Binary Marble Adding Machine - http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd/index.html

This site shows a wooden binary adder that uses marbles to set and reset “bits.” There is a demo video and a link to plans for making a device yourself. Building one is recommended only for people who have experience with wood working but students will enjoy and learn from the video demo.

Converting from Binary to Decimal – http://www.mathwarehouse.com/non-decimal-bases/convert-binary-to-decimal.php

A very math centric set of examples of converting to and from decimal and binary numbers.

Some online quizzes on binary number conversions

An online number converter from binary to hex and decimal and back.