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From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Learning By Teaching

One of the best things about teaching is students asking questions that never occurred to you. I learned several new things today. Students always seem to have... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 29, 2015 at 10:28 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Interesting Links 26 November 2015

I’m writing this post from a hotel in Chicago. I’m here for some meetings which I’ll be sure to blog about later. I left my power cord home so this may be a short... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 26, 2015 at 06:10 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Would You Like a Hint?

Students ask me why their program doesn’t work all the time. Sometimes they ask me as soon as a problem pops up. Usually they work on it themselves for a while.... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 23, 2015 at 06:01 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

TechPrep -- a website to help people start programming careers

Facebook entered the efforts to help more people learn about programming yesterday with a new website. “TechPrep -- a website to help people start programming careers... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 22, 2015 at 08:32 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Programmers vs. Idiots

I found this image recently and shared it on Facebook. Reactions from my friends was interesting. Most agreed with my saying that I didn’t think programmers were... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 20, 2015 at 10:15 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Interesting Links 19 October 2015

I played around with social media statistics this weekend. Apparently some 7% of both my Twitter followers and readers of this blog are from the UK. That more than... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 19, 2015 at 06:09 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Autograders–for good or for evil?

Over 40 years ago I first graded programming projects. As an undergraduate lab assistant I reviewed student projects based on metrics from the professor. The professor... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 16, 2015 at 08:36 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Project Ideas Are Everywhere

Yesterday, like thousands of other teachers, I was proctoring the PSAT exam. Few things are less exciting that watching a room full of students fill in little circles... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 15, 2015 at 06:08 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Just Don’t Turn Them Off

A couple of years ago two of my students were discussing my influence on motivating students into computer science. One was giving me much too much credit. The... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 14, 2015 at 06:25 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Live Coding and the Teachable Moment

The smart thing is to practice any code writing one is going to demonstrate in front of an audience. When I was was working in industry and preparing demos for... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 13, 2015 at 06:31 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Interesting Links 12 October 2015

I’m not in school today. Columbus Day holiday here in the US. A bigger deal is that my grandson stayed over last night. I love being a grandfather. He’s only aUS... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 12, 2015 at 06:00 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

What Traits Indicate Potential in Computer Science?

Last week I was a bit critical of a study about traits that make for good computer science students or programmers (How NOT To Tell If Someone Is Cut Out For Computer... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 10, 2015 at 09:45 PM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

An Inside Look at Being A Computer Science Teacher

Garth Flint is one of my favorite bloggers. Garth teaches computer science in a smallish private Catholic school in Montana. This week he wrote a pair of articles... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 9, 2015 at 06:03 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

How NOT To Tell If Someone Is Cut Out For Computer Science

Recently “Code School, a Pluralsight company and online learn-to-code destination” released the results of a study of sorts they did to try and determine who were... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 8, 2015 at 10:15 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Want a Job Expanding Computer Science Education?

The TEALS program (www.tealsk12.org) is looking for regional managers to help them expand their program of placing industry professionals in schools to work with... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 7, 2015 at 08:02 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

I get letters

Doug Peterson occasionally writes “replies” to spam comments that are left on his blog. He does it so well that although I love the idea I don’t want to duplicate... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 6, 2015 at 08:42 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Interesting Links 5 October 2015

School is really rolling along for me. Last week we had our first progress reports due. This was followed up by a number of kids looking to make up missing work... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 5, 2015 at 06:37 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

BBC Micro:Bit News–Lots Happening

News about the BBC Micro:Bit is probably more useful to my United Kingdom readers than those of us in the rest of the world but I think it is interesting to many... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 2, 2015 at 10:44 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Software Performance–It’s Complicated

One of the things I don’t have near enough time to talk about in a one semester first programming course is performance. Arguably that is much more real computer... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | October 1, 2015 at 09:16 AM

From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

But I’ve Always Done It This Way

I’ve had my students working on a little exercise this week. It’s simple and I know that a lot of teachers use similar projects. The idea is to build a triangle... Alfred Thompson
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson | September 30, 2015 at 06:09 AM