Communications of the ACM
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How the “Frontier” Became the Slogan of Uncontrolled AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been billed as the next frontier of humanity: the newly available expanse whose exploration …
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
ACM Digital Library is Open for Free
Like most K-12 teachers, a membership in a professional society like ACM or IEEE is not funded by my school. So I pay out of pocket for an ACM membership and have...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
What About the Students Who Thrive Learning Online
In my end of course evaluations I asked my students if they learned better online or in the classroom. Not surprisingly, most of them said they learned better in...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Am I Retired Now?
My last class of the school year just ended. My grades and report card comments are in the system. I am not going back to school in the fall. Am I retired now?...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Teaching is About Relationships
Today I was online with my students for about 90 minutes of a planned 55 minute class. One of my students joined the Google Meet session early and we chatted for...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
What is your School IT Department’s Mission?
My school ran a pair of online awards events yesterday. We had almost 850 people on the day time Zoom meeting and around 500 on the evening one. These are both...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
More Fun With Live Coding
Live coding or as I like to call it coding without a net is a wonderful way to teach.There was a time when I thought that having prewritten code that was pasted...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Can Online Teaching Really Work?
There is already a lot of discussion about schools and the fall semester. Will we be in physical spaces again? Will we be online again? Will there be some mix? ...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Planning for the End of the Year
My school will be on our regularly scheduled April break next week. It’s a nice breather for me and probably for the students as well. It’s been a long time since...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
School Buildings Without Students are Sad
For the first time in 5 weeks I visited school today. My purpose was to clear out my personal stuff. I am retiring and I needed to get everything at some point...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Ending School With a Whimper not a Bang
The other shoe dropped today. New Hampshire’s governor ordered public schools to continue emergency remote teaching for the rest of the school year. This was not...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Planning For School in the Fall of 2020
This time of year I always start thinking about the next school year. Even though I don’t expect to be teaching (announced my retirement already) I can’t stop thinking...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Revisiting Old Coding Problem Friends
John Conway died the other day. He created the famous "Conway's Game of Life" that is familiar to so many programmers and computer scientists.I've recently decided...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
A Look at Technology For Remotely Teaching Computer Science
While I do believe that people are the most important part of emergency remote teaching, technology does have a serious role to play. One key piece of technology...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Emergency Remote Teaching is About People Not Technology
Attendance at my emergency remote teaching classes has been very close to 100%. Frankly, this didn’t surprise me at all. Apparently I should have been surprised...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
When Are We Going Back To (bricks and mortar) School?
That’s the question my students asked the most yesterday. We’re in our fourth week of remote emergency teaching and I think it is starting to wear on most of us...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Living in Interesting Times and Sharing Thinking
You may have noticed I didn’t post anything in this blog yesterday. Part of that is because I had to make an unexpected trip to my family’s vacation home. A neighbor...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Coding For Fun and Mental Exercise
Recently, I started reading a book about the mathematics of cryptography. (Mathematics of Secrets) Fascinating. A lot of the math is hard (to put it lightly) for...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Three Weeks of Teaching From Home
two of my international students have returned home to China. I spent some time talking to one of them after class today.It was interesting to talk to someone in...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Please Blog About Your Emergency Remote Teaching
It seems like there are a large number of long Twitter treads where educators are reporting their experiences and how their school is handling this period of emergency...
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson