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Coding is Not a Four Letter Word
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Coding is Not a Four Letter Word

I am at ISTE and have lost count of the times today someone said "you can program this without knowing how to code." Usually they mean this because they use a block...

ISTE 2017- A First Look
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

ISTE 2017- A First Look

If I am seeing a theme at ISTE 2017 so far it is making. Session after session demonstrates learning by making things. No where is this more true than with computer...

Student Programmer Fix This Code
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Student Programmer Fix This Code

Recently I came across this cartoon and shared it on Facebook.Responses were interesting. The newer one was to programming the more likely people seemed to be to...

Become A Computer Science Teacher in Five Days
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Become A Computer Science Teacher in Five Days

Garth Flint is a computer science teacher in Montana. While most computer science teachers are a bit isolated, most are the only CS teacher in their school. Garth...

Movies for Computer Science Students
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Movies for Computer Science Students

Today was watch movie day. I watched two movies that I have been thinking about showing to my computer science students.The first one I watched was "The Imitation...

Micro:bit Small-board Computer Launches in U.S. & Canada
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Micro:bit Small-board Computer Launches in U.S. & Canada

The Micro:bit (nee BBC Micro:bit) is now available in the US and Canada. This little device has been in classrooms in the United Kingdom for about a year and aprogrammable...

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

How To Teach Computer Science

I always read articles like this one - The 5 Worst Ways to Teach Computer Science – with some trepidation. I always expect to find out that I’m doing it all wrong...

What is the purpose of a computer science education?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

What is the purpose of a computer science education?

One of my former students posed that question. He then asked if it were: Building computer scientists Building software engineers Building citizens Now context...

What CS Should a Student Know Before High School
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

What CS Should a Student Know Before High School

Recently a middle school teacher asked what computer science knowledge would high school computer science teachers like their incoming students to know. The first...

Need Funds to Attend the CSTA Conference?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Need Funds to Attend the CSTA Conference?

OK this is an opportunity too good to pass up if you are a K12 computer science teacher. Seriously. If you are a K12 teacher, then Rolls Royce wants to help get...

How To Make Computers Work For People Like You
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

How To Make Computers Work For People Like You

Years ago I was giving a career talk in Roxbury (a heavily minority neighborhood in Boston) to a group of students. At the end a young African American woman asked...

News Flash! School and Industry Are NOT The Same
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

News Flash! School and Industry Are NOT The Same

Computer Science cheating has been a discussion lately. Not just in the NY Times article I referenced the other day (Cheating In Computer Science Class) but onComputer...

On Becoming a Better Computer Science Teacher
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

On Becoming a Better Computer Science Teacher

Andy Ko, Associate Professor at the University of Washington iSchool and Chief Scientist & Co-Founder @answerdash has posted a blog and slide presentation fromHow...

Cheating In Computer Science Class
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Cheating In Computer Science Class

An article about cheating in CS classes from the New York Times (As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating) has been all over my social networking feed...

Interesting Links 24 May 2017
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Interesting Links 24 May 2017

It’s been a while since I posted one of these collections. And I’ve been blogging a lot less lately. Call it a sort of blogging vacation. I just needed to prioritize...

Using Virtual Reality for Teaching Computer Science
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Using Virtual Reality for Teaching Computer Science

Maybe you can help me? My gut tells me that virtual reality or even mixed reality can be useful for teaching computer science. How to do that is the question. I...

Pseudo Random Numbers Are Confusing
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Pseudo Random Numbers Are Confusing

Random numbers are really useful in computer science. We use them a lot for simulations (or games – pretty much the same thing) and to make programs more interesting...

Punch Cards, Comments, and Learning From the Past
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Punch Cards, Comments, and Learning From the Past

Doug Peterson, whose blog always makes me think, had a post last week about internal documentation. Specifically things like comments which a lot of the popular...

How important is the first programming language really?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

How important is the first programming language really?

We really need people who have never faced a room full of  students in their lives to teach us how to teach computer science. Said no CS teacher ever. What brought...

Surface Book–a first look
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Surface Book–a first look

I’ve had two Surface Pros. A Surface Pro 3 and a Surface Pro 4. I love them. Make no mistake these have been idea travel computers for me. And powerful enough for...
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