SIGCSE

I just got back from SIGCSE 2012 As always they put on an amazing event hosting over 1200 computer science educators.

My "Yarn-Saver" sock pattern

It is a bit odd being a high school teacher at these events. Our world differs so much from the  college arena. A great example is the obsession with posters. In high school this means busy work festooned with bubble letters and glitter. I can only assume the college level posters have a higher purpose.

I attended because of the CS Principles Pilot. Plugging along on the project this year feels isolating at times. I worry that I am not doing this correctly. This fades when I get a chance to talk to the other piloters, so it was great to have a mini-reunion. SIGCSE has renewed my energy in building my pilot course, along with a huge to do list.

Goal: End the isolation and get surrounded by lots of great CS teachers, local and elbow to elbow.

Luckily attending SIGCSE also means sitting in on other great presentations. My personal favorite was the paper presented by Michelle Craig about knitting pattern's and program tracing. My own knitting bias aside, it was a very interesting take on how new programmers acquire language. For instance the repeat-until structure is mroe intuitively obvious to a novice that the typical while structure we introduce.

I'd also add that we create knitting patterns to create artifacts. This can get lost for new programmers. No one wants my dusty pile of knitting magazines, but  most of my family and friends appreciate the socks they describe. Or at least they pretend to, and some days that's all that counts.

University of Washington APCS Materials

AP Computer Science Materials This site is from a summer workshop they run for APS teachers. It includes several good sample assignemnts from their CSE142 course.

Cybersecurity

Found this class site from Stanford with some good information on cybersecurity. Only the first few lessons are useful at our level, but it is good stuff.

Star Trek Stops Women from Going Into Computer Science

Interesting article from Wired. It covers research from Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The article says:

and colleagues tested this idea by alternately decorating a computer science classroom with objects that earlier surveys pegged as stereotypically geeky—Star Trek posters, videogames and comic books — or with objects that the surveys found to be neutral— coffee mugs, plants and art posters. Thirty-nine college students spent a few minutes in the room, then filled out a questionnaire on their attitudes toward computer science.

Harvard: Introduction to Computer Science

I've been looking at what colleges do for their CS 101 classes. Here is a site for a Harvard class - all the lessons are available as videos and slides. This course seems to use scratch and C++, similar to what I am planning for the CS Principles course.

I have finished lesson 1. I really like the way binary numbers are introduced.

Harvard Computer Science