May 09, 2008

Finding CS Teachers

I had an interesting email conversation with Carrie Toth from Insight Schools about the difficulties of finding computer science teachers, a challenge we share for different reasons.

CSTA membership has grown very quickly, from 0 members in 2005 to over 5300 members today but we know that there are still many teachers we would like to reach and we simply cannot find them. We can use market data companies (and we do) but we know they are only touching the surface of our community as well.

The situation is made worse by the fact that CSTA is often called upon for research and the one question we just cannot answer with any certainty is “How many CS teachers are there in U.S. high schools anyway?”.

For people like Carrie, the situation is just as frustrating. She has a number of computer science teaching jobs available and no way to advertise and fill them.

There are a number of reasons this problem exists. I think one of the primary difficulties is that, because there is no certification for computer science teachers in many states, no one keeps track of them at the state level or nationally. And until someone does, they remain invisible to the system as a whole.

Setting up some kind of careers board may seem like a potential solution but there are several issues (cost, liability, and verification just to mention a few) that make it prohibitive for associations to get into the job posting business. We have thought about it, but there is just no evidence that it would be of sufficient value to the majority of our members to make it worthwhile.

In the short term, the best we can say is, if you are a certified teacher looking for an online computer science teaching position with a virtual school, you can complete the Insight Schools application at:

https://edzapp.com/applicant/loginprivate.aspx?origincode=22748

or contact Carrie at

teachers@insightschools.net

And if you are not yet a CSTA member, contact me at:

cstephenson@csta.acm.org

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director, CSTA

Posted by cstephenson at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2008

Staff Development: 25 Tools for Education

While Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day is not purely about computer science education, I feel very strongly that good educational practices span disciplines and so it is one of the RSS feeds that Google reader automatically retrieves for me daily.

Jane recently blogged about a professional development program that she created, centered around her top 25 e-learning tools. I highly recommend going to the site and working through the activities for any of the tools you are unfamiliar with. Some of them, like Firefox, are things you probably already use, but Jane highlights some of the extra functionality of the browser as well as some useful extensions.

The tools are divided into categories including: Keep Yourself Up to Date, Manage Your Own Productivity, Set Up a Blog, Website and/or Wiki, Share Content with Others, Build Content and Share it with Others, Bring People Together, and Develop and Manage Courses.

To start a little discussion here please tell us what your favorite e-learning tool is (whether or not Jane agrees)? I use many of the things on her list and I think Google Reader has drastically improved my ability to find new and useful things as well as be aware of what is going on today in education. I used to have to go to 20-25 web pages first thing in the morning to see what the latest headlines were, who posted something new on blogs I read, and forget about trying to find new research as its published. Now with Google Reader, I go to one place and get EVERYTHING. It is separated by the feed (where it came from) so I can pick and choose what I want to read when I have time. It truly has changed the way I interact with the Internet on a daily basis.

No matter how small or how large leave a comment and share your favorite e-learning tool here.

Leigh Ann Sudol
CSTA Communications Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 02:40 PM | Comments (4)

March 25, 2008

Podcasts on GridWorld and Cyber Security

Over 1000 computer science educators gathered in Portland Oregon for the 2008 ACM SIGCSE conference. The 39th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education provided a wide selection of technical sessions and opportunities for teachers to network and to learn. The topics ranged from innovative strategies for increasing classroom diversity to hands-on techniques with applications and curriculum.

I love the excitement of SIGCSE, especially the opportunities to catch up with friends and the discovery of new and innovative teaching strategies. I managed to catch up with some of the presenters and participants who I thought you wouldd value hearing from.

Please listen in on the following CSTA Snipits podcasts.

A GridWorld Quickstart with Ann Shen
Medium: MP3
Listening Time: 9 min.
Interview Location: ACM SIGCSE 2008 Portland, Oregon
Interview Date: March 2008

Ann Shen, The Bishop Strachan School:
Case studies expose students to large programs, enabling them to understand the importance of design and good programming style while encouraging teamwork and active learning. The AP GridWorld case study provides a graphical environment in which students can experiment with different types of objects and observe how programming changes will affect the behavior of those objects. It is significant that the test results show a smaller score difference between males and females on the case study questions than non-case study questions. In our visit, Ann describes this learning tool, compares and contrasts it to the previous AP case study, and gives teachers suggestions for using it in their computer science classroom.

CyberCivics with Jeanna Matthews and James Owens
Medium: MP3
Listening Time: 8.5 min.
Interview Location: ACM SIGCSE 2008 Portland, Oregon
Interview Date: March 2008

Jeanna Matthews and James Owens, Clarkson University
CyberCivics was developed as a novel computer science outreach program, designed to introduce diverse groups of talented high school students to hands-on activities that reflect the myriad ways in which computing technologies directly impact their everyday lives. The cyberCivics program integrates hands-on computing experiences with the study of contemporary social and political issues. One such curriculum, focused on electronic voting and was used with a high school AP Government course. Jeanna Matthews and James Owens describe the philosophy behind this approach and give suggestions of how to implement in the classroom. They are pleased with how it reaches a larger, more diverse and more academically prepared group of students. The materials are available at:

www.clarkson.edu/projects/cybercivics.

Listen to these and many more Snipits podcasts at:

http://csta.acm.org/Resources/sub/Podcasts.html

Pat Phillips
Editor, CSTA Voice

Posted by cstephenson at 02:13 PM | Comments (1)

March 05, 2008

The Pros and Cons of Using Gaming to Teach CS

I have just returned from the Game Development in Computer Science Education (GDCSE) conference. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the 10 Electronic Arts Scholars. The conference was sponsored by Microsoft and Electronic Arts in cooperation with ACM and SIGCSE. It was an intense conference and I did learn some interesting things.

* The game industry is now larger than the music industry. It became larger than the movie industry about 4 years ago.
* Making a game can cost 30 million dollars and many years of development.
* There are many different types of games from 2D arcade-style games, to role playing games, to first person shooters, to web-based games, to movement games (like the Wii), to serious games that try to help people change their behavior.
* Game developers need to know about networking, artificial intelligence, machine learning, physics, parallel programming, and more. Games also need artistic and creative people who can create compelling and fun experiences.
* I was glad to see more women and minorities than I had expected, but still the majority of the attendees were white males.

Some of the ways people are using games in CS education:

* as a few assignments in introductory computing courses. Kelvin Sung
* as a context for early computing courses or AI courses. Wanda Dann, Alice Project, Douglas Blank
* as a platform for learning computing concepts by having the students play games Tiffany Barnes
* as a course on game design for non-majors to try to draw them into computing Dianna Xu, Jim Whitehead
* as a degree program centered on games Michael Zyda and DigiPen
* using the flight simulator 3D world as the basis to improve global STEM education David Gibson

Overall, many of the talks were about fairly new initiatives with little evaluation. Many of the talks expect to offer more results in the following year. Some of the results that I found interesting were:

* Students didn't like doing just the hard back-end of a game Kelvin Sung. They want to be creative and not just program. Kevin Bierre
* Some students were discouraged because creating games is much harder, time consuming, and more tedious than they thought. Women are much less likely to want to make first person shooter games than men. Dianna Xu
* Some students are highly motivated by the context and come early and have to be thrown out to make room for the next class. This context appeals more to men (80%) than to women (20%). Jim Whitehead

In summary, it seems that games can serve as a context for some computing courses. Games courses and degree programs can attract more students to computing courses. But, one concern is that women are not as attracted to this context as men. There was a call for the creation of a game platform that was easier to use for computing education purposes.

For more information on this conference see https://www.msadgd08.net/Main.aspx.

Barb Ericson
CSTA Board Member

Posted by cstephenson at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2008

Computing Life

Medical shows and Crime Scene investigations have sparked students imaginations. They imagine themselves as criminologists solving crimes and doctors saving lives, both rewarding and important careers with an expectation of job satisfaction.

Computer scientists often get to work in similar fields. In fact, much of the high tech equipment used by both doctors and criminologists was developed with the help of a computer scientist.

In my time here at Carnegie Mellon University as a visiting lecturer I have had the opportunity to see computer scientists work on robotic surgeons A Miniature Mobile Robot for Precise and Stable Access to the Beating Heart), and using human computation in order to help computers make more books available to more people through the Internet Archive recaptcha.

I recently came across a website called Computing Life published by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. This publication focuses on highlighting the ways in which scientists use computers to increase our understanding of the human body, medicine and a variety of other topics. Take a look! Go and talk to you science teacher about a collaborative project – what can you help your school's students model?

If you have any great resources, or any collaborative projects you have done along these lines, comment here and share!


Leigh Sudol
CSTA Communications Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2008

Clarifying the Dewar and Schonberg Article

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the article by Dewar and Schonberg

http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008/01/0801DewarSchonberg.html

claiming that:

"It is our view that Computer Science (CS) education is neglecting basic skills, in particular in the areas of programming and formal methods. We consider that the general adoption of Java as a first programming language is in part responsible for this decline."

In http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3722876 Dewar clarifies that it isn't Java that he blames so much as the "use of the Java's graphical libraries lets students cobble together code without understanding the underlying source code."

The only evidence of these claims is that they see a decrease in performance in their systems and architecture classes. They also have trouble recruiting qualified applicants who have the right foundational skills for their Ada programming company that develops mission critical software.

The biggest flaw in the article is the lack of evidence supporting the claims. How many people fail the systems and architecture classes now compared to when C++ or C was used as the introduction language? Is this a problem just at their schools or nationwide? If the introductory courses switched to Java and the follow on courses never changed to introduce concepts no longer covered in the introduction course (like pointers) then of course more people will fail. It is likely that using C or C++ in the intro course just caused more people to fail and quit after the first course instead of later. Perhaps the systems and architecture courses are being taught poorly. At Georgia Tech we found that student performance improved in low-level systems types courses when we used the context of programming for a game boy. Students today don't find low-level systems programming as interesting as they did 20 years ago, when computers weren't capable of much.

I am not surprised that they have trouble finding people who know Ada. It certainly peaked many years ago in terms of popularity. I also don't find it compelling that they want people to have more low level skills since the biggest growth is in jobs that have higher level skills (like software engineers).

One of the reasons Java is a popular language in industry is because you don't have to build everything from scratch. Good software engineers need to know how to reuse existing classes and how to design classes that can be reused. Why should students have to build their own graphics primitives instead of using the Java graphics classes? What learning do they miss out on by not doing this?

When I first took a 3D graphics course we had to develop the algorithm for drawing a line. As students we found this a boring and tedious task since even at that time all the graphics packages had algorithms for drawing a line. I very much doubt that this is required in current 3D graphics courses. Yet, the field of 3D graphics has made huge advances since then. In part we made advances in fields by not reinventing everything.

Dewar in particular claims that the introductory curriculum has been "dumbed down" to make it more fun and appealing. Again, what evidence does he give for this claim? He says that students are not learning formal methods for proving program correctness, but my understanding is that this field which was popular in the 80s has not had much success. He also claims that students don't have enough knowledge of floating point computation. Again, what proof does he give for the need for this? Students certainly need to be aware of the problems with floating point computation, but very few will go on to do mission critical low-level work.

Our research on learning computing in a context whether it be Media Computation, Matlab, or robotics has shown that it does improve student success and retention. We also have the evidence to back this up, not just at Georgia Tech, but at several other universities and colleges. Just because you make something fun or interesting doesn't mean you have "dumbed it down" or that students aren't learning what they need to in order to be successful in a career in computing.

Barb Ericson
CSTA Teacher Educaiton Representative

Posted by cstephenson at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2007

Proclaim Computer Science Day

Did you know that you can have your city's Mayor proclaim a day to celebrate computer science education?

This is exactly what CSTA Board member Brian Scarbeau did! And the city of Orlando, FL Mayor Buddy Dyer proudly proclaimed December 7th as Computer Science Education Celebration Day.

Brian picked December 7th in honor of the birthday of Grace Murray Hopper, in this way celebrating both the contribution of computer science education to the modern world and the contribution of women to computer science.

According to Brian, it is very easy to have a day proclaimed. You simply go to:

sws.lhps.org/computerscienceed

and scroll down to Download a Proclamation link and print that out and send it to your Mayor at least two months before the event to give them time to sign it and send it back to you.

Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director


Posted by cstephenson at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2007

Google's Open Source Contest

Like many savvy IT companies, Google has realized that when it comes to interesting students in computing, college is just too late. For this reason, Google has announced the Highly Open Participation Contest to help introduce secondary school and high school students to open source software development.

For the past three years college students have participated in Google Summer of Code (http://code.google.com/soc/) which has introduced hundreds of college students to open source software. The Google Highly Open Participation Contest, however, will be the first contest from Google's open source team exclusively for secondary school and high school students.

Students can now visit http://code.google.com/opensource to write code and documentation, prepare training materials, conduct user-experience research, and win prizes. Ten grand-prize winners will get the chance to visit the Googleplex in Mountain View, Ca.

Google will work with ten open source organizations (Apache Software Foundation, Drupal, GNOME, Joomla!, MoinMoin, Mono, Moodle, Plone, Python Software Foundation, and SilverStripe CMS) for this pilot effort, each of which will provide a list of tasks to be completed by the student participants. Tasks typically fall into the following categories: code, documentation, research, outreach, quality assurance, training, translation, and user interface.

The contest is open to students aged 13 and older who have not yet begun university studies. Contestants will be able to claim tasks until 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time on January 22, 2008. The grand-prize winners will be announced on February 11.

For more information, visit http://code.google.com

Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 11:15 AM | Comments (1)

November 14, 2007

Department of Education Resources

It is amazing what you can find when you troll the Internet for information on US Department of Education resources. Did you know that the US DOE keeps something called Federal Resources for Educational Excellence? Within that site there are links to useful content for teachers of all subjects (including computing).

The list of computing resources can be found here I recommend the Computing link and also the Cyberethics link for elementary and middle school teachers.

If you are a computing teacher in your district share this page with all of your teachers (no matter what the subject) for the resources that are available to them. You can also talk with your science teachers about collaborating on a project that is highlighted by some of the science and technology links available from the computing page.

Enjoy!

Leigh Ann Sudol
CSTA Communications Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2007

IES Practice Guide for Encouraging Girls in Math and Science

This past September the National Center for Education Research released a practice guide with five recommended strategies for encouraging girls in Math and Science. The report is research-based and includes a number of interesting facts from recent educational researchers as well as recommended strategies that can be easily applied in classrooms.

The practice guide states that "To encourage girls in math and science, we need to begin first with their beliefs about their abilities in these areas, second with sparking and maintaining greater interest in these topics, and finally with building associated skills." (pg. 8) The recommendations put forward by the practice guide are:

One of the most interesting recommendations to me, and probably the easiest to implement in the classroom is the idea of prescriptive, informational feedback. "Experimental work suggests that feedback given in the form of praise focused on global intelligence (e.g., 'you are smart') may have a negative impact on future learning behavior in comparison to praise about effort (e.g., 'you must have worked hard')."

I cannot count the number of times I have just said to students, "you are smart enough to do this" or "see, that was easy" rather than acknowledging the effort and work that they put into the project. Comments such as "I believe you can do this, you work hard enough" and "that wasn't too much work" (as opposed to easy) are now going to become part of my classroom praise for students.

If you get the chance I would highly recommend reading the practice guide. It is written for classroom teachers and does an excellent job of making recommendations you can use in your classes today. Even if you don't get the chance to read the guide, please share with us what you believe to be the most interesting idea from above or even something you might do in your classroom that aligns with the IES suggestions.

Leigh Ann Sudol
CSTA Communications Committee Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 01:54 PM | Comments (1)

October 25, 2007

Using Technology to Teach Computing

We all know that teaching computing involves instructional activities on the countless and varied aspects of technology. But how do you use technology to teach computing?

I know teachers who record all of their programming technique demonstrations so that students can revisit them as many times as they want. There are teachers who would be lost without the ability to communicate online with students and parents about assignments and class activities through any number of tools. Wikis and forums add depth and inclusion to classroom discussions when all students feel free to participate. The opportunities for teaching computing, or any course for that matter, with technology are endless.

We'd like to hear about and share with CSTA members your experiences in teaching computing with an effective technology tool or strategy. Please share your success stories here.

Pat Phillips
Editor, CSTA Voice

Posted by cstephenson at 01:54 PM | Comments (3)

October 05, 2007

What School Counselors Need to Know About CS

On September 12, 2007 Dr. Debra Richardson, Dean of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California at Irvine, addressed the University of California High School Counselors and provided the following very valuable information about why computer science is so important.

I want to talk to you this morning about the importance of computer science and information technology education for the next generation.

As you're all aware, everyone's life and work are touched by technology. Technological advances impact all disciplines, which requires interdisciplinary collaboration in research imperatives as well as in education. Interdisciplinary education is a real need for students venturing out into today's global industries.

I'm going to repeat a somewhat controversial quote, but it's something that is echoing the halls of higher education today: Computing and information "is the liberal arts education of the 21st century - the skill that can be universally applied across domains to help solve the toughest scientific, economic and social problems. Nurturing and energizing the next generation of liberal arts specialists will bring about new dreams and new discoveries."

It was Dan Reed, Director of the Renaissance Computing Institute who I first heard say this, and it's just so true. Today's college graduates simply can't call themselves properly educated for the 21st century if they don't have appropriate fluency in computing and information technology.

The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences prides itself on delivering an interdisciplinary education focused on computing and information technology and how it affects the other disciplines. Our research emphasizes how technological advances improve quality of life and foster economic competitiveness, and this extends to the curriculum we deliver. Today's global industry has become more dependent on students having a multi-disciplinary skill set, and all of our majors target that mix.

Undergraduate work in CS/IT prepares students for a broad range of careers (such as business consulting, software development, systems analysis and administration, and even teaching) and also to attend professional or graduate school.

Now some of you may be saying, "I can't send my students to computer science, there are no jobs." Yet, contrary to the off-shoring hype, the job market in CS/IT is seeing an upward trend. The design and innovation jobs remain here in the U.S. and that's what we train our students for. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor projects that five of the ten fastest growing occupations for college graduates are in the CS/IT sector with over 2 million new jobs in the this sector expected by 2014.

The CS/IT discipline appreciates, seeks out and is made stronger by diversity - diversity of experiences and perspectives, and in gender and ethnicity.

As counselors, you are in a unique position to encourage young people to explore their interests and talents for CS/IT study. Send us your high-achieving students, with or without previous exposure to the field, who are driven by analytical challenges, are creative and design-oriented, and enjoy working with others on team-based problem-solving.

As counselors, you are able to help identify curriculum needs and changes at your high schools that will help increase your students' exposure to and strengthen their skill set with CS and IT concepts.

As counselors, you belong to an important collective of UC partners who are helping tomorrow's educators, doctors, business professionals, leaders and informed citizens to find the path, setting and method that best fit their interests, aptitudes, educational and career goals.

Debra Richardson

Posted by cstephenson at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2007

Is Summer Almost Over Already?

The end of summer always sneaks up on us too quickly. It seems that one minute we are enjoying quality times with our family and friends without having to worry about the pile of papers waiting on the dining room table to be graded before going to bed, and the next minute, a certain office supply store starts running a commercial with a man dancing in the isles to Christmas music while his children sadly pick out school supplies.

One of my favorite parts about the summer is meeting new teachers at conferences and workshops and learning something new. I would like to take a moment and share with you some great resources I learned about this summer, and I hope after reading this post you will do the same and perhaps add a comment here (no need to register, sign up or otherwise open yourself to spam – just click comment below – I swear its easy!).

To begin with, CSTA just launched a new resource called the Source web repository. The Source is a searchable database of lessons, activities, and other useful materials for the computing teacher. (yes computing – thats right! Level 1 of the curriculum standards is nicely aligned with the NETS standards so even elementary and middle school computing teachers should be able to find information as more lessons get added!) We are adding new resources daily so check back with this blog to find highlights of new activities from time to time. You can reach the Source web repository either directly at http://csta.villanova.edu or through the link on the left hand side of the main CSTA web page.

Google has also made the Computer Science Unplugged materials available free for download at http://www.google.com/educators/activities.html. I strongly suggest that you check out the main google for educators site as there are a lot of interesting things there for classrooms of all types and ages.

Well, I hope that you found my links useful, now how about one of your own? It could be your personal web page if you have some nifty lessons, it could be a site you visit often for information, or it could just be an activity or an idea that you use in your classrooms that you think others might find useful. Don't be shy! And thanks in advance for your contributions.

Leigh Ann Sudol
CSTA Publications Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 12:59 PM | Comments (7)

July 15, 2007

Great Resource for AP Computer Science Teachers

Debbie Carter who teaches AP Computer Science at Lancaster Country Day School in Lancaster, PA has put together an excellent resource book for AP Computer Science Teachers. You can get the book at AP Central. I've worked with Debbie as a member of the now defunct Microsoft Faculty Advisory Board and presently as a Board Member for the Computer Science Teachers Association.

The book contains information that will help both a beginner teacher and veteran teachers as well. It has five chapters and the first chapter reviews the history of AP Computer Science along with a course description and review of key concepts and skills that must be covered during the school year with our students.

One thing that I liked from the start is that Debbie went out to the AP Computer Science community of teachers and asked them for input on different topics covered in the book. I recognized familiar names that I've met in the past at workshops in the book.

Chapter 2 was advice for AP Computer Science Teachers. What is hard for many of us teaching the course is that we are the only teacher in our school teaching the course and it does get lonely when we run into a problem and may need some help. The advice given was very good and I've been pretty good at figuring out what I need to teach in the curriculum but what has been tough in the 11 years that I've taught the course are the many changes that have been made to the curriculum. I started teaching PASCAL to my students and then C++ and now JAVA. I've adapted to these changes and my students have benefited by their successes at learning the material and passing the AP exam with a good score.

Chapter 3 is about course organization. Several sample syllabi are listed for teachers to use in their course. The only problem is that the case study that we need to teach our students has changed and the syllabi don't reflect that change but any teacher can include that into the syllabus.

Chapter 4 discusses the exam and the format. A teacher really needs to know how students are graded on this exam because it may be different from how they grade their own exams. Exam preparation is the key to student successes and there are many exam review books teachers can use with their students to prepare.

The last chapter has many resources for teachers to use. There are many things teachers can do to help teach the class and one I would strongly recommend is professional development.
There are two appendices at the back of the book that reviews the new case study and have supplemental documents.

If you are a new teacher, I would suggest getting help early in your teaching so you don't get too frustrated. There are many of us to help!
Good luck!

Brian Scarbeau
CSTA Board of Directors

Posted by cstephenson at 12:35 PM | Comments (4)

July 12, 2007

Keeping Up with Websites

One of the common problems that teachers indicate is a lack of time during the day to keep up with various different web sites and news feeds in order to deal with the constant flow of information. Wouldn't it be easier if it could all come to one place?

RSS or Real Simple Syndication is a way for you to read various different web sites all in one place. Most email clients and web browsers now support this technology. But even then you are bombarded with information if you sign up for a lot of feeds, and have to open up a separate part of your web browser or email client in order to read the news. If you already use RSS I would strongly encourage you to include the CSTA blog as one of your RSS feeds (see the link over to the right). If you are not an RSS user you can have blog posts delivered to your email through a service called RSSfwd. This service does not require you to register or sign up, simply enter the URL of the site you wish to subscribe to and your email address. You will then recieve an email any time a new blog post is updated.

Although you still need to come to the CSTA blog website in order to post comments, using an RSS feeder or a service that will send you the RSS in your email can help cut down on the number of places you need to visit in order to gather information for your classroom. Please come and comment on issues that matter to you. For this post if you have any other RSS feeds that you read often and find useful as a CS teacher please let us know and post a comment!

Leigh Ann Sudol
Communications Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

July 02, 2007

Our Graying Population

Yesterday I attended the Computer Science & Information Technology Symposium that was held at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. For the past several years, I've been a speaker at this event and this was the second time that I've attended as a registrant.

I always look forward to this event because it gives me a chance to see some old friends and to meet new friends as well. In addition, it helps me learn new ways to teach computer science education. I attended sessions on robotics, the Grid World Case Study, programming with Alice, and on XNA. The Computer Science Teachers Association sponsored the event along with the support of Microsoft Corporation.

One quick observation that I made as I looked around the ballroom at the keynote sessions was that there are no young computer science teachers in the group that attended. In fact, the youngest that I saw in the crowd were Microsoft employees.

I've talked to several computer science teachers in past years who have retired and have told me that their school could not hire another teacher to replace them and that they don't teach computer science at that school anymore. How sad for all those students who have the desire to learn about computer science education.

Much has been advertised about the lack of IT workers in the workforce and I was thinking yesterday about the future if there are no qualified computer science educators to teach our students in private and public schools.

Sure, there are industry professionals who have made the leap from industry to the classroom successfully but there are many that don't too. I was talking to Linda Hayes who I've worked with on the Board of Directors at the Florida Computer Science Teachers Association and she told me that Kennesaw State University in Georgia where she now works has a program to help new computer science teachers who have worked in industry. According to Alfred Thompson who works in Academic Relations for Microsoft Corporation, Kennesaw has the only program that does this. I asked Alfred if there are any colleges/universities that are training college students on how to be a computer science teacher and he wasn't aware of any.

Teaching computer science to students is very rewarding. I've been doing it for over 20 years. I left teaching after receiving my advanced degree to work in industry and I went back to teaching after a couple of years of working as Director of Education for a trade association and as a Systems Manager for a large CPA firm. High school students are a great deal of fun to be around I guess.

As a newly elected Board Member to the Computer Science Teachers Association I will do my part in trying to promote professionals to go into teaching. As a professional, try to even mentor a high school student as a start. Contact your local high school to see what you can do to promote computer science education.

Some day, you might experience the fun that I have working with teenagers.

Brian Scarbeau
CSTA 9-12 Teacher Representative

Posted by cstephenson at 01:50 PM | Comments (2)

April 27, 2007

New information on Salaries

Note:
We do not usually run entire articles, but this one, from the University of North Carolina student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel was so informative and well written, we decided to break with tradition.
Our thanks to Tar Hell Asistant Unviersity Editor Whitney Kisling.

Computer science, business grads snag highest average salaries
By: Meghan E. Woods, Staff Writer
Posted: 4/26/07

If money talks, then computer science and business majors at UNC are listening loud and clear.

According to the annual First Destination Survey released by University Career Services, May 2006 graduates with a degree in computer science had the highest annual mean salary at $60,000. Graduates with a degree in business administration were next on the list with an average salary of $47,534.

"We didn't really see anything eye-popping about the numbers," said Tim Stiles, associate director of UCS. "The numbers are pretty true when you look at the national averages. People coming out with business, engineering and computer science degrees usually have high salaries."

The survey is an accumulation of responses from 532 May graduates about their employment status, salary, and post-graduation activities.

The average annual salary for all graduates was $38,038, which Stiles said was good considering how the economy has been in recent years.

"I think we saw an improvement with the 2006 class," Stiles said. "We're coming out of that trough where we got stuck after 9/11 for a while. We're seeing major college employers coming back and more jobs."

The survey has been conducted for the past 21 years, Stiles said. UCS collects data on post-graduation plans from students in June, September, November and December of their senior year.

Postcards are sent to students' parents to see if there has been a change in the students' contact information. UCS also collects data from employers, particularly employers who recruit on campus.

In the surveys, seniors are asked about their employment status, salary, further education, job satisfaction and location.

Stiles said the survey's findings are usually consistent.

"When you look at the percentage of students who are employed, it's usually in the 60 to 65 percent range, and this year it was 64.4," he said. "The percent satisfied is usually in the 80 to 90 range, and that was pretty true for this year. People are getting jobs and taking jobs that they want."

More than 140 business administration graduates participated in the survey, compared to only four computer science majors. Although few computer science majors participated in the study, Stiles said they still have higher average salaries.

"Just looking at the national survey, there were 128 computer science majors and their average salary was $52,177," he said. "You just have to look at the number of comp-sci majors graduating; it's not that huge."

The salaries of computer science majors might be high, but Jan Prins, chairman of the computer science department, said he has not seen a big change in the number of computer science majors.

"It's going up a little bit," he said. "But money is not our main selling point. We instill in our students that computing is part of every aspect of modern life."

Prins said the high salaries of computer science graduates at UNC is partly attributable to the way the curriculum is designed.

"Our particular major has high entry and high exit requirements," he said. "So in general, we graduate strong students."

Posted by cstephenson at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2007

You Mean CS Isn't Always About Building a Better Algorithm?

One of the things I try to do for my students is to give them a chance to play with some of the really cool research that is going on in computer science. While algorithms are an important part of what's happening, many computer scientists are focusing more on the integration of their discoveries into larger applications, as well as those applications themselves.

Today I went to a lecture given by Takeo Igarashi. Igarashi is a recipient of both Carnegie Mellon University's Katayanagi prize and the ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher award for his contributions to computer graphics. His ideas are based in not making more complex graphics, but the interaction with the human during a "rough sketching" process.

I highly recommend checking out his website and playing with the tools that are available.

I also recommend that you look for things like this for your students to. While it is true that students have to learn the basics first (the need to understand simple things like decision and looping structures and basic principals of object oriented programming and design) it doesn't hurt to show them some of the problems that "real" computer scientists are working on.

Not how to search for a name in a phone book. Foundations are exceedingly important, and we need to learn how to mix the batter before we can bake and eat the cake, but don't you prefer the cookbooks that show you a picture of the finished cake?

Carnegie Mellon posts videos of these lectures on line and they can be found through links off the main

Leigh Ann Sudol
Communications Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2007

Working Together or Falling Apart

Sometimes, it really is true that a crisis can bring out the best in both people and institutions and our current enrollment crisis in computer science is prompting a new spirit of cooperation between university and high school computer science educators.

A good example can be seen at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (a CSTA Instutitonal member) where the commitment to revitalizing the connection between K-12 and universities goes right to the top.

In a recent web posting , Anthony Skjellum, Chair of the Computer and Information Science Department declared his department's intention of helping to revitalize computer science education in the state's 480 high schools.

Skjellum also makes it very clear that his reasons for doing so go beyond the desire to simply increase enrollment.

"Why? Because the national trend away from Computer Science education at the pre-college level and the substantial decrease in Computer Science undergraduates in the USA since 2000 are bad for the US economy, competitiveness, and future. Computer Science is a vital career path for students in America, and Alabamians stand to gain hugely from first class education in our field."

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is not the only university reaching out to high schools. I personally know of terrific programs at Indiana University, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Illinois, and Colorado School of Mines. And I am sure there are more out there (let us know if you have a program teachers in your area should know about).

All of these outreach efforts are important because the issues that need to be addressed are complex and require the attention and commitment of all levels of the education system. This really is a time where we either work together or all fall apart.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2007

Robin Raskin's Blog Posting On K-12 CS

The release this week of the American Innovation Proclamation is raising interesting questions about our current education system and whether it provides the kinds of knowledge and skills students need to drive innovation in the digital age.

This week I had the opportunity to talk to Robin Raskin of Yahoo Tech about the link between supporting computer science in K-12 education and addressing the critical drop in the computer science pipeline.

Today, Robin posted a thoughtful piece about this issue on her blog.

I strongly encourage you to check it out and to participate in this important discussion.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2007

Taking Advantage of the Chance to Ask Bill

I received a great email this morning from Brian Scarbeau, a computer science teacher at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando Florida, telling me about his recent encounter with Microsoft head Bill Gates.

Brian is a great person, a wonderful volunteer, and a tireless advocate for K-12 computer science education. He has presented sessions at our annual Computer Science and Information Technology Symposia, helped on CSTA projects, and even convinced the City of Orlando to officially proclaim December 8th (Grace Murray Hopper's birthday) as as Computer Science Education Celebration Day. He is also currently running for the CSTA Board of Directors.

This week Brian attended the Microsoft VIP Summit, which included a presentation by Bill Gates, followed by a question and answer session. Brian took advantage of this opportunity to talk to Gates about the importance of Microsoft's support for a number of key computer science education projects and elicited Gate's promise to look into some funding cuts that Brian believed appeared to indicate Microsoft's dwindling support for K-12 computer science education.

This encounter is a perfect example of how teachers can be great advocates. Not everyone has the chance to talk to a Bill Gates, but we all can talk to parents, principals, school administrators, and our state and federal representatives about the importance of supporting K-12 computer science education.

What we do is important. Computer science is the heartbeat of innovation, it is that science of science, and it is the career of the future. We need to take advantage of every opportunity to let people know.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2007

CS Student Podcasts Great Classroom Tool

Women university students studying computer science are now making the most of their media savvy to provide information and resources to other students interested in computing, and providing a cool new resource for computer science teachers.

Students at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania have created a series of computer science podcasts on topics such as genetic algorithms, zip code encoding, encryption, searching and sorting in MySpace, and my personal favorite, malware.

The podcasts are all part of the "Where is the Software" series, feature student-delivered mini-tutorials on interesting computer science concepts and run from about seven to fifteen minutes.

The production team of Sara Joseph, Charmagne McKinney, Logan Kennedy, Elizabeth Jones, Natasha Gunasekara and Tina Bledsoe who are part of the WiCS (Women in Computer Science) group at their university, originally envisioned the podcasts as a way to reach out to local high school girls to help them see computer science as both interesting and challenging.

These podcasts, however, also make great mini-tutorials that you can use in the classroom to highlight concepts that you may be covering in class or to give students a better idea of the breadth of the computing disciplines.

You can access the podcasts at:

http://whereisthesoftware.podshow.com

The students say that they are planning to produce a new podcast every month.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 07:29 PM | Comments (1)

February 09, 2007

Girl Scout Outreach for CS

When I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a Boy Scout because
they got to go camping and build stuff. We got to make "campfires"
out of celery sticks and marshmallows. That's why I'm so excited to
see this article in the Daily Texan about efforts by
the Girl Scouts to interest and inform girls about science and
technology through hands-on experiences.

Computer science isn't offered at so many schools that I think
popular non-school entities picking up the slack can only help. If we
want our population to understand our discipline and be able to make
informed decisions about things like funding (never mind filling jobs
in the many awesome careers out there) they need as many
opportunities as possible to learn how fun and interesting it is and
what it is about. The Girl Scouts also have a fun website at GirlsGoTech.org.

I'm sure the Texas Girl Scouts aren't the only ones with a program
like The EDGE. One of our local troops has had our librarian in to
talk about internet safety. I'm excited to see computer scientists
reaching out to kids. I wonder what else is out there?

Michelle Hutton
CSTA Vice President

Posted by cstephenson at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2006

When the Worst of Times is the Best of Times

At the risk of looking a little too hard for that silver lining in the big black cloud, I am beginning to think that some very good things might come out of the current bust in computer science education.

If you have been living on another planet for a while, you might not be aware that there is a crisis in computer science enrollment in university and college computer science courses across the country. Current research indicates that enrollment in postsecondary courses has dropped by 40% with some suggesting that the drop in applications to these programs may be down by as much as 60%.

These figures are worrying for a number of reasons. Prestigious programs that have traditionally attracted far more applicants than they can accept, now have a smaller body of well-qualified students from which to choose. Many middle-sized computer science programs have had to reduce the number of students they admit (fewer students in each class, but also fewer courses, and less revenue for the department). And at some small colleges, computer science is at risk of disappearing all together. Of course, these are just the short-term problems.

In this increasingly technology-based and globalized economy, long-term failure to produce enough qualified workers is a sure path to the economic backwaters. Few realize that computer science is not just the backbone of technological innovation. It is the engine that keeps every single industry up and running. Try to imagine the drug companies, the hospitals, the banks, the insurance companies, even education, without skilled computing professionals.

So why on earth is this a good thing? These same dropping enrollments are engendering discussions that are long overdue. In the light of diminishing student interest in computer science, computer science educators have finally begun focusing on our failure to teach computer science in a way that engages all students.

In a recent issue of the ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Inroads (Vol. 38. No. 4), Lisa Kaczmarczyk muses that the very ubiquity of computing may be the greatest problem facing computing education. "Computing studies do not appear cutting edge to the majority of students and the public - not in a way that appeals to their passions."

Computing education she argues, needs to be reenergized. "The world of possibilities beyond the external, beyond the metal box and blinking screen, is what we need to instill in the public and in our students. It has to happen in every class that we teach, so that our students become entranced with the potential of computing."

Kaczmarczyk then poses three important questions for educators.
* What course do you teach?
* Can you make it truly interdisciplinary? (No exceptions, no excuses, no hall pass.)
* How are you exciting your students to become more passionate about computing?

These are core questions and it is very exciting to find that more and more educators are raising them, in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities.

Dropping enrollments are providing a powerful and long-overdue incentive for reenvisioning computer science education.

At CSTA, we have just released a second edition of the ACM Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science with a new foreword that explores how a number of different educators are creating new instructional practices to make our discipline more relevant and engaging to today's students.

What are you doing in your school?


Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 04:03 PM | Comments (1)

October 16, 2006

CS Prepares Students for Workplace Success

CSTA member Greg Lampard from Cherrie Hills Christian School sent me a copy of the recent report published by the Conference Board and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills entitled Are they Really Ready to Work: Employers’ Perspectives on Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce.

The report focuses on the skills considered important for success in the workplace. The good news is that all of the employers surveyed agreed that Information Technology Application Skills (with an emphasis on using the correct tools for problem-solving) were very important. The bad news is that high school graduates received only an "adequate" rating on three very important skills: Information Technology Application, Diversity, and Teamwork/Collaboration.

I find this very interesting for two reasons. The first is the extent to which studying computer science in high school supports the acquisition of these three key skills. At its foundation, the study of computer science is the study of problem solving and the selection of appropriate technological tools to solve real-world problems. The second is that computer science educators in K-12 are increasingly using project-based learning to ensure that students learn to plan appropriately, work cooperatively, communicate effectively, and manage time wisely, thus improving the likelihood that their students will be better prepared for today's work world.

What I find especially disturbing, however, is that if current trends continue, it will take very little time for this barely acceptable "adequate" rating to slip to "inadequate". The sad reality is that computer science is increasingly under pressure in K-12 and very much in danger of disappearing altogether.

As far as we can tell, this is happening for four reasons.

1. Schools are increasing the number of mandatory courses that students must take, and because computer science is an elective course, students simply cannot fit it into their schedules.
2. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary (the Bureau of Labor Statistics), students and their parents believe that there are no opportunities for jobs in computing.
3. Schools attempting to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation are pulling computer science teachers out of the computing classrooms so that they can teach remedial math and either replacing them with inexperienced teachers or not replacing them at all.
4. There are far too many misguided school officials who have no idea what computer science is, and so mistakenly assume that it lacks the rigor of current math or science courses.

CSTA is working on all of these issues. We are producing policy and briefing documents for school administrators and policy makers. We are developing new sources of careers information and making them available to teachers, school counselors, and students. And we are working with industry folks to help them understand that if students are to graduate with the skills that will make them ready for the workforce, they have to have the opportunity to acquire these skills as part of their K-12 education.

If the authors and organizations behind this report are serious about improving students' preparedness to meet the needs of this globalized 21st Century economy, they need to begin convincing schools that canceling classes in the one discipline that can guarantee that students will acquire these skills is a very bad business indeed.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 04:03 PM | Comments (1)

September 20, 2006

Including Guidance Counselors In the Mix

It seems that colleges and universities are starting to address the problem of declining enrollments in computer science by reaching beyond the traditional pool of high school computing teachers.

I recently received a flyer from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken NJ announcing an event they call "Tomorrow's Information Technology Leaders". This workshop is geared towards educators in the NY/NJ metropolitan area (although eastern Pennsylvania is also close enough to attend). The day contains a keynote by the CIO of IBM Research (talking about industry's needs) with breakout sessions geared specifically towards CS teachers and guidance counselors. Yes, that's right, guidance counselors. I was so excited to see that part of the program was for them that I ran right to the copy machine and then to the guidance department in order to recruit at least one of our counselors to come with me to the event.

Guidance counselors are incredibly important partners in the challenge of informing students about the opportunities that computing provides and its relation to other key academic disciplines and careers. High School students are surrounded by so many pressures and are pulled in so many directions that sometimes it is difficult for them to see appreciate how truly universal computer science is and the breadth of opportunities it provides. Informed guidance counselors can help attract students to our courses simply by including CS in their discussions with students.

If you are in the area, I would strongly recommend that you check out www.stevens.edu/undergrad/it for details of the Steven's event and consider registering. Even better, convince one or two of your guidance counselors this day would benefit them as well. If you need to, you can entice them with the idea of a free lunch.

Leigh Ann Sudol
Publications Chair

Posted by cstephenson at 03:51 PM | Comments (1)

July 14, 2006

Computer Science & Information Technology Symposium

There was something about this year's Computer Science and Information Technology Symposium that made it feel really special but I cannot seem to put my finger on exactly what that was.

We have been doing the Symposium now for six years. Each year a dedicated group of fabulous volunteers gets together, and with help from our project manager, spends a whole year putting together a full day of professional development specifically designed for K-12 computer science and information technology teachers in conjunction with a national educational technology conference and each year, the Programming Planning Committee strives to outdo the results of the previous year.

There were definitely some changes this year though. First, the committee decided to provide more opportunities to allow teachers to choose the sessions that would best meet their needs. The number of breakout sessions was increased from three to four and an extra session was added to each breakout timeslot so that teachers had more choices per breakout. We also added a new two-part hands-on sessions on programming in .Net and another on wikis. The other important thing about the sessions this year is that the increased number of slots allowed us to create a better balance between CS and IT offerings.

Because presentations at CSIT are invitation only, the quality tends to be high, but several people have told us that this year they were outstanding. Ellen Spertus (sexiest geek alive) started the day off with a thoughtful and engaging presentation on the future of computer science education. Kevin Schofield (VP of Microsoft Research) gave us a wide-ranging and inspiring look at how computing is changing the world in key areas such as AIDS research. Jane Margolis also talked about her latest research focusing on encouraging more young women and minority students to study computing.

Another great thing about this year's symposium is that this time we had a whole team from Microsoft in attendance, giving presentations, attending sessions, and just talking to teachers about what teachers and students want and need.

If you did not get a chance to be there, you can still benefit from the Symposium by downloading the presentations available on the CSIT2006 website. Just go to the agenda and click on the session title (there are still a few late submissions to be added).

The even better news is that you can start making your plans to attend next year! Microsoft has already generously agreed to sponsor us for another Computer Science and Information Technology Symposium next year in Atlanta in conjunction with NECC! We hope to see you there.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 07:33 PM | Comments (2)

June 16, 2006

Equity Shmekwity

Sometimes I really wonder what people are thinking.

Last week I was having a great time going through the data from the CSTA Member Satisfaction Survey when I saw a comment that rocked me back on my heels. It said "NO MORE "EQUITY" ARTICLES!!! Its time to move on and focus on important issues."

I was astounded. This was clearly someone who cares passionately about computer science education, someone who understands that it is important. Why would she or he not care that young women and minority students are rejecting our discipline en mass. Why would it not matter to this person, just in terms of his or her own job security, that a huge portion of the population believes there is no place in this discipline for them?

I am not going to repeat all of the statistics here. We all know that fewer women and non-Asian minority students write the computer science AP exam than write any other science AP. We all know that women are still highly underrepresented in computer science departments and in industry. And we all know that the gap between the numbers of skilled IT workers we are producing, and the number we need is continuing to grow to an extent that major industry players are starting to worry about this very publicly.

So what is it that has this person all riled up? Is it that she or he really thinks that equity doesn't matter? Is it because he or she believes that computing is, and should always be, a boy's game? Or is it that this person has just reached what I call "misery overload" (that state when you just cannot stand to hear about a problem anymore because you don't believe that you can do anything about it)?

Believe it or not, this last possibility bothers me the most. As educators, we are incredibly powerful in terms of our influence over students. The day you stop believing in your ability and responsibility to engage and enlighten all students, regardless of their race or gender, is the day you should shut down the computer and walk out of the classroom. That is how I feel.

But what do you think? Should CSTA be doing equity work (it is certainly not the only thing we do, but we think it is important) or do you really not care?

I am puzzled and would very much like to know how you see this issue.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 06:23 PM | Comments (2)

April 24, 2006

Looking Beyond the Sciences

The current focus on national competitiveness issues has done much to raise the level of discussion about the ways in which computing expertise is driving innovation in the new combinatorial sciences. Very little, however, is said about how computing can continue to drive new discoveries in the humanities.

In his recent speech about national competitiveness, President Bush pointed to supercomputing and nanotechnology as examples of computing-related innovations that are contributing to advancements across the sciences.

Genetic engineering and biomedical engineering clearly stand as primary examples of the important contribution that computing is making to innovations in science. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any major new scientific or medical breakthrough that did not involve the critical use of computing technology at some phase of the development and testing of new processes, compounds, medications, or equipment.

In a recent article in the Communications of the ACM (April 2006, Vol. 49(4)), however, Argamon and Olsen point to the potential for computing to revolutionize the humanities. In specific, they refer to the ways in which computer scientists can provide critical knowledge that will allow the new generation of knowledge browsers to make more effective use of digital libraries. Computer scientists, they argue, can work with humanities scholars to develop new query interfaces that would represent, not just words, but meanings in context.

Other areas of social research are also being enriched by computing. One of the big topics at the first annual Qualitative Inquiry Conference, for example, was how computer software can be used to support the collection, organization, and analysis of data in qualitative research. These researchers, who are often on the cutting edge of social research, are embracing the tools that will help them discover patterns that provide answers about the most complex issues of our lives, communities, and societies.

To often, when asked about why students should study computing, I find myself drifting into answers about opportunities to make important contributions in the sciences, but Argamon and Oslen have given me an important reminder about the importance of recognizing the potential role of computing across the full spectrum of human existence.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2006

Working With Reporters

I have spent the last three days talking to reporters from the business and educational press about the new resources we created with IBM and it has been a really interesting experience!

Just to give you a little background, we began this project last Spring with funding from the IBM Foundation. IBM is very concerned about the dropping enrollment in computer science and when they asked CSTA what teachers needed most, we told them: "Good, classroom-relevant teaching and learning resources designed by people who have actually taught in K-12." And so IBM not only gave us funding to create three new resources, they contributed three people for our team of six curriculum specialists.

The team met for four very intensive days this past August, where they reviewed an extensive collection of existing resources, chose three they wanted to create, and designed and developed them. After an intensive team critique of each resource (which led to a number of revisions) the resources were pilot tested in actual classrooms. More enhancements were then made based on teacher and student feedback.

As part of the roll-out for these resources, I have spoken to many reporters in the last three days, and I have learned three really intriguing things from them.

1. The crisis in computer science is finally becoming big news. Both the trade reporters and the education reporters know that there is a connection between K-12 computer science education and the high tech industry, and between the health of the high tech industries and national economic survival in the new global economy.
2. Reporters are really surprised to hear that people think there are no jobs in computer science.
3. Reporters are pretty sophisticated people and they understand the difference between doing something because it is the right thing to do and doing something to sell a specific piece of hardware or software to schools. What really interested them about this project was that nothing we created was tied to an IBM technology. It was about supporting K-12 computer science education, not pushing product.

So here's to reporters who write stories about the importance of K-12 computer science education.

Here's to IBM, for caring, for getting it, for helping us do something good and useful for teachers, and for being a great corporate partner!

And here's to our new resources:

Project-Based Learning Module
This learning module provides teachers with an overview of Project-Based Learning (PBL) and is intended for use as a professional development resource. It includes two Powerpoint presentations, each offering a slightly different approach to the topic, and several additional documents and resources that include reflections, sample worksheets and templates, and links to additional readings and project samples.

Web Site Design Learning Module
This learning module introduces students to the principles of web site design and includes a series of four lesson plans and student activities handouts. It is intended for students with a level 1 or 2 basic understanding of the Web.

OO Design Using Pong Learning Module
This learning module features an object-oriented implementation of the classic video game, Pong. Students will design and implement Pong using object-oriented programming concepts. This resource is intended for use by beginning Java programmers, but includes suggestions for enhanced learning for more experienced students. Teachers should have experience working with an object-oriented Java program using multiple classes, such as College Board’s Advanced Placement Marine Biology Case Study.

You can now download each or all of them directly from the Recommended Resources section the CSTA website or from the IBM Academic Initiative website.

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2006

Support Your Local Teachers

Since our keynote address at SIGCSE in Houston last month, Chris and I have had an influx of people -- both at the K-12 and at the post-secondary level -- contact us to find out how they can best help CSTA and its mission to strengthen K-12 computer science education.

As we pointed out in our talk, one of the biggest problems facing K-12 computer science teachers is that they are typically a "department of one" in their schools. They have no community of colleagues with whom to share ideas. They feel that they are the lone voice for computer science in not only their schools, but often in their districts as well.

If you are a college or university educator, here's one way you can help out your colleagues in K-12. Get in touch with the computer science teachers at your local schools. Invite them to an evening get-together where they can meet their fellow teachers in computer science.

When planning a local meeting, here are some ideas to help get you started:

1) Keep the meeting short. K-12 teachers are extremely busy people. After they go home, they'll probably spend an hour or two grading papers or preparing for the next day's classes. Use their time wisely. A good meeting will last about an hour, ninety minutes maximum.

2) Have some sort of presentation. This doesn't need to be long (thirty minutes tops) or even extremely formal (but it should be prepared in advance rather than off-the-cuff). For example, you might share a nifty assignment or an interesting teaching technique, tour the university computer science research lab, or demo some captivating samples of student work. As your meetings progress over the year, get everyone involved and let the ideas flow from *within* your community!

3) Allow time for everyone to get to know each other. While you should spend a couple of minutes on formal introductions, the vast majority of this time should allow for people to network and just chat. It's also good to have some of this informal time at both the beginning and end of the meeting (the time at the beginning accommodates those late arrivers who get stuck in traffic; the time at the end allows for discussion of the presentation).

4) Provide food! Not only is it a good attendance motivator and helps to relax people, but it also provides dinner for those busy, busy teachers (see #1 above).

Let us know how CSTA can help you facilitate this process. Strengthening our interactions as a community of computer science educators will not only benefit all of us individually, but will improve computer science education as a whole.

Finally, write and share your stories! Your successes will inspire others.

Robb Cutler
Chair, CSTA

P.S. And if you're a K-12 teacher reading this, contact a computer science professor at your local college or university. Tell them about this article and ask them to help!

Posted by cstephenson at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)

January 27, 2006

Cisco Supports Program to Provide IT Careers Information

On Thursday, February 2nd, Junior Achievement and the U.S. Department of Education will kick off National Job Shadow Day 2006 and Cisco is planning a major effort to provide important information about the wide variety of opportunities available in the IT industry.

Cisco Systems is hosting a series of Groundhog Job Shadow Day events across the United States to help young people learn about career opportunities in IT and more than 3,000 students will participate in actvities hosted on Cisco and Cisco Networking Academy campuses.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy is expected to add 1.5 million computer and information related jobs by 2012, while the country will have only half that many qualified graduates. The growing demand for IT staffing has prompted industry leaders to take proactive measures to ensure a talent pool of IT proficient candidates who are ready to contribute to the global economy.

Cisco kicks off its Job Shadow Day on February 2, in five key sites across the country. Participating cities include Chicago, Atlanta, San Jose, and Raleigh. This is Cisco's fifth year participating in Groundhog Job Shadow Day. The company's goal this year is to host students at more than 100 sites across the United States colleges and high schools participating in the Networking Academy program.

If you would like more information about this program, contact Mike Kelly at michael@nadelphelan.com or call (831) 440-2403.

Posted by cstephenson at 06:36 PM | Comments (1)

January 24, 2006

CS Underwater

Yesterday's GW Hatchet, an independent student newspaper serving The George Washington University community in downtown Washington, D.C. carried an interesting article about the link between the university's Computer Science Department and the U.S. Olympic swim team.

Author Leah Carliner describes an application developed by Professor James Hahn, Chair of the Computer Science Department and graduate students Samir Roy and Jean Honorio that captures a swimmer's movement underwater in three dimensions. This application allows swimmers and their coaches to observe every motion made underwater in order to improve strokes.

While it is not long on technical details, this article provides a nice link between computer science research and practical applications in the real world that might be of interest to students.

Making the connection between impending Olympic fever and computer science may be a good way to demonstrate that there is more to computer science than videogames.

Check out Carliner's article and let us know what you think!

Chris Stephenson
Executive Director

Posted by cstephenson at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)