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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...

The Problems With Small Programming Projects
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

The Problems With Small Programming Projects

Most programming projects for beginners are small ones. They are focused on a specific concept that is under discussion. They are often forced in the sense that...

Should We Do More With Spreadsheets in CS Education?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Should We Do More With Spreadsheets in CS Education?

The Microsoft Research podcast has some very interesting interviews. One of them is How Programming Languages Quietly Run the World with Dr. Ben Zorn There are...

Advanced Placement Computer Science is a necessary evil for #CSforAll
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Advanced Placement Computer Science is a necessary evil for #CSforAll

Two controversial assertions in that title. That APCS is necessary and that it is evil.  I thought about leaving this post at that and seeing what sort of conversation...

Impressive High School Computer Science Students–Made or Born?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Impressive High School Computer Science Students–Made or Born?

ACM and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) announced the winners of the 2017-2018 Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing recently. Five students...

ACM and CSTA Announce 2017-2018 Cutler-Bell Prize Student Winners
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

ACM and CSTA Announce 2017-2018 Cutler-Bell Prize Student Winners

Some cool projects which you can read about here.For more information about ACM/CSTA Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing, visit http://www.csteachers.org...

Learning By Coding
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Learning By Coding

Throughout my career I have increased my knowledge by working on projects. As a teacher who teaches mostly beginners I don’t see a lot of complicated code. No I...
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