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dateMore Than a Year Ago
authorAlfred Thompson
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Can I Plan For Next Year Yet?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Can I Plan For Next Year Yet?

My school has a couple of weeks left but it’s getting close. My Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles students have taken their AP exam. My own exam for...

Does It Matter What Programming Languages We Teach in High School
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Does It Matter What Programming Languages We Teach in High School

I’m tempted to just leave this post blank and see what sort of comments it gets. But I am incapable of that. Sorry. Assuming we are preparing high school students...

Academically rigorous is incomplete without computer science
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Academically rigorous is incomplete without computer science

Mark Guzdial linked to this post on his blog - Feeling disadvantaged in CS courses at University of XXX – Original post at Minimal exposureInteresting line from...

Programming is easy. Debugging is hard.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Programming is easy. Debugging is hard.

I may be in a minority in this but in some ways the most fun part of my job is debugging student code. Students are very clever at wring code that doesn’t workMy...

Visual Studio Live Share–Something CS Teachers Can Use?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Visual Studio Live Share–Something CS Teachers Can Use?

Microsoft is having their big MS Build event this week. I don’t have time to watch it live but I have been seeing hints of things via social media. Most of what...

My Code is the Same as Yours But Mine Doesn’t Work
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

My Code is the Same as Yours But Mine Doesn’t Work

We're all heard it from students "My code is the same as yours but mine doesn't work." The implication is clear – it is the computer's fault that the program...

Are You In On the Social Media Conversation around CS Education?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Are You In On the Social Media Conversation around CS Education?

Today is the absolute deadline for my students in Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles to upload their Create Performance Task to the Digital Portfolio...

Computer Science K-12: Imagining the possibilities!
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Computer Science K-12: Imagining the possibilities!

My friend Doug Bergman has a new book out called Computer Science K-12: Imagining the possibilities!I reviewed drafts of the book while it was being written and...

Arrays, Loops, and Racing Horses
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Arrays, Loops, and Racing Horses

One of the things I like about using Visual Studio and C# (and Visual Basic for that matter) is the ability to easily create some fun graphical projects. I’ve been...

Training The Next Generation of Computer Science Teachers
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Training The Next Generation of Computer Science Teachers

The biggest problem in computer science education is training the teachers we need. That seems to be the big thing on my social media in the last few days.ThisMark...

Teachers For Now or Teachers Forever?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Teachers For Now or Teachers Forever?

One really can get a lot out of following Twitter hashtags from conferences and other events. Today I saw the following Tweet:This in a nutshell is the concern#Home4CS...

Can We Afford a Digitally Illiterate Congress?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Can We Afford a Digitally Illiterate Congress?

Like many people I found the Zuckerberg Congressional Hearings disturbing on several levels. Yes, there are some serious issues with Facebook and other Internet...

Why Programmers Need To Ask Questions
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Why Programmers Need To Ask Questions

I keep seeing suggestions that people don’t need to learn programming because computers will do it better. I am skeptical. In part I am a skeptic because I have...

Idealism and Computer Science
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Idealism and Computer Science

Idealism is a good thing. Well, mostly it is. This morning I heard Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg say that Facebook was too idealistic about somethings and that lead...

Thoughts on where CS education tools come from
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Thoughts on where CS education tools come from

TouchDevelop is being retired. It’s not the first tool with educational use to be retired by Microsoft. Or from other companies either. While I have used TouchDevelop...

Phillips Academy Capture the Flag 2018
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Phillips Academy Capture the Flag 2018

Those of you with interests in working on cybersecurity with your high school students this Capture the Flag event will find this to be of interest.PACTF is back...

How To Teach Computer Science
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

How To Teach Computer Science

How can I do a better job of teaching computer science? It’s a question I ask myself just about every day. There have been two big influences on my teaching style...

Digital Thinkers?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Digital Thinkers?

This message from Brian Aspinall was floating around in my social media the other day and it really resonates with me.I’ve long said that we don’t need to teach...

Is Computer Science Hard to Learn?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Is Computer Science Hard to Learn?

It’s been close to 45 years since I took my first computer science course. I really struggled with the first program. OK someone mostly wrote it for me. The third...

But I Digress
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

But I Digress

Students sure are good at distracting teachers from the main topic. Especially if they have a teacher who likes to talk. I confess that I am someone who likes to...
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