One such change, that quickly made its way around the computing community, was a rethinking about how the Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate (CISE) at the National Science Foundation approaches education and workforce programs. More specifically, CISE staff announced that it was combining the Pathways to Revitalized Undergraduate Computing Education (CPATH) and the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) programs into a broader computing education program. CPATH tended to focus on higher education, while BPC issued grants for the entire pipeline, largely focused on improving diversity in computing. These two programs have funded numerous education proposals including the current work to reform the Advanced Placement Computer Science course, the Exploring Computer Science course developed in LA, and national alliances focused on diversity.

I had a chance to talk about the new program with NSF staff. I should caveat this that no one really knows what the program will look like until the new solicitation is out (more on that below), so this is my fairly high-level take.

The described intent is to evolve CPATH's work into something broader. That is the new program would look at the entire pipeline but with special focus in two areas:

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

It would also add a specific education research component that would seek to build education research capacity at the university level and to provide a greater understanding of how children come to understand computing concepts. At the center of this new program would be some big ideas in K-12 education that BPC has forwarded in recent years -- including reform of AP Computer Science and the so-called CS 10K project. Assistant Associate Director of CISE Deborah Crawford posted the following on a post about this topic Mark Guzdial's blog:

"In the summer of 2010, CISE plans to release a new broadly-scoped solicitation that will incorporate the most promising components/promising practices of the CPATH and BPC programs, with increased focus on middle and high school education in computing (making its scope consistent with the CS AP and the CS 10K projects, so no need for Mark to worry there) and education research. Like the BPC and CPATH programs, the new program is likely to draw on partnerships among academic institutions, as well as other organizations similarly committed to ensuring broad participation in the computing disciplines and to more effective computing education."

There are still challenging issues around the level of focus that the program may have on diversity efforts that are causing concern within the community. These are details that will have to be worked out as the program moves forward.

In the past few years, the computing community has recognized the tremendous challenges that face computer science education in the K-12 level. This helps explain why there is so much energy around projects like AP CS reform and CS 10K. Yet, despite the obvious need, there is little funding for this type of work across NSF. It appears that CISE is going to step into this gap with a new program focused on the big ideas and add a much-needed research component to inform the overall education and workforce goals.

But it will likely be a small step until the community can start leveraging other parts of NSF. One potential for this new program is leveraging funding from the Education and Human Resources Directorate at NSF, which has about $800 million dedicated to education and workforce programs. Tapping into this resource could bring major resources for reform to the table.

This is a fairly significant transformation of what -- at the federal agency level -- is the only game in town when it comes to systemic computer science education funding. It will be very interesting to see what the summer solicitation brings. Hopefully the community will work together in helping shape a very strong program.

Author's Note: I got one e-mail this week confusing this new program with another new initiative in the budget called Cyber-Learning to Transform Education (CTE). These are distinct programs with CTE being focused on using computing to transform education generally. Funding from CPATH and BPC is not being redirected into CTE.

Cameron Wilson
ACM Director of Public Policy

Some of the exciting sessions that day include:
- a keynote address by Nobel prize winner Carl Weiman
- a paper session (and a separate panel session) on middle school issues
- a special session on the future of computing
- a special session on the proposed new AP CS course
- free lunches from Greenfoot and Alice (I think you're only supposed to get one, but for the hungry among you....)
- a paper session on K-12 instruction
- a special session on Google's new App Inventor
- computational thinking in HS
- lots of great workshops (unfortunately, the cost for these isn't included as part of the registration for SIGCSE)
- lots of other sessions (that my way of saying I'm probably leaving out some cool sessions)

The program is available from

http://db.grinnell.edu/sigcse/sigcse2010/Program/Program.asp

There is also the wonderful opportunity to talk to nearly all of the textbook authors from the texts you are using in your computing classes. (I cannot guarantee all of us will be at SIGCSE, but most of us will be there.)

If you can get to sunny Milwaukee (yes, I know the organizers chose an interesting location for SIGCSE, but at least we'll be indoors), I strongly recommend it!

Steve Cooper
CSTA Vice President

While animations and game development can be a motivational tool, it can also be a good lesson in function design and proper testing. I find that the students, when faced with creating an animation, get caught up in the thrill of seeing something move on their screen and their good programming habits go out the window. The building of an animation and/or game requires a new level of complexity, with the need to incorporate several functions and possible classes or structures. Because of the extra complexity, there is even more need to take it slow, provide good documentation, and test each function as you build it. What I find is that students are so fixated on the end goal, they just throw together all their functions in a hurry without testing and then run the program to see if it works. When something doesn't work as expected, they don't know quite where to start to debug it. Despite my admonitions to test as they go, they rarely do.

A couple of days ago, I had a student look at me, extremely frustrated, because his animation would not work. His cat was supposed to move across the screen, and there it sat, still as could be. Yet he stated loudly, over and over, "I know it works!" I looked at his code and there wasn't a single test case. I asked him how he knew it worked, when he hadn't tested the code, and the lack of cat movement proved otherwise. He stepped me verbally through his logic, swearing it all made sense. He was so resistant to doing the grunt work of thorough test cases. I told him to go back and test every condition before concluding it worked.

How does one prevent this from happening? I emphasize testing and I deduct grade points for inadequate testing. This one student realized he couldn't avoid it, if he wanted to see his cat move across the screen. Eventually he had to succumb and test his function to find his error. Do you have any ideas or strategies in cases like this?

Karen Lang
CSTA Board of Directors

Where Is The Girl That Lived In Your Mind Quite Often?
You wanted to be more like her.
She was ponytails to your barrette, and A-minus to your B-plus.
When you threw like a girl, she threw harder.
She went by your name and followed you everywhere.
She had no fear of taking chances, and perhaps, neither do you.
She challenged you; sometimes you took her up on it.
When she couldn't stand still, neither could you.
She wouldn't let you go through the motions, she reminded you:
Never Settle.
When she grew older, got tougher, and smarter, so did you.
She could achieve more than you if you let her.
She said your doors would only open if you gave them a serious shove.
Where has she gone, the one inside who pushed you, is she gone forever,
A memory forgotten,
Or is she right here right now,
Looking through your eyes asking once again,
If You Have What It Takes?

So I share these with you not because I think they are excellent motivational items that are going to recruit thousands of female students into computer science and should be in every classroom across the world, but to get you think about the messages we send to our students every day, in ways we may not even know are being communicated. I once had a student ask me if I was advocating criminal behavior by posting The Breakfast Club poster. I suppose if you took the statement to heart, it could be construed that way. However, that was certainly not my intent. On the other hand, I was always amazed at the number of girls in my computing classes who asked if they could get a copy of the second poem, especially because I had put the poem up for myself, not necessarily to motivate them. There was something about the message that struck an internal chord with them.

So I'm asking you, do you have what it takes? What messages are you sending the students in your school about their abilities and interests? What are you hanging your hat on that promotes the excitement of computer science? What's the latest tool, skill, shortcut, or anecdote you've found to share with your students that encourages them to want to move one step higher?

I have kept these two items on my walls for 15 years now. They are my reminders of the potential we each have within us to make an impact on our students. And occasionally, I like to be reminded that there is a little bit of princess in all of us.

Mindy Hart
CSTA Board of Directors

We selected 22 students from 16 schools out of 90 applicants. We selected 11 females and 11 males. The group consists of 13 African Americans, 1 Hispanic, 1 Multi-racial, 4 Caucasians, and 2 Asians. There are 12 seniors, 6 juniors, and 4 sophomores. Only 5 of the 22 students expressed an interest in computing as a career at the beginning of the program. We administered an attitude pre-survey at the beginning of the program. We will administer a post-survey at the end of the school year.

The group attends training in computing at Georgia Tech on Sundays from 1 pm to 5pm followed by a dinner. This fall they were trained on: PicoCrickets, LEGO NXT robots, Scratch, Alice, and Pleo robots. The high school students assist in our computing outreach efforts. Some students work our weekend Girl Scouts or Cool Girls workshops. The students are paid $8.00 an hour for both attending training and helping with our outreach programs. Students can also do outreach in their local community and can develop tutorials. Some of the students are helping local FIRST LEGO League teams.

We have had 2 students leave the program. One moved away and one couldn't make the Sunday training sessions. We have already had 6 of the students apply to Georgia Tech with a declared major of computer science or computational media. Some of these were not originally considering a career in computing. We have also seen an increased interest in our lending library of LEGO NXT robts, PicoCrickets, and Pleo robots from teachers who have students in the high school program.
We will be doing a more formal evaluation of the program. But, we are excited about the preliminary results. This program was funded by our National Science Foundation Broadening Participation in Computing grant. The cost of this program for fall 2009 was approximately $10,000 in payments to the high school students.

Barb Ericson
CSTA Board of Directors

For many high school sophomores and juniors, January can mean scheduling decisions for next year. It does in my school and the schools in my area. Since most computer science courses are electives, we are battling other disciplines for the attention of these students, and are engaged in a sort of ritual dance where we try convince them to sign up for our courses. It reminds me of the peacocks dance with all the fancy feathers. We go up against all sorts of AP and college credit courses, fun courses they would like to take to lighten their academic load, performing arts courses that permit them to continue their after school music ambitions during the school day, and, of course, athletics and sports commitments.

How do we compete? If we emphasize the importance of CS to their future, focus too much on the technology, or point out how it can help them in college and careers, we risk being too geeky and turn off potential suitors. On the other hand, if we go to flashing and sexy, with too much emphasis on video game design or graphics, we risk diluting the importance of the courses, and we risk alienating administrators who think we are teaching students video games.

And, by the way, how do we get girls to enroll?

The second challenge we face is preparing our curriculum needs for next year. Curriculum must be proposed, approved, and designed in detail. Text books, software, and hardware all need to be evaluated and possibly updated. We will need to consider what our freshmen students will have learned in elementary school and middle school (it changes every year) so that our entry level courses can be adjusted to their incoming technology skills. Oh, and there is a little thing called a budget that we have to factor in because software and hardware is expensive.

Please forward your ideas on both challenges to me! I will happily compile suggestions to share.

Ron Martorelli
CSTA Board of Directors

That came from Howard Resnikoff in a workshop 25 years ago, and I had sense of deja vu last week at a workshop on computer security and information assurance. I taught our third-semester course in software development last fall, and I am teaching it again this spring. Last fall's experience was the most frustrating I have ever had as a teacher, because otherwise good students seemed to insist on maintaining bad habits in writing programs.

The justification for an established discipline with regard to getting programs written came from the industrial people at the workshop. These were mostly companies involved in defense, health care, and finance. Coding standards, documentation standards, and the oversight of the development process was not, for them, simply a means for maintaining control. This wasn't just "eat your vegetables because they're good for you." Rather, in order for them to get their code audited and certified, they have to have records of the development process and the responsibilities of programmers and management clearly defined and described. Just having the code "execute correctly" is not enough. They have to be able to provide evidence that correct execution is not an accident.

This workshop almost coincided with our twice-yearly self-criticism session about last semester's teaching and with the publication in Communications of the ACM of two articles. The first, In praise of bad programmers, is an anecdote about a programming team that is assigned the company's known bad programmer. The conclusion of the story is that having that programmer on the team made it a better team because they were forced to do things properly. If you know in advance that you are likely to be misunderstood, then perhaps you will be able to compensate in a way that will make it less likely to be misunderstood. If you know in advance that you have someone who must be guided every step of the way, you might very well learn how to provide that guidance, and you will certainly learn that the existence of the guidance is a necessity.

So, I have adapted from last semester to this. I am going to start with a heavy emphasis on the issue of human failings. I am even contemplating asking students to turn in a skeleton of their program code one week into a two-week assignment, just as English teachers sometimes require an outline to be turned in prior to a final paper.

Writing programs is not something that can be done haphazardly, if you want the programs to work as planned, but I don't quite know how to do the (gentle?) coercion and guidance to get students to realize this. Some lessons can only be learned the hard way, and I think a lot of lessons about programming are in this category. Teaching students, then, involves a planned set of leapfrogging steps of things that don't quite work, with the hope being that the difference between what ought to have been written and what was actually written shrinking with each step.

Duncan Buell
CSTA Board of Directors

Robotics Programs Becoming Newest Trend
The Ramona (CA) Journal (12/31) reports that robotics programs "are one of the newest trends helping young people discover the thrill of science and technology." The piece highlights Olive Peirce Middle School's robotics team, which recently won their inaugural competition.
FIRST Participants Growing Up In "Time Of Renewed Interest" In STEM
The Washington Post (1/10, Turque) reported on the FIRST Robotics Competition that took place at McKinley Technology High School recently, noting that that participating students "are growing up in a time of renewed interest in science, technology engineering and math education." The Post notes the Educate to Innovate Campaign recently launched by President Obama. Locally, meanwhile, "Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has designated six District public schools...as STEM 'catalyst' schools that will develop curricula that will weave science, math and technology through all major subjects." The Post adds, "Corporate and government sponsors, including Boeing, NASA, Northrop Grumman and Booz Allen Hamilton, hope the focus will broaden the pool of potential employees."
Wired Blog Urges Support For Robotics Programs
Chuck Lawton writes in the Wired (1/10) "GeekDad" blog, "If your school has one, consider having your child join and get some hands on experience working with exciting technology. And if you are a parent with related experience, consider getting involved in your school's program. Because solving tomorrows problems will take the bright and innovative students of today."
$250 Million Initiative For STEM Instruction Announced
The Washington Post (1/6, Anderson) reports that President Obama "will announce a $250 million public-private effort Wednesday to improve [STEM] instruction, aiming to help the nation compete in key fields with global economic rivals." The effort "seeks to prepare more than 10,000 new math and science schoolteachers over five years and provide on-the-job training for an additional 100,000 in science, technology, engineering and math." The Post points out that "it's unclear how much federal spending can grow in a time of rising budget deficits." For this initiative, however, there has been "mobilization on several fronts," with "high-tech businesses, universities and foundations" contributing. The Intel Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, UTeach, NASA and PBS are all contributing in some respect.
Wanted: Cyber Ninjas
New York Times (01/03/10) Drew, Christopher
U.S. colleges are adding courses and specialized degrees in the once-exotic field of cybersecurity to try to meet the growing demands for computer security skills in the public and private sectors. Banks, military contractors, and software companies, along with government agencies, are looking for "cyber ninjas" to keep investments and new projects safe from hackers. Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn recently created a master's degree in cybersecurity, as did Indiana University, whose security degree is in informatics, which gears students toward finding new uses for information technology. Other U.S. universities, including Carnegie Mellon, Purdue, and George Mason, also have master's programs in cybersecurity. Georgia Tech offers a master's degree in information security online. Cybersecurity is seen as "the most technically demanding field, kind of like the fighter pilot of the information technology industry," says recent California Polytechnic State University graduate Jeffrey Henbest. Government officials expect the number of cybersecurity jobs to grow rapidly in the coming years.

Well, we all know that robotics is not a new development, but isn't it great that it is being re-discovered? What more fun way to interest students in computer science? And you can't ask for much better support than having the President of the United States cheer you on, with assistance from IT businesses and higher education. And how great it is that CS has such a prominent place in the career clusters (STEM and IT Clusters). It truly is a great day for CS! All we need now is to have our certification dilemmas solved, and all will be well.

What are you doing to promote CS certification in your state?
Have you read the information posted on the CSTA website concerning CS certification?
Have you advocated for computer science locally and in your state?

It truly is a great day for CS. Carpe diem!

Deborah Seehorn
CSTA Board Member

Those involved in STEM/CS education have been shouting about the problem for several years and now others are also taking note and action. The December 18, 2009 issue of the Kiplinger Letter focused on education - much of it related to STEM. A few items in particular struck my interest and I thought they might interest you as well especially as we all begin the work of overhauling CS education.
* 60% of businesses say it is difficult to find qualified workers even in this recession. Especially sought after were highly skilled laborers such as laser die cutters, engineers of all stripes, scientists, and skilled information tech workers from systems analysts to programmers.
* Baby boomers (40% of the workforce) are retiring; those born between 1946 and 1964 have more education (58% with at least some college training) than the generation before them AND the generation after them (55%).
* Newly created jobs are more likely to require higher education than in the past. Currently 31% of all jobs require postsecondary education. This percentage will creep ever higher representing millions of new jobs that will require more than high school.
* Students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math fall short of employers' needs. From 2004-2014 employment in these areas will grow at nearly double the rate for all occupations. The demand for biomedical engineers will grow by over 70%; network systems and data communications analysts will grow by 53%.
* Interest in STEM/CS fields is growing but not fast enough and most of the growth is from non-US students earning degrees in US universities. As the economies of India, China, South Korea, and other developing nations expand highly-educated graduates are less likely to stay in the US. That combined with stricter immigration policies will leave many companies short-handed and unable to compete (unless US students fill the gap).
* While progress has been made, the performance gap between white students and Hispanic & black students in reading and math test scores, remains large. By 2018 Hispanics will be 18% of the work force, 23% by 2030. Unless these gaps are closed, demographics will further weaken the competitive edge.

You will be happy to know that CSTA and the NSF CS/K12 Project are working to combat (for CS education, at least) some of the US education weaknesses identified by various critics. Through the work of these groups, the future of CS education will be rich in:
* Highly trained teachers
* National recommended standards
* Demanding classes and curriculum
* Focus on critical thinking skills
There has been no better time to encourage our students to pursue the wonder and power of CS!

Pat Philips
Editor, CSTA Voice

The links are:

http://geek-knitter.blogspot.com/2009/07/lost-in-syntax-part-1-or-omg-im-going.html

http://geek-knitter.blogspot.com/2009/07/lost-in-syntax-part-2-or-omg-im-going.html

Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director

I hope 2010 finds you doing well and you had a lovely winter break! But now that you are most likely back to the grind, have you thought about your New Year Resolutions as they relate to the state of computer science education?

Here's my list of What if's. Perhaps, if we each just choose to do one, we might create a snowball effect in advocating and expanding computer science education.

What if:

* Each of us talked to one school administrator and expressed our concerns about the lack of programs available for interested students?
* Each of us took a moment to talk about the job opportunities in CS among all the students in our school?
* Each of us quit worrying about semantics, and instead worried about cultivating student interest?
* Each of us actively sought out higher education and business partners that helped provide resources and internship opportunities, even it if were just for one student?
* Each of us developed a project that our students could take into the lower grades to get kids interested in CS early on in life?

What ideas can you add to this list? And which of these might you give a go during 2010?

Mindy Hart
CSTA Board of Directors

Somehow, I was volunteered to assist the students in the packing process. My group of about twenty students, a mixture of boys and girls, was to collect the boxes after they were packed, then tape them up, and stack them onto pallets to be fork lifted to the waiting truck.

The students began to stack the boxes on the pallet, but in a very unsecure and haphazard manner. As soon as I saw it I had visions of boxes tumbling off the fork lift, so I stopped the process and told them we had to restack them. "Let's at least use the Lego method of building" was my suggestion. Only one boy knew what I was talking about, and he began to lead the others in stacking the boxes so that the seams overlapped and the boxes were lined up neatly and precisely.

So how does this relate to CS? It made me think about the fact that many of our students do not engage in too many hands-on construction, engineering, or designing projects throughout their K-12 education. Yes, there are some building block type experiences in the lower grades and some science experiments in the upper grades that involve some of this type of experience, but overall it is pretty minimal. This is especially concerning if you factor in the reduced number of students who participate in after school activities that would provide such opportunities. Programs such as YMCAs, Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts often include these types of activities, but enrollment in these organizations is generally down. After-school building experiences (whether tree houses or doll houses) seems to be a thing of the past, replaced by afternoons of video gaming or computer based social networking.

Many high schools in the U.S. no longer include courses in wood shop, automotive technology, or metal shop as part of core curriculum. Some schools are starting to include a type of Tech Shop, where students use computer software to create animated experiments and design. Without a physical experience in conjunction with this software, however, the student loses the chance to actually build anything.

If we are to educate students in computer science curriculum of programming, computer aided design, software engineering, or animation it seems that it will be important to provide them with hands-on experiences that will give them the opportunity to put into practice what they design. The possible failures of translating their computer based design into reality would provide them with additional learning opportunities. Experiencing the success of that translation will provide them with incentive and enthusiasm to go beyond their initial experiences.

Ron Martorelli
CSTA Board

>i>Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing, by Jane Margolis, Rachel Estrella, Joanna Goode (CSTA Board Member), Jennifer Jellison Holme, and Kimberly Nao. MIT Press, 2008.

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown & Co., 2008.

Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis. Addison-Wesley, 2008.

As a CS teacher, if you haven't read Stuck in the Shallow End yet, you really should. It gives a detailed analysis of factors that have led to our shortage of CS students, especially among women and minorities, and describes the project currently underway in L.A. to try and address these factors. All of Malcolm Gladwell's books are interesting and fun to read. This one looks at characteristics that lead to success (and so complements Margolis' book very nicely). Blown to Bits is a great description of the technological changes going on in society and how they impact our lives. Lots of fascinating facts and anecdotes you can impress your students with ;-).

What other books are people reading that might be of interest to the CSTA community? Please follow up with your recommendations and reviews.

Dave Reed
CSTA Board of Directors

This just explains that my students are at varying levels of expertise, comfort, and skill, which is the standard situation in most computer science classes. I use pair programming, which helps to alleviate the fear of those who are intimidated by technology. However, I am always looking for ways to keep those who have programmed before and/or just "get it" challenged and engaged.

For every programming lab, I post "dessert" problems to give more challenging problems to those who want to pursue them. I often wonder if that is enough. If a student sees the topic as mundane they may not even try these problems because they don't see it as challenging enough. I have also sent students to the Project Euler site (http://www.projecteuler.net) to try some of those problems for extra-credit.

A few years ago, two of my advanced students were allowed to work at their own pace on the curriculum. They raced through it, mainly I think to get to what they wanted to learn, which was a different language (I teach using the Scheme language). I do wonder if they would have benefited with the structure and disciplined documentation I require of the rest of the students. These two students did well enough to get through the required labs in order to move on to topics of their own interest. Did they miss out on a more in-depth exploration of Scheme, a functional programming language, with its own nuances and different ways of solving problems? Or did they get more out of exploring what they wanted to learn, pacing themselves, pushing themselves, motivating themselves?

I am curious to hear your strategies for keeping advanced students engaged and motivated within the regular computer science classroom.

Karen Lang
CSTA Board of Directors

http://iste.org/jct (direct link is http://tinyurl.com/yfq9qjz).

JCT is a K-12 oriented online periodical where the emphasis is teaching about computing. JCT is published under the auspices of the Special Interest Group for Computing Teachers (SIGCT) in the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). The primary mission of SIGCT is to enhance precollege computing instruction.

You are encouraged to submit papers for possible publication in JCT. For your planning purposes, the submission deadline for the spring 2010 issue is February 15, 2010. Information on submissions can be found at http://iste.org/jct. Please contact John with your submission ideas and/or if you're interested in serving on the Editorial Review Board for JCT.

Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director