Posts tagged ‘Code.org’
Try an Hour of Code in an Ebook for #CSEdWeek
It’s CSEd Week this week. Code.org and Computing in the Core have effectively merged now, and that’s the organization that owns and promotes CSEd Week. The big focus this year is the Hour of Code — getting all students to do some kind of coding activity for one hour. There are a lot of tutorials now available at the CSEdWeek site.
As readers of this blog now, one of my research activities is to create an electronic book to support high school teachers learning computer science. (Here’s our project webpage.) We’ve been exploring ideas like how best to create videos about computer science (hint: use subgoal labels!) and how to reduce cognitive load (hint: Parson’s problems). We’re also working on multi-modal explanations (evidence suggests that audio narration for code is more effective than text descriptions) and worked examples.
Barb Ericson put together an Hour of Code activity using some of our ideas for learning Python with turtles here, as an Hour of Code activity: http://interactivepython.org/runestone/static/IntroPythonTurtles/index.html. Please do try it and let us know what you think!
If you have an Hour of Code activity that isn’t making it to the main CSedWeek.org site, please feel free to link to it here in the comments!
Please sign petition to make computer science count as a core subject in California
Debra Richardson, our ECEP Partner in California, sent this to me yesterday. Please do support this initiative!
Please sign ACCESS’ petition to
George C. Johnson, Chair of University of California Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools;
William Jacob, Chair of UC Academic Senate;
Diana Wright Guerin, Chair of CSU Academic Senate:
Computer science drives job growth and innovation in California. Help us make computer science count as a core subject requirement—mathematics or science—for admission to UC and CSU campuses.
Please sign the petition and join this campaign: http://chn.ge/1bvfqPx
For specific information about why it’s important to make computer science count in California, visit access-ca.org – the Alliance for California Computing Education for Students and Schools.
Debra Richardson
Professor of Informatics
Founding Dean, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Chair, Alliance for California Computing Education for Students and Schools (ACCESS)
PI, Expanding Computing Education Pathways – California (ECEP-CA)
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3440
Try out the Hour of Code tutorials for CSEd Week 2013
Try out the tutorials for the Hour of Code for CSEd Week 2013.
Choose a tutorial for your students
Check out the tutorials and pick one for your class. Note: we have not yet received the Hour of Code submissions from Scratch or KhanAcademy, so check back for those. Also, more international/multilingual support is on its way.
Go through the tutorial yourself so you can help students during the Hour of Code.
Test tutorials on student computers or devices. Make sure they work properly (with sound and video).
Preview the congrats page to see what students will see when they finish.
If the tutorial you choose works best with sound, provide headphones for your class, or ask students to bring their own.
Hour of Code Information from Hadi Partovi of Code.org
This December, to celebrate Computer Science Education Week, we’re organizing a massive campaign to encourage 10 million students (and adults) to try an Hour of Code. This will be the largest initiative of its kind, ever.
Please help us recruit your local school, community organizations, or even your company to participate. Learn more.
What’s the Hour of Code?
It’s an introduction to computer science designed to demystify “code” and show that anyone can learn the basics. There will be a variety of hour-long tutorials everyone can do – on a web-browser, tablet, smartphone, or even with no computer at all.
How can you help?
- At your local school: Share this handout with your teacher or the principal.
- At your company: Share this handout with your manager, or the CEO.
- In your community: Use this handout to recruit a local group – boy scouts club, church, university, veterans group, or labor union. Or host an Hour of Code “block party” for your neighborhood.
Calling all students – regardless of age
Computer science is an important foundation for all students, for all careers. Too many people think programming is hard or requires math; the Hour of Code is designed to inspire.
Help your school win a computer lab
Code.org will gift 50 class-sets of laptops to 50 lucky schools, one in every state in the US. Ask your local school to plan an Hour of Code for every grade to qualify.
Let’s make history: Help bring 10,000,000 students to try an Hour of Code
Non-English language support
The Hour of Code materials will be available in several languages. If you want to help us as a volunteer translator, let us know.
Thank you for your support,
Hadi Partovi
Founder, Code.org
Tennessee allows CS to count: Exploration of an impact claim
The announcement is good news:
Congratulations Tennessee! This year, for the first time, the State of Tennessee Board of Education allows high school computer science courses to count towards graduation requirements. Now, Advanced Placement Computer Science A satisfies a math requirement for all high Tennessee high school students.
via Tennessee now allows computer science to count toward high school graduation | Code.org.
Then there’s a claim later on the same page, “In these states, enrollment in computer science is higher (particularly among women and students of color), compared to the other states.” That claim is intriguing. Where’d they get this data? I’d love to get CS enrollment data by state! So I followed the link to this PDF.
Where I found this graph:
I don’t know where one can get AP CS class size data. I’ve not seen that from the College Board. As far as I can tell from the AP Report to the Nation, the College Board doesn’t have enrollment data. What could they be counting to get these results, using variables from the College Board?
The numbers looked close to something that I’d seen in Barb’s data. So, I tried an analysis with Barb’s spreadsheet of AP CS data. I created a “CountsCS” variable (1=on the Code.org list, 0=everyone else), and looked at the number of AP CS test takers in a state divided by the number of schools passing AP CS audit in the state. I think of this as the “yield” — the number of actual test-takers by teacher (assuming one teacher per school, which is pretty much the rule for AP CS). Below are the yield distributions for 2012 (with average and +/- standard deviation). These numbers look pretty close to the above, so I’m guessing that this is what they’re counting (for some year previous to 2012). It is true that the average yield (not enrollment) for CountCS states is higher than for non-CountCS states. There isn’t a statistically significant difference, though (using t-test with a 95% confidence interval).
It could be that these distributions will become more distinct over time. Some states (like Tennessee) have just made CS count. It will take years to see an impact.
Digging deeper, I looked at the number of test-takers by state in terms of whether the state counts CS. Below is the distribution. There is on average more test-takers in states that count CS, but the distribution is broad. There isn’t a statistically significant difference.
Given that the test-takers are not significantly different based on whether a state counts CS or not, I didn’t think that the minority or female numbers would either. It is true that there are on average more women test-takers from states that count CS, but the distribution is large. The difference is not statistically significant. The CountCS states include Vermont (which had 1 female AP CS test-taker in 2012), but does not include North and South Dakota, each of which had 2 female AP CS test-takers in 2012. (Alaska, Mississippi, Montana, and Wyoming all had zero female AP CS test-takers, and none of them count CS.) I didn’t see significant differences based on under-represented minority groups.
If we really want to show that counting CS matters, we’d really want to do it a different way entirely. We should compare the same state pre/post making the decision to count CS. Even then, we’d want to give it a few years to filter through the system (e.g., Juniors and Seniors in high school are unlikely to change their plans for graduation to take CS as soon as it counts). I do believe that counting CS towards high school graduation will increase the number of students taking CS, but measuring that impact is challenging.
Computer Science Education Week is Dec 8–14, 2013
The dates for CSEdWeek are good to know, but the “Hour of Code” from Code.org is an interesting new initiative.
What is Computer Science Education Week?
Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is the annual awareness program for computer science education. It is organized each year by the Computing in the Core coalition and Code.org. It is a call to action to raise awareness (particularly in the K-12 environment) about the importance of computer science education and its connection to careers in computing and other fields. CSEdWeek is held in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906).
What is an Hour of Code?
It’s a 1 hour intro to computer science and programming, to give beginners a taste and to demystify “code”. For existing CS teachers, it can be anything you want – get creative. For everybody else, we’ll provide self-guided tutorials anybody can do, with just a web-browser or smartphone, or even unplugged, no experience needed. Note: HTML does not count as an Hour of Code.
via Computer Science Education Week is Dec 8–14, 2013 | CSEd Week 2013.
Misunderstanding MOOCs and Computing Labor Shortage: Andy Kessler of WSJ.com
Andy Kessler of the Wall Street Journal (linked below) misunderstands why we have a computing labor shortage. MOOCs definitely make “computing education” (in general) accessible to more people. But that doesn’t mean that we’ll shrink the computing labor shortage, as described by Code.org. Undergraduate computing education is “accessible” to everyone on campus, but rarely draws more than 15% women. We have to go from “accessible” to “engaging.” Unless we draw in women and under-represented minorities, we can’t close the jobs-graduates gap. We have to change how we teach to draw more women and under-represented minorities, and MOOCs don’t teach that way.
Anyone who cares about Americas shortage of computer-science experts should cheer the recent news out of Georgia Tech. The Atlanta university is making major waves in business and higher education with its May 14 announcement that the college will offer the first online masters degree in computer science—and that the degree can be had for a quarter of the cost of a typical on-campus degree. Many other universities are experimenting with open online courses, or MOOCs, but Georgia Techs move raises the bar significantly by offering full credit in a graduate program.It comes just in time. A shortfall of computer-science graduates is a constant refrain in Silicon Valley, and by 2020 some one million high-tech job openings will remain unfilled, according to the Commerce Department.
via Andy Kessler: Professors Are About to Get an Online Education – WSJ.com.
Cameron Wilson -> Code.org: Getting serious about a public policy impact
This is big news — Code.org has hired Cameron Wilson for a year. Take Code.org’s reach and combine it with Cameron’s understanding of how public policy works. Cool!
Cameron Wilson, long-time Director of Public Policy for ACM, has been given a special assignment for 12 months to work at Code.org as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Government Relations.
Code.org was founded by Seattle tech entrepreneur Hadi Partovi to create, launch, and lead a new initiative for scaling K-12 computer science education. A phenomenal video produced as part of the launch attracted widespread attention. Today, 9 out of 10 schools nationwide don’t offer computer science; in 40 states, computer science does not count towards math or science graduation requirements; the NCAA doesn’t consider computer science as an academic credit for aspiring student-athletes; the recent National Research Council “Framework for K-12 Science Education” ignores computer science, as does the “Next Generation Science Standards” document derived from this framework.
We need to change this. Computer science teaches you to think – it needs to be viewed as an essential component of STEM.
Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
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