Slashdot Mirror
White House Expected To Announce Big Computer Science Push
theodp writes: Politico reports that the White House is talking to groups about a push for computer science education in the coming weeks, possibly in mid-January, which could involve commitments from outside groups or companies. Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi recently credited a 2013 push from the White House for inspiring Code.org to dream up and team up with Big Tech on the wildly-successful Hour of Code, an event that brought teachers, schools, computer scientist volunteers, and other organizations together with the goal of bringing hands-on CS learning to 10 million K-12 students. Coincidentally, the Hour of Code event bears more than a passing similarity to the less-successful and now-abandoned National Lab Day (school flyer), an annual event announced by President Obama in 2009 that brought teachers, schools, computer scientist volunteers, and other organizations together with the goal of bringing hands-on STEM learning to 10 million K-12 students.
I dont see how it is beneficial to society to "push" education paths on people. It can only lead to bad resource allocation.
"His name was James Damore."
Normally, when you want a distraction from the fact that you've got an ongoing murder program, you make announcements that people will care about as your handwaving tactic. Who gives a shit about this? The existing coders are going wanting for jobs because of the mismanagement of the H1-B program. What benefit is there to kids to going into programming right now? Do we really need more fart apps?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I find it condescending and somewhat cruel the focus the politicians are putting on coding and programming. With ageism rampant in the field and large number of workers being forced out of their jobs while being insulted with the mandate to train their replacements, these actions are a slap in the face to everyone already in the field.
The powers that be are striving to make everything cheap ass manufacturing style work. That's what they're really getting at here. Big business thinks that all workers are too expensive if they make over minimum wage. This is just an effort to flood the market with cheap (and in the end poorly trained) labor. In addition to that if they don't train enough people to crash the labor market ( and thus the pay ) they'll import as much as is needed to do so.
Our political class, both sides, doesn't give a single fuck about any citizens in this country. They don't do a single goddammed thing that is good for the people. Every fucking action helps Wall Street or some big corporation or some powerful organization or "charity" that is only really a slush fund for connected wealthy elites.
This is all just hand waving and bullshit to keep us from realizing we're continually being sold down the river.
What about those companies increasing wages and providing better work conditions to their IT and CS technical workers? Couldn't be a better solution to make the profession more appealing to young people?
I am sure many people here can tell stories about IT and CS managers who do not have any kind of respect of their knowledgeable workers. They rather than stick on the KFC enterprise model where you want everyone to be able to do everyone else's job in order to pay the minimum wages since everyone is replaceable. In fact, they actually have a high replacement rate and they are responding to this by worsening the situation.
Achille Talon
Hop!
hoping they'll stick to his legacy. i expect more "executive orders" this month.
An initiative like this is a complete waste of resources and being done in the worst of all possible ways to get the task being done, which is to encourage young children to understand how to program computers. I really predict that whole dozens of children will actually learn anything from this effort, and that will be even hard to point at who was helped.
At best, what might happen is millions of kids will be introduced to something like Scratch or possible receive a Raspberry Pi, and a few very bright kids might on their own start exploring those computers from the ground up to understand those computers. Some really enlightened educators might even go so far as to teach kids some Minecraft redstone wiring concepts (building circuits with NOR-gate technology can be fun) or if funding was to be dumped into a 0x10^c derived game that taught real hacking at the assembly level to blow up virtual spaceships..... perhaps there might be some progress too.
Then again, I don't think the White House wants a generation of kids knowing how to write driver level software, even though that might be something useful for the future of America and the world in general. My expectation of this initiative is really quite low and teaching materials prepared by these groups are going to be as boring as Army training videos from the 1940's.
There are so many better terms. Computing Science and Datalogi are my favorites. CS is not about computers, it's unfortunate that people don't understand that.
Women’s college enrollment gains leave men behind
Even though college enrollment rates among young people have risen in recent decades, a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that females outpace males in college enrollment, especially among Hispanics and blacks.
In 1994, 63% of recent female high school graduates and 61% of male recent high school graduates were enrolled in college in the fall following graduation. By 2012, the share of young women enrolled in college immediately after high school had increased to 71%, but it remained unchanged for young men at 61%.
A similar pattern is seen among young Hispanics. In 1994, among Hispanics who completed high school, about half of men and women immediately enrolled in college. Nearly two decades later, college enrollments for both groups improved, but women outpaced men by 13 percentage points.
For black high school graduates, there’s a different story. In 1994, young black men were more likely than young black women to be enrolled in college immediately after high school. By 2012, the pattern had reversed: The share of young black men enrolled in college remained stagnant, while the share of young black women enrolled in college increased to 69% —a 12 percentage point gap with black men.
When I think about what the districts really want in the computer program I recall a parable of a king who was walking with a friend and was asked how he kept order. His response was to draw his sword and knocks the top off some wheat growing nearby. He then said “there is your answer, never let one rise above the others.”
The same rule applies in education. It has been, recently, made clear to me, as a teacher, that it is more important that all of the classes that teach my subject produce consistent “product” than for me to teach my students more.
As a Computer Science (Computer Science is now a STEM subject) teacher at a middle school I am forbidden to teach any programming. I am also being told to stop teaching computer fundamentals ( . . . whats in the box, why is more RAM [up to a point] going to make the computer work better and how does the internet work. . . material like that)The focus, and the test, is entirely on computer applications.
All the time that was going into a core understanding of computers is to be switched to more presentations. I am not against presentations; I just feel that there is a limit to how much time we spend on it. We will also take time from spreadsheet fundamentals (understanding what they are doing, instead of just putting stuff in cells . . . for that matter, what is a cell?). The reasoning is that, "kids like making pictures," and, "that other stuff is just too hard."
There is some truth, I am not getting the target 90% mastery. I am closer to 85%. However, I am getting over 98% improvement of knowledge. The goal, though, is mastery; as such, it is easier to teach less and have the students able to demonstrate "mastery" of less (I have been told, by the district, that my definition of "mastery" is a bit strict). Further, my students measurable increase in the topics called for by the district exceeds that of the other district teachers; so what to do with this? Full stop. Return to a consistent curriculum. That is the district decision, not mine. Part of the problem is that several of the teachers do not have the background to understand what I am teaching, let alone teach it.
However, the real problem is this; my students are entering the High School with significantly more knowledge than the students from the other district middle schools. I do understand the districts problem, there is a real problem when the student’s get to the High School and get mixed into a class when they “already know this stuff,” and the other students have not been exposed to it. Further, the students from my classes expect to learn, not to review what I already taught them.
As far as the programming, there is a fear that knowledge of programming could lead to, “Hacking.” As such, it is to completely stop, even in the “after school” extracurricular classes. The same with the computer fundamentals, the district decision is that “kids don’t need to know that anymore.” Fear of knowledge and the need for a consistent curriculum outweigh small, hard to scale, class improvements.
I was just, as in this week, told that what the teachers before me were doing was sufficient. Okay, of three teachers before me, one handed the kids a typing book and told them they needed to do one typing lesson a day and then they could play games. The second had so many personal problems that she didn't try to teach anything, she just let them play games. The most recent required them to produce something (yes, something was loosely defined), then they could . . . you guessed it, play games.
As such, I am told "the children don't like lectures and the parents think your class is hard." Here is the reality, the . . . I will say it . . . upper income, education driven, parents are in my corner; but the ones that don't come to meetings, they just cal the district to complain, parents are unhappy because, and I quote "expect him [the student] to study."
The result is that I have been given, and mandated, a curriculum for next year, as far as daily lesson plans (that don't even fit my class schedule; but that is a different issue). Guess what, work is out, make it fun, make it easy is back in.
Don't blame the teachers.
With recent advances in machine learning, a large number of which have come from American universities and companies, and the amount of telemetry data available via mobile phones, America has a golden opportunity to lead the world in automatically personalized fart apps.
Personally, what I'm looking forward to is the ability to bring up an app, fart into my phone, and have it tell me what I need to buy the next time I go to the store to replace what I used to cook dinner. If I just ate at a restaurant, it should also know that because of the phone's GPS, and in addition to adding to my shopping list, it should email me the recipe. Now *that's* a fart app!
How's that whole ConnectED thing working out?
We've all got high speed broadband with no data caps in all our houses for our students to use, right?
I wonder - if the trained "coders" will be emigrating to India to get a job?
I wonder - In a world where a lot of people believe you are a criminal if you are really interested in computing and networking , like Britain's National Crime agency http://www.nationalcrimeagency... might just cause some parents to actively steer their children away from computer based careers?
I wonder - if we merely taught science free of political overtones, and allowed the children to develop an interest in critical thinking and didn't crush their natural curiosity, maybe this would all just allow interest coupled with supply and demand to sort things out.
I wonder
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Why so much fuzz about teaching kids how to program?? Is it me or does it sound like "we need everybody to know how to code so we can pay low wages to a whole new generation"? so coding becomes as dull a job as putting a brick on top of another. Why not teaching maths so they can resolve maths problems that remain unresolved for more than a century? Cryptography relies heavily on properties of prime numbers, so you never know what's around the corner with maths.
Or even better, why don't they just let the kids choose what they want to do with their lives?
It's to make X that can program.
In 10 years "programming" is going to be like "keyboarding" or "Microsoft Office" on a resume. They aren't training kids how to be CS majors or IT majors. They're training kids on how to program for what ever job they eventually want to do. 10 years ago when I graduated I was a rarity, a Mechanical Engineer that could program. I automated 80% of my workflow with Python and Matlab, and as a result got to spend my time on the 'hard' stuff. Now when we go recruit engineers if you can't program something, you're glossed over for a lot of positions
My wife works with doctors that were told "You don't need to learn to type, you're going to be a doctor". Now all doctors are expected to know how to type as with electronic medical records (EMRs) they enter their own records. The problem with all electronic medical record programs is they are made by CS majors, not doctors, which is why they're all shit (ask any doctor about their EMR). I'm trying to teach my wife Python so that there can be an EMR designed by a doctor how a doctor uses it.
That's where all of this "everyone codes" initiative is going. Will there be people that don't know how to program? Sure, but those will be the same jobs today that don't require you to know how to type or use Office.
Just more smokescreen for the supercomputer mandate. That is news. What kids learn in schools should not be pushed on them. Its no wonder the edycation system is broke as well as corrupt.
And while we're at it, let's put working on manufacturing lines as part of the school curriculum because those jobs will be there in 10 years' time when the kids leave school, right? Do we really want to pit US kids against workers in India and southern Asia? Doesn't sound like a useful strategy to me. How about better support for science and math curricula (pre-coding necessities) and better support for schools and teachers so that they can emphasise divergent (creative) thinking and problem-solving? You know, so they can do more than manufacture the virtual equivalent of plastic crap for the virtual equivalent of Walmart which will be done in India or China or wherever else has the lowest wages and poorest working conditions.
CISA passed and the govt will need a pool of talented young folk to implement the various initiatives it will spawn.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Doctors make more money than software developers and there is a shortage. Why doesn't the Obama administration "push" for more medical school graduates to take those high paying medical jobs? Oh, right: the AMA and their lobbyists make sure that regulations remain in place that limit the availability and training of doctors, in order to keep salaries artificially high and unemployment artificially low.
I think the kind of monopolistic practices that exist in the medical field are wrong. But when the Obama administration and Democrats subsidize computer science education and "pushes" people to go into computer science, that is also wrong: it's a direct attack on the salaries of software developers and software engineers, funded by tax dollars. Remember that next time you go to the ballot box.
Anybody can learn to code. Not anybody can learn to program because it is not a skill, but an aptitude that is facilitated by learning the skill of coding. Yes, many people (many of you here included apparently) do not understand the distinction, but that does not mean that coding is not indeed a teachable skill that will be ever more ubiquitous as a secondary job requirement. As the world fills up with ever more big boy pants software written by real programmers, so shall it need an ever increasing number of people with the basic coding skills to script together API functions to accomplish a task. This is why I use the terms 'coder' and 'programmer' to mean 2 very different things, one of which is far more valuable / highly paid in terms of the code they produce. Here's the thing though - producing code is maybe not that other person's job. They may have an entirely different discipline from you, and just need to use your software to facilitate their primary function. Let's not forget that we don't all write software for no reason, we write it to help somebody do something - and unless we all want to spend the rest of our lives doing UI work that means that somebody else who is not a programmer will need to be able to code to use your stuff.
I, for example write clever code to create a framework that enables a power systems engineer to write significantly less clever, script-y code to do a clever thing. I would not trust him to write a program any more than he would trust me to certify the feasibility of bringing another 20Mw of generation online without burning a transmission line, but we are both 'coders'. And this, as far as I can tell, is the level of coding that is being taught in these things - simple scripting of pre-implemented functions with some introduction to creating subroutines, etc. I doubt if OO anything even comes into play. So get off their backs and get over yourselves - everybody can code. If you see teaching scripting to kids as an insult to your 31337 h4x0r skills, then maybe the poser in the room is you.
CS makes sense in high school, but not in grade, middle school.
In fact, I would rather that they had more PE for elementary school. And if we really want extra CS, then it should be taught at community colleges, along with robotics, and manufacturing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Code.org must die!
Preferably in a fire!
It's all politics
And graft for the supplier
Don't let your kids
Be sucked into it
Because their "curriculum"
Is really just sh*t.
Burma Shave
(yes, I know it's not Tuesday yet, but it will be ...)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
See: https://archive.org/details/Th...
And: http://www.newciv.org/whole/sc...
More links on how schooling is not about education, and how schooling is a form of (prison-like) adoption:
http://p2pfoundation.net/John_...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Check out John Holt, too. That's all a big reason we homeschool/unschool.
More links: http://p2pfoundation.net/backu...
Enjoyed your informative post from the trenches, thanks! Especially your point about teacher incentives. You get what you measure -- so, as you imply, if you incentivize teachers to dumb down kids faster and better, that's what you'll get more of.
Long term, I feel a basic income may be part of the answer:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towa...
As for what you can do in the short-term, it's tough. If you walk away, your (virtually adopted) kids will suffer. And you'll lose your income in a tough economy.. And one less voice for change in the system will be lost. But it's a painful situation if you care about what you do (although you run a high risk of burnout). Don't know what to advise, but at least you are not alone! :-)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This is called "concern trolling".
I's predicated on the wrong headded opinion that one shouldn't try to fix one problem if some other problem exists. That is of course an opinion without any merit. There are always other problems and worse problems somewhere else. The fact they exist doesn't mean it's bad to fix a problem which isn't one of them.
Fixing problems makes the world a better place even if plenty of problems remain.
Also bonus points for just saying "they" should do it, thereby disclaiming responsibility for doing it yourself. "they" are already busy solving other problems. Are you? And why aren't you trying to fix the problem you're complaining about?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I dont see how it is beneficial to society to "push" education paths on people. It can only lead to bad resource allocation.
I get the impression this entire initiative is intended to turn software development, albeit mostly web / mobile application development, into the equivalent of a clerical role. Computer programmers attaining the lowly status and pay once "enjoyed" by secretaries.
On ageism, it's not just whether programmers work, it is the quality of the work and the independence of the workers. Where might that matter? Consider the democratic need for programmers to follow ethical standards about privacy and democracy and openness and user empowerment (in their designs) that much centralized proprietary behind-closed-doors big data CS just ignores.
As I found in academia (for example in the PU CE&OR department in the late 1980s), when half or more of the graduate students in an academic department are foreign nationals being paid by their governments to get degrees, where when going back home without a degree would be a huge disgrace and maybe loss of career, the atmosphere of the place changes. That might explain why dealing with systematic financial risk was not a big topic at the time then.
So, if most programmers are nervous about their jobs with tons of H1Bs and cheap young labor, what effect is that going to have on taking a stand for important issues? And these are not just ethical issues, they are even issues like pushing back on inefficient or brittle designs, or designs users won't like, or whatever. It takes a certain level of confidence to do that (a confidence that includes knowing you can always easily get a job elsewhere, which may be true for a fifty year old civil engineer but is less true for a fifty year old programmer). And I'm not talking the brash confidence of youth or even a willingness for self-sacrifice like Snowden or Manning -- which is a different thing. I'm talking about a well-earned confidence in the context of a supportive community which is the basis of day-to-day successes by a democracy accountable to the needs of citizens.
See also:
"Smile or Die" (which discusses the financial crisis in part resulting from no one being able to point out systemic risks without losing their jobs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And:
http://conceptualguerilla.com/...
And even my other post here mentioning John Taylor Gatto who talks about compulsory schools as being designed specifically to shape compliant workers.
My latest folly is based on remembering what computers and our democratic culture were like in the 1970s and 1980s, is to want to help create software that respects a citizen's needs for private data controlled locally and shared peer-to-peer (like via email) instead of a typical web business' needs (like Slack or gmail) to centralize and control other people's data: :-) Here is that project:
https://github.com/pdfernhout/...
I started that with the news that Mozilla, supposedly about internet freedom and privacy and user empowerment, is going to kiss off Thunderbird, meanwhile billions of dollars are poured into the web space to make the opposite of Thunderbird (and some of those dollars are going to Mozilla in a way as a conflict-of-interest). See also my post here:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
The USA should be funding thousands of people to work on such FOSS tools. Meanwhile, Thunderbird suffers for lack of a funding model. Volunteers and open source go together well -- but relying on volunteers is problematical when you have literally one gigabyte of legacy C++ and XUL source code that need to track every security issue in Firefox.
If this was really about increasing interest in computers, just give green cards instead of H1Bs, insist on overtime for programmers, require every employee have a window (like in parts of Europe) and do basic stuff like that. It might also help if we reduced the churn in "new" technologies that are often not as good as the old one (still waiting for something a lot better than 1980s Smalltalk, for example). Getting rid of software patents would a
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Stay cucked.
Is that some sort of misspelling of "cooked"? I prefer being raw myself. I don't think I'd take well to being cooked.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
A hairdresser has to know and recognize skin diseases like a nurse or doctor, be able to mix chemicals like dyes and bleaches like a chemical engineer, and schedule customer appointments like a project manager.
This offshoring/onshoring practice was done as part of the Lima Declaration of 1975. Western countries agreed to give 30% of industry to the developing world. First it was work like shipbuilding, metal works, manufacturing, then they moved into backend room work, then programming and engineering.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The easiest way to succeed is to repeal the 1965 Immigration Act alongside the removal of all guest worker capable programs.
Not only does this code push not want to put all citizens forward, it would only end up being of benefit to diversity candidates (like prior efforts). Individuals that fall outside of some form of "diversity" would largely be locked out.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Anybody can learn to code. Not anybody can learn to program because it is not a skill, but an aptitude that is facilitated by learning the skill of coding.
Programming and coding are synonyms. Hint: that means, they mean the same thing. Coding is just the cooler sounding neologism.
Not sure if it makes sense to read the rest of your post if you not even knew that ...
Actually after reading a bit more, I wonder if I just should refrain from hitting "submit"?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
If the IT industry was being made worthwhile to do into, I would think it would sell itself. I feel somewhat cheated because when I was going into post secondary education it was supposed to be *the* thing to go into and now they have to drag people into it like this.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
But more CS grads means lower salaries and more taxi (err, Uber) drivers. That's good, isn't it?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Hint: that means, they mean the same thing. Coding is just the cooler sounding neologism.
Oh shit, you seriously think that? So for you, the entire world divides into 2 non-overlapping circles: 'people who can write code' and 'people who interact with software only via UIs' and everybody in the former category is a 'programmer' to you? That must be depressing to think that you do the same thing as a graphic design guy who makes a dynamic web page, an accountant that writes a VBScript in Excel or a PS engineer who writes a power flow in Matlab, which are all coincidentally reasons why learning to code is a valuable skill in many fields besides 'programming'.
Programming and coding are synonyms. Not sure if it makes sense to read the rest of your post if you not even knew that ...
Well, Mr. Semantic Pendantic, had you read farther you would have seen my explanation as to why I believe they are indeed not the same thing, and maybe we could now be participating in a conversation about that. But, you have opted instead to make a sad, patronizing attack based on your interpretation of 2 words. Hooray for dialogue! You maybe should have stuck it out to the last line, since I think it applies to you.
a complete reboot of US healthcare, ending "don't ask don't tell, gay marriage, dream act, killing Bin Laden, normalization of relationships with Cuba, saving the auto industry, net neutrality, new START treaty with Russia, doubling of car efficiency standards, etc.
I don't think Obama is hurting for accomplishments--he's the most productive president since probably FDR, and there's absolutely nothing you can say on the internet that changes that reality.
Will this event be open for boys or will they discriminate and make it girls only like they have been recently?
"In 10 years "programming" is going to be like "keyboarding" or "Microsoft Office" on a resume."
In the UK "programming" _IS_ using those programs.
No actual programming skills taught.
Couple that with rote-learned qualifications (especially things like CCNA and MSCE), it means we have to actually test people's knowledge during job interviews, which wastes a lot of time. (it's amazing how many people can't answer the exact same problems used in the exams, when the question is simply worded slightly differently)
More than a few have been highly offended - and mostly because they couldn't answer simple technical questions. One woman applying for a high-level network security position haughtily stated "I just get a man to do that" when faced with technical questions which were explicitly required in the job description and further prodding showed that the impressive list of qualifications she'd supplied was clearly imaginary and got steadily more offended, expecting to get the job simply because she was the only female candidate and "a personal friend" of one of the higher level muckety-mucks. (This was the most blatant one, most people who put fake qualifications on their CVs simply fold their tents and leave when it's clear we're checking their knowledge, but they all keep reapplying for advertised positions with those forgeries still there, clearly unaware that we keep records about the attempts and notify HR to prevent them being considered in other parts of the organisation)
I have read farther, hence my last sentence: 'should I refrain from hitting submit?'
Sorry, your previous post and this again clearly shows: you have no idea what coding/programming is.
Your statements are wrong, I suggest you go to a college/university and in fact study computer science?
Hint: all the stuff you are ranting about in the post I answer too: is programming. No idea why you think otherwise.
Oh, it is coding, too: as there is no difference between coding and programming ... and for starters: it has nothing to do with the question/fact if you use a GUI tool (or not) ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yet another Presidential "Moonshot". Every one always wants to have a Kennedy moment, but they are not Kennedy, and this isn't the Moon.
Maybe before we push STEM, we mightv want to push higher standards. After a generation of "no one gets a grade because they are damaging to self-esteem", we might try actually teaching that there really are right and wrong answers.