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Chicago Public Schools Make Computer Science a Requirement For a HS Diploma
theodp writes: Less than 48 hours after the Chicago Public Schools hosted a three-hour "soiree" at Google's brand-new Chicago HQ, the CPS Board of Education voted unanimously to make computer science a graduation requirement for all high school students in the nation's third largest school district. Starting with next school year's freshman class, CPS students will be required to complete curriculum around computer science before graduating. "Requiring computer science as a core requirement will ensure that our graduates are proficient in the language of the 21st century so that they can compete for the jobs of the future," said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. CPS is working with tech bankrolled and led Code.org and other organizations to further develop a CS education curriculum to implement across all its high schools. Nationwide, President Obama has a $4B proposal on the table to bring CS education to all K-12 schools across the nation, which is also spurring action at the state level, Officials from Code.org, Microsoft and Google joined Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington D.C. on Sunday to kick off a new partnership aimed at promoting CS. The new GovsForCS website notes that the Governors will be relying on Code.org for advice, explaining that the nonprofit "will provide the Partnership with resources related to best practices in policy and programs, and will facilitate collaboration among Governors and their staff, in person and virtually."
They are not teaching computer science. It will be computer programming. Neither is a core course and should not be required. This will not ensure anyone has jobs because you need a freakin' college degree plus computer jobs go to people with H1B Visas!
Computers are becoming more and more irrelevant. I use mostly mechanical typewriters now.
Most people now are refusing to even carry a cellphone.
The future is analog.
The problem with this is that Computer Science will likely go though another paradigm shift within the next decade. Never mind what ALM the MBA's will be spouting in 10 years. But maths and English will likely be the same.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
When I was a Senior in High School (1996), I already had 2 computers and a BBS, surprisingly when a teacher asked the class who had a computer at home only myself and one other student did. The teacher was trying to make the class realize that computers were going to be critical to their future careers but it largely fell on deaf ears. The only mandatory computer "training" the school required of students was for them to write an English paper using WordPerfect in the computer lab. Most students wrote the majority of their papers either with pen and paper or using a typewriter. Some would use a computer in the library to type and print out their reports but only a few did. While going to college over the next 3 years things quickly progressed to the point that one student was asking if she could bring her laptop into the classroom to type notes and the students having a fit about the "loud typing" distracting them.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Chicago public schools have a graduation rate of below 70%. They'd be better off making sure their students had a grasp of fundamental skills than adding additional CS requirements to graduation.
[Insert pithy quote here]
They will go away in a few years.
Ah, but you see ... this will give them even more ammunition to say "we're training them, but they're still not qualified to do the job", and then demand even more H1B visas.
Letting code.org drive the show here is basically putting the direction of education in the hands of corporations. That really won't end well. I can imagine a generation of kids getting screwed out of a relevant education, and forced to take subjects they're not interested in to get a high school degree.
That kid who is going to be an electrician or a plumber because he's not so into school? He might not be able to get his high-school diploma if he can't follow along.
Not everybody needs this, and this is entirely for self-serving outcomes of a couple of tech giants who have been allowed to hijack education.
Terrible idea.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
How much is Google making charging the schools for textbooks and other teaching materials off this?
If we only followed Chicago's example of progressive government for the people and by the people, we would have eliminated inequality, police violence, high homicide rates, failing schools, and corruption across the nation long ago! Why can't people see that???
I don't know, I'd probably argue that coding skills have fairly broad application if they're comprehensive enough. The issue is, this is going to be just like kids that "learn" a foreign language in HS. They'll memorize just enough to pass the test then promptly forget it all. In 5 years, they might be able to tell you what document.write does. Or not. It's a waste of resources. What's the graduation rate of Chicago Public Schools again? Pretty low. I doubt this is going to help.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
It will be computer programming.
More like *one-click-shopping* It will be a home economics course. And you're right. None of it has anything to do with basic education. You gotta learn physics and basic electricity first.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I don't agree. This link gives you a better idea of what type of course it will likely be. Seems to be fairly reasonable as a computer science curriculum. I can tell you from personal experience that a real master's degree in computer science from a major university is not very useful anyway. I have yet to find a practical application of Rice's Theorem in my day job.
They're tired of paying middle class wages for code monkeys and the Indians are getting pricy. Plus there's a slim chance American IT will wake up and demand an end to the H1b program. The people pushing this plan for everything. Unlike us IT workers :(
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Funny, I am a software developer because I'm not so into school.
I never graduated, hold no degree or papers, yet used things learned from AP Cisco/Java classes to build my career.
Cleared just short of a quarter million last year.
You don't need to understand code to be able to use computers and run software, just like you don't need to be proficient in forging steel to be able to swing a hammer. You should know enough about the process used to make your tools to understand their strengths and weaknesses, but I don't think that's what anyone would get out of these required classes. It certainly won't do much to help the students compete for jobs as they say, unless those jobs are teaching introductory computer science to high school students. What students desperately need in order to compete are critical thinking skills that can be applied to any discipline, but those should already be developed through the existing curriculum. This is nothing more than a quick fix using whatever is trendy at the time.
Well let's start by requiring a typing class again. Some abandoned it when typing went out as a backup vocation for everyone. But now it is more useful than ever.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
More importantly, It requires step by step logical thinking and not everyone can learn to do it in the first place. I will never forget this poor girl who got stuffed into my grade 11 CompSci course. I'm sure to this day her parents were pushing her into it because she could go to Silicon Valley and make a fortune (this was right before the .com crash) She was bright in all of her other courses and she really tried but just couldn't manage the course. The stress brought her to tears on multiple occasions.
And I can tell you from personal experience that a master's degree in CS is very useful. Of course, not every detail is going to be equally valuable to all students. It all depends on the direction you're taking afterwards.
AP Cisco?
Maybe it should only be a required course for boys ?
Even plumbers need some computer skills these days. If for nothing else than to create those head snapping bills you get when they show up to your house to "fix" your emergency leak.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Think of how many people are terrified of math, and struggle with basic arithmetic. Now they're going to make these people take an intro to programming course. They will hate computers as much as they hate math.
Maybe Chicago schools should focus on literacy and arithmetic before they start requiring everyone to program.
They would focus on math more. In particular, they would focus on financial math. In this class, they would be taught why credit cards are not doing them any favors. How compound interest works, how to create a budget you will actually follow. How to estimate your expenses. What the local cost of living index is, and why they should look it up for an area they want to work in. What a ROI is, and if certain fields of education have, on average, a good ROI for the education they require.
That would help ensure they are competitive in the workplace.
not
int main (){
cout "Hellow World";
return 0;
}
Because knowing it works won't do anyone any favors. Know HOW it works might help - but will probably be out of the scope of any HS level class.
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
Or any major field of science like Biology, Chemistry, etc;
Calculus?
"Oh, not all students are smart enough to handle those subjects."
But they're smart enough for Computer Science? Do students really need to know how to design a new sorting algorithm? Understand what O(n) means (oops, there's that advanced math again...) Or does "computer science" mean learning them thar kids to program and make purty web pages. That's fine but that's a TRADE skill, not a SCIENCE skill just like industrial design, typesetting and auto-mechanics.
Sure, buddy. AC stories are a dime a dozen. I work in engineering and never got a degree or papers, yet use things I've learned from everywhere.
I narrowly avoided bankruptcy last year.
In ancient times, when I was a compsci major, Computer Science meant stuff like "Analysis of Algorithms."
As I understand it, today Comp Sci 101 might be learning MS-Office.
Programming also seems to have a different meaning. I am not sure that clicking on something, to change the color of a cartoon cat, is what I would call "programming." It may help with learning to use a computer, but not really programming.
I switched majors after a year from micro computers to applied music so long ago that anything I did learn is fairly worthless today. At the time I didn't think computers where ready for the spotlight and it was more than decade before they were but when teaching lost it's luster I was able to get on at a major computer manufacture and probably had a hand in at least something you use today.
Plumbing and welding jobs will go to illegal immigrants. Most IT jobs will go offshore. The IT jobs that cannot be offshored will go to visa workers.
I don't know.. Plumbers and welders might benefit from a few basic computer skills. If for nothing else than to produce Resumes when they need a job and Invoices when they have one. Maybe the don't need to know a programming language, but what can it hurt? Kind of like teaching history to kids, what are they going to use that information for as a plumber? Yet we do teach it. Some things are just good to know.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If you don't understand why Rice's theorem is useful then I don't think you understood it. It's one of the most fundamental theorems I use to come up with basic designs of systems. If somebody wants to work on proving it wrong, that's fine as a research topic, but until somebody does, I'm not going to waste time trying to figure out how to write a program that can automatically validate programs without the need of a human providing validation parameters. You realize it's the theorem that's holding strong AI back right now, right? It's literally the most fundamental theory of computer science and defines what can and cannot be programmed, and you don't see any practical application of it?
Why is "fix" in quotes? Are you suggesting most plumbers are incompetent? Are you suggesting they are unethical and not fixing the leak? Either way, that's an argument for an increase in more properly trained plumbers. Based on my quick googling, there does seem to be a demand for plumbers. It's not rocket science, but it is a skill/trade and occasionally you have to deal with shit (literally and figuratively, unlike figuratively for most of us).
Maybe they should stick a few vocational classes in the college prep track. You know, for well-roundedness?
Neat-o. My (public) high school required it too.
I graduated in 1995.
Color me unimpressed.
I have no problem with basic computer skills .. I have a problem with calling it computer science, and actually expecting you're going to teach everybody to code.
Basic computer literacy is a fine and dandy thing, but unless they're just using an over-inflated terminology, "computer science" and programming have no relevance for most of these kids.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Yeah he learned to program the AP Cisco. He isn't a software developer but he cleared just short of a quarter mil due to his rare ability to program the AP Cisco. I'll bet he learned how to use the computer too.
I wouldn't worry about anyone actually learning anything about general purpose computing.
How does the Disney princess get from Code.org to my screen? It's magic!
Think about how many people you know with high school diplomas who can handle basic algebra. Some level of remedial algebra is usually involved when I handle "I wanna be a programmer!" requests (not always).
The public education system in the USA is nothing more than a daycare that enables psychological abuse of children. Nobody goes to school to actually become educated. What do I mean by psychological abuse of children? Public school in the USA is a shared cultural form of child abuse. One of the most surreal things I've witnessed here in flyover country is parents who are dumb as fuck; functionally illiterate; certainly innumerate; lacking in any basic knowledge of history, science, philosophy, or civics; and willfully ignorant about so many subjects demanding their children get better grades or else!
It's a tragedy of the commons. There is so much cultural momentum against education and intellectualism I can only conclude that sending children to public schools and demanding they keep their grades up serves no other purpose than psychological abuse. I honestly believe that any schooling beyond 5th grade is a complete waste of taxpayer resources.
What will happen is that kids will get turned off to computing en masse. One of the most difficult things to deal with when somebody goes "I wanna be a programmer" is getting past the psychological damage that a bad math teacher or two can do. Maths become a confusing and logically incomprehensible cipher, and many people simply memorize the necessary rituals to keep the grades up without making any connections among different parts of the subject matter. How could they? They were sent to an institution specializing in psychological abuse instead of an institution of learning.
This is the school system where less than 25% of high school graduates exit in a college-ready state. And even then, most of those need remedial courses.
And they want to start teaching CS?
So, what? They're going to dumb it down to the "Magic Smoke" principle?
CPS has MORE than enough problems as it is. Shoddy funding. Shoddy teachers (though not all of them are shoddy by any means). Shoddy facilities.
They can barely teach reading, writing and arithmetic!
This is basically a waste of time, money, and these childrens' educational opportunities.
All so someone can grab some headlines...
Oh wait, that's Chicago! Who cares what it is, so long as it grabs headlines!
What a joke.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
What is important in CS is the unchanging core: logic & algorithms. Kids need to understand logical thinking and step-by-step problem solving.
Oh, and one more thing: documentation. Kids need to be able to explain to others what they've done.
Get that right; all the rest is window dressing.
I thought that an intro to computers class was a state requirement in Illinois. I had this as a high school sophomore back in the 1980s. It was just a nine-week class that covered BASIC programming on TRS-80 computers.
Yet most of these kids will graduate semi-literate and lack any real critical thinking skills... but hey they write "hello world" in java. What a damn disservice. We are dumbing everyone down to make longer bucket lists.
Why bother teaching American children the skills that will more and more be shipped off to India and China (or Indians and Chinese brought in to do the work locally)?
In the U.S., baby boomers are retiring and the workforce (tax base) is shrinking over the next 20 years. In the Southeast Asia, Indians and Chinese will join the middle class and stay in their own country. These two factors will produce a critical shortage of skilled information workers. I learned that from a study published prior to the dot com bust. I went back to college to learn computer programming and earn my technical certifications. With 25 years until retirement, I'm in position to take advantage of this skill shortage and make the big bucks.
And why not teach folks to code? In reality it is the basic skill you need to operate a computer, even if you are just running MS Office.
What is Excel but a way to write little "programs" called "formulas"? What are styles in Word if not just macros that you've programed in advance? Quite literally it is ALL Programming in one way or another, even if you think it's just data entry.
No, I see value in some basic programming skills and how they could be useful for even that Journeyman Plumber.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Many posters here are asking what "use" the curriculum could reasonably be expected to have for the students. They are taking the wrong perspective.
As with math classes, chemistry classes, and even literature classes, the point of this would be to have students graduate with a general awareness of how the world works. Those who need a professional level of understanding will almost all enjoy deeper subject material in college.
Here on Slashdot, we often bemoan how the average citizen is uninformed about security, how business managers don't understand why some problems are hard (http://xkcd.com/1425/), and what sorts of things coders need to think about. A class like this is aimed at mitigating those problems.
I wonder if it's just going to be much more than how to turn one on, use a browser, and then maybe figure out email and an office suite? I could get behind the idea of a real CS requirement, albeit a basic-ish one, where they learn about computers including the history of computers.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this particular CS should also include some ideas about security and things like protocols, the history of the web, and things of that nature. I've typed out a longer list but I'm not gonna go dig it out.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
No, some boys in my class also sucked but weren't as visible with the meltdowns. Also I've known some excellent female coders so it's really not a gender thing.
Don't laugh. I have a brother who's as much a geek as I and actually has two years of CS under his belt. He *is* a plumber and lots of what he does is computerized these days. He often does the systems on larger buildings, not just residential but also commercial, and those things are pretty complicated - or can be. He actually makes pretty decent money at it. 'Snot a bad choice.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Have gnu, will travel.
They do mandate home ec.
I think the OP meant Cisco Access Point (CAP). When I worked at Cisco, I accidentally smoked a $500 AP by plugging in the wrong power cable. Older APs required a 48-volt DC, newer APs required a 24-volt DC. A little detail that my boss forgot to mention.
Not everybody needs this, and this is entirely for self-serving outcomes
If not everybody needs {insert subject here} then why did I have to take art classes? And voc-ed classes? And English classes? And math classes? And ... classes? I have absolutely zero interest in painting, pottery, creative writing, etc but I enjoy math, science, and auto repair, and had to take ALL of those in order to graduate High School. Do I use all of those every day in my life? Some yes, some no. Am I a more capable individual because I was forced out of my comfort zone (and typical areas of interest) in High School? Absolutely.
This isn't about forcing everyone in high school to become a computer programmer, or computer engineer. But there is no reason not to expose every person in High School to one semester of computer related education beyond learning how to run Microsoft Office.
Well, from my experience, they are masters at milking the situation. Including not having all the necessary parts despite a description of the situation when calling them, so that they need a second visit that you have the privilege to pay. ;)
Maybe they should stick a few vocational classes in the college prep track.
I went to a vocational tech high school and those were some of the most useful classes I've ever taken.
Well, considering that many "experts" consider HTML a programming language, hence writing HTML is coding, ...
sigh
Chicago is what many would call another failed city. Chicago has huge problems. Someone is shot in Chicago every three hours. They have numerous youth who need to be taught to use a knife and fork, not to shoot or stab others, and hopefully not to stick needles full of dope in their veins. For so many students, they are lucky to be potty trained before leaving high school. It is nice to provide computer science for human students but it will only further the vast rebellion - drop out rate, of the lesser mortals in their schools.
He *is* a plumber and lots of what he does is computerized these days.
My late father had a sixth-grade education from the 1950's but ran circles around many college-educated architects when they were called to the site to explain a problem with the blueprints. He would take out his pencil to do the calculations on the blueprint to prove that the architect was off by a quarter-inch. Most of the time, this wasn't a big deal. One time he found a mistake that cost the developer a million dollars to fix.
Either they're going to have to set the bar really low, or their graduation rates are going to plummet. Some people just aren't that good at algorithmic thinking.
it's called math
"Computer Science" is defined as "Using Microsoft Word"
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Now imagine they had taught you that in high school!
I skipped high school and went to college. I did take intro electronics in college. Burning up the electronics was usually the result of installing a part in backwards.
If my grandpa didn't need to know about computers, then why do my kids?
Oh probably because we educated grandpa to work in coal mines and we don't really want our kids to work in coal mines. Okay, carry on then.
For the same reason we teach children to read and write, despite the impact on the careers of scribes.
Not everybody needs this
You can't justify most anything taught in school after the 4th grade if the bar is Everyone is going to Need this. Yet those things are still taught in school.
I switched majors after a year from micro computers to applied music so long ago that anything I did learn is fairly worthless today.
See, this is the problem with education. So many students (teachers, even) get the idea that they're supposed to learn COBOL syntax, the plot and dialog of Twelfth Night, or the name of the nerve at your elbow that makes your hand tingle, but those are just props that help you get to the real education.
You can't just tell students about sequential, algorithmic logic and expect them to get it. What you can tell them is trivial and impractical. You can only show them examples; make them go through the motions of replicating those examples and slight variations; and hope that some of the mechanics sink past replication into real learning. That last part seems to happen without people even realizing it, which is pretty cool.
There will always be a niche for manual coders for platforms that either have very little headroom (e.g. a coding house writing code in whatever is the language is in vogue this month couldn't do.) There are still many devices which count RAM in bytes, or even nybbles, as opposed to megs or gigs. Similar with storage, which would be in kilobytes, so having the latest language with all the libraries and moving parts just isn't going to fit.
logical thinking and worse, abstract thinking.
Funny that you mention it, they looked the same 2 decades ago ;)
Well, then you work in the wrong industry.
There are places (e.g. aircraft industry, OTOH, writing control software for Navy ships capable of shooting down airliners, funny as it sounds does not require that level of correctness, sigh) that require formal verification for parts of the software, and then it's nice to know the limits of the methods you apply.
Absolutely concur, but than, it might be my personal bias, because the trivial stuff like programming I self educated myself as a teenager, Which ended in a situation where I was taking an "introduction to programming" class at one university (in Modula 2), while being a tutor supporting students in an "introduction to programming" class at the other university in city (that one was in C++).
You can envision how useful that "introduction to programming" (in Modula 2) was. Although I have to admit I was forced to learn Modula 2, what a useful skill. And I had some fascinating insights (the prof had the great idea to let peer-review be part of the grade, hint: global variables are your friend, that magic local variables and argument thingy are bad for your grade).
You do realize, that all these fields nowadays strongly depend upon Computer Science for their research and data processing.
Computer Science is similar to Mathematics, that it's an universal auxiliary science, that is usually used in other fields.
Notice that CS majors usually work in an industry, and only very seldom (if they don't go academic) it's computers/IT.
IT as an "industry" is usually only a cover for we are doing "general work" for other industries.
The students were expected to learn something rather then just being told how special they were
I once went to a school where everyone got award for no special reason — except I didn't get one. And the teachers wondered why I hated school.
Plumbing and welding jobs will go to illegal immigrants.
The illegal immigrants have gone home and probably won't come back. Many schools send students straight to college without ever offering a look at the skilled trades.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/09/21/how-immigration-has-contributed-to-the-construction-worker-shortage/
Most IT jobs will go offshore. The IT jobs that cannot be offshored will go to visa workers.
That will change in the next 20 years as baby boomers retire, the US workforce (tax base) shrinks, and immigrants stay home to enjoy a middle class lifestyle without leaving the country.
You're being sarcastic but some sort of life-skills class that taught things like basic plumbing, electrical, carpentry, power and hand tools, painting, and whatnot might not actually be a bad idea as a mandatory course. I'd reason that such would be a benefit to most. I'd further reason that those are basic skills that are of such value that placing them into the public education curricula is a step that should have already been taken.
Come to think of it, it's not a bad idea to consider adding basic automobile maintenance to that list. However, that tech is in a bit of a flux so I'm not really sure if that's easily covered. For now, I'd suggest that they teach the basics for an ICE and prepare to offer education about EVs as well. With the EV and hybrids, it's imperative to give instruction about electrical safety.
Add to that some financial, budgeting, organizational, investing, basic business and business terminology, as well as some skills for food preparation, household repairs like sewing, food preservation, nutrition, and things of that nature. I'd think those are fine subjects and are actually something that should be mandatory. We could even throw some soldering skills and basic appliance repair and electronics repair training.
I'm not sure why you'd think a well-rounded education is a thing to sneer at. Unless I'm misinterpreting what you wrote, I'm all for inserting some vocational types of classes into the mandatory list. I'd absolutely suggest that they be mandatory even for those on a college prep track. Hell, I'd doubly stress their importance for that group of people.
There is no reason for an accountant or sociologist or teacher to be confused when they look under the hood of their car, not know how to safely operate a circular saw, or not know how to replace a leaky faucet. If anyone should be taught those types of skills, it should be that group. The folks in the trades and blue-collar are far more likely to know those things - in my observations, than those who are white collar workers. I submit that a well-rounded, useful, education has utility and value all its own.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The best method that I had previously heard for this was to replace trigonometry with a programming class. This would allow students to first understand solving equations in algebra or possibly algebra 2 then study a simple programming language ( Python would be the best one at the moment in my opinion). And programming would teach more complex equation solving skills. But most previous opinions that I have heard on this say it would be an optional replacement for trigonometry.
This just seems stupid to mandate that everyone learn to program when some people will just not be able to understand it. I ran into folks who wanted to be CS majors in my first programming class in college and they failed that really easy programming class. If there are people who think they can learn to program and later find out they can't, why would you mandate that everyone take a programming class.
Wait, what? You majored in "micro computers?"
Err... I can't say that I've ever heard of that as a major. Hell, I can't even think of a time when I've heard of it as a minor. I'm not even sure I've heard of it as a specific course name? As I sit here and ponder this, I could see it as a major. Hell, I could even see it as a potentially good major. I'm just not sure I've ever seen it before and I've spent some time in academia.
Did I just miss it? Was I there are the wrong time? Micros were early, at least the terminology, and that's a pretty big group of computers and a whole bunch of companies. I'd not be surprised to find a micro that was able to be purchased at a discount with UPC/PoP and branded with Corn Flakes.
Hmm... My time spent in academia was during the revolution. I went in for four years from about 79 to 83. I ran out of funds and reenlisted. While I was in, I got some more courses into me. I came home, was there for a bit of a second-wave in the revolution, from about 88 to 91. I seem to recall that things were moving pretty quick in that time-frame. Advances were from the 8086 to the 286 at about that time, no? Then the 386 to the 486 not long after. Some Ti, RISC, and I want to say ARM? I think AMD was around at that time - I didn't personally bump into 'em until much later, as I recall. My first exposure was the K6-II (350 MHz, OCed to ~500 MHz and it was as awesome as it sounds).
At any rate, during all of that, I don't recollect hearing about a major in "micro computers." It might have made an awesome major and I can envision a pretty decent syllabus. I can even think of some reasons why it might be a separate major even though the principles are much the same.
I don't suppose you've got a minute to flesh that out and describe what that looked like? If you don't then it's all good but my curiosity is piqued.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Let me preface this with the fact that school taxes are already overwhelming so any reply based on the premise "increase the school tax" is not acceptable.
How are schools going to acquire computers without increasing school taxes? Donation of used computers? Due to industry theft concerns, few corporations donate their used computers anymore. Donation of new computers? This would be a HUGE incentive for Micro$oft to brainwash a nation of impressionable high school graduates into the Windows-centric world by donating computers with Windows pre-installed, using contracts to lock out competing OS (which they have done before). Which leads to the next question...
Will the curriculum be general or will it be central to one operating system? If it is the latter then calling it CS is a stretch. Employers will be no more anxious to hire HS graduates from Chicago any more than they would hire MSCE graduates.
This requirement will require hiring IT support staff. Besides the inevitable increase in taxes to support the staff, public schools are notorious for their low wages. How many college IT graduates are anxious to work for a pittance?
On that note, how many CS graduates are anxious to work for the pittance wages of public schools as teachers?
When (not if) those computers suffer a malware attack through an infected thumbdrive, malicious email or download, or network attack who is going to repair all those computers? The single IT support person allocated per school? Disaster waiting to happen.
Will labs be available for computer work outside the classroom? If students have to complete computer homework at home, who will supply computers to the poor who cannot afford them? Public assistance cannot be used for computers. And for the families who don't meet the threshold of public assistance and still are not able to afford computers, they are not going to be very happy about that.
It is blatantly obvious that the people behind that decision had put little thought into this requirement.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
It takes good teachers to make a program successful. Is there even such thing as CS Education being taught as a degree program? Who will teach the material? Ex-programmers? Media Specialists? My point is that no matter how much it is or isn't needed, it will be doomed to failure because there will be huge disparity in how it is taught. Even with the same course material. Much like the wow factor when seeing sodium react to water, exposing kids to a subject such as programming will need to be done in a way that is very engaging and captivating. Not making a computer display "hello world" but with something like Lego Mindstorm so that kids see a physical object being manipulated by their "code." It could be successful and interesting, but it will take some very "outside the box" thinking to have proper absorption by kids.
I think that largely depends on what the program ends up like. I could see this having value - if done properly. I confess, I've not actually looked to see what the plan is and I'm assuming that I'd actually be disturbed by it. I think that's a fair assumption to make.
But... But... Let me be clear! I absolutely feel that computer science should be mandatory. At risk of causing offense, programming is not computer science - but an element of computer science in that it is a way to send instructions. I could (and would) get behind a decent computer science education being mandatory, with varied levels of complexity and depth as well as tracks through the system for preparatory purposes. I can get behind that.
Again, seeing as I'm pounding the pulpit (but probably preaching to the choir), programming is not (in and of itself) computer science. Nor is learning to email. Nor is learning to use Excel. Nor is learning to use LibreOffice. Nor is learning to use a web-browser. Nor is it even physical assembly of a computer. Nor is it pushing pixels. Nor is it graphic design. Nor is it learning to make a web page. Nor is it things of that nature.
I'd be very interested in having the discussion about what it should look like but they're not going to listen to me and I am not the appropriate expert. I can not hand down authoritative answers or suggestions. I am not qualified to do so. What I can say is that I've been able to set aside my ego, shut the hell up, and listen to those who are experts in their field. (Namely, a few of you guys are a good example.) What I can say is that what they've said makes sense - and I remember what they have said. This is not, from the summary and other reading, not computer science.
Learning to use Microsoft Office or program in Python, Java, or even C++ is not computer science. Teach basic concepts, teach history, teach principles, teach protocols, teach function, teach even basic security processes. I'd submit that there shouldn't even be a computer in the classroom for at least the first year. How do I know? I've asked questions and the shut up long enough to listen to the answers and then ask for more details when I get to the confusing parts and it makes sense to me.
If the above sounds reasonable, enlightened, or correct - then it's a good idea to realize that it's not my voice you hear but my echoing the many voices I've heard. I've been listening/reading for a long time now. The people that I've listened to have demonstrated a clear understanding and been able to provide reasoning for their claims that were logical. I've thrown some refinement on it but, for the most part, that's just a collection of the things you, yourself and your peers, have said to me over the past however many years. So, if it's right, that's your doing. If it's not then, well... I guess you can just blame me. However, I've been listening to and asking for answers from the best of the best of you - for a very long time.
I suggest that a proactive stance might have been for some of you to have been helping to ensure that a good program was formed. As near as I can tell, teaching everyone to 'code' is plain stupid.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Micro Computers was a term used in the 80s and the most popular micro computer was probably the Commodore 64 which came out around the same time you were graduating... colleges used to give computer science programs catchy names to enroll students. The program name was something like Micro Computing and Applied Computer Sciences.
I phrased it Micro Computers to give an idea of when I was talking about.
See, you were special -- you didn't get an award like everyone else. Although they should have given you an award for being so special that you didn't get an award. Oh, wait, these were awards for no special reason. This is confusing.
(In my view, participants should get t-shirts, winners should get awards.)
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Thank you. I was kind of curious. Well, more than kind of curious, I was curious enough to ask. I'd never heard it referred to as such. Hopefully it was clear that it wasn't me doubting you? Just that I was confused. I didn't even find much via the almighty Google. It makes more sense now. They had a number of different majors under the Comp Sci majors. I had some association with them and interaction with them. My major, and degree, is in Applied Mathematics.
As an aside; I didn't really like computers. I didn't mind "big iron." I didn't like 'em, I dare say I hated 'em, at home. I saw no value in them at first. I only learned to program because I had to. I was (and am) okay with a calculator. I just didn't see, I didn't envision, a future like we have - even though I knew of connectivity, micro, and had even accessed the "internet." I just really didn't like 'em and didn't want one. My, how much it has changed.
I had a computer. I didn't want my computer. The damned things were expensive and damned near useless unless you made 'em do something. I had no idea how to make them do anything useful. I learned some BASIC. I used a Trash 80 and owned one for a while. Had a VIC 20. Had some Amiga thing - I think it might have been a C64. I used Unix at school, eventually I had a Sun workstation at home. That was absurdly expensive. I couldn't get Zork for it - or if I could, I never figured out how to make it run. I did really like Zork.
Ah well... Again, thanks for clarification. I was quite confuzzled and the all-knowing Google wasn't very helpful.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Over the years, I've had the chance to interact with many blue-collar workers with little formal training and/or secondary education. The hubris demonstrated by some of my peers is amusing. The ego is a frail thing. Doing on-site data collection and actually taking the time to listen to those who do, as opposed to those who opine, has been one of my greatest assets and, I'm pretty sure, is why I'm retired today.
To give an example, if you can get away from municipal management and office-dwelling people long enough to drive the route. with one of the actual people who are in the highway department, and ask them about problems then you'll learn more about the area than you will from reading all the accident statistics, throughput numbers, or grade and visibility metrics. That's a very unwieldy sentence, sorry. But, if you can get someone who drives and works that stretch of highway to ride with you while you listen (and then you ride with them while you question) then you'll get more meaningful data than you will otherwise.
Oddly enough, that's actually difficult to do. They don't seem keen on letting you meet with and work with them. They don't seem to value their opinions or want them to have input. They don't care about the opinions of the guy who maintains it. They don't want you to talk to the guy who works there every day. They don't want you to talk with the person who's not only doing the job but will be working on the resulting product. It's actually difficult and they'll balk, almost every single time, when you request to spend some time and to be able to pick your assignee.
At best, absolute best - and with almost no exceptions, your first assignee will be a supervisor. I value their input too. However, if I wanted to work with a supervisor, I'd have requested on. I asked specifically for a machine operator, driver, and a general laborer. I asked for them for a reason. Do you want me to do my job properly and get your money's worth or do you want it to look good come reelection or review time? In almost every single instance, it was difficult to get the interaction I'd requested.
Also, after you're done, take them out and take a few of their co-workers to dinner and feed 'em a few beers. Go ahead, you can buy 'em dinner and some beers. It doesn't even need to be recorded but you might want to, you can even write it off as a business expense. That's only tangentially related but it's amazing the information that you can get. Having a good understanding of the how is a valuable asset and it's actually not difficult to get that understanding so long as there's little impediment to the process.
No, I do not understand why they don't want you to contact and communicate with the workers. No, I don't know why they don't want you to actually talk to "Tom over in the Maintenance Department." No, I don't know why it's generally taboo to talk to, "Dick the Dump Driver." It's damned near impossible to talk to "Harry the guy that's going to drive the paving machine at the contracted construction crew." Seriously, I do not understand why they don't want you to talk to them. 'Snot like I know everything by default and I sure as hell know the person I'm talking to doesn't know either. Finding out, by directly communicating with those who *do* as opposed to those who *opine* or *order* is a hell of a lot more beneficial than people seem to think.
That said, I'd probably have liked your father. I'm sure the architect's consternation was palpable, if not expressed outright, and I hope it led to great tales, memories, and educated a few of those architects in more than one way. I am not smarter than the guys who take care of my lawn. I am just more fortunate. However, there's almost certainly something that they can teach me - or have taught me. Yeah, without further information, there's a good chance that I'd have enjoyed conversing with him.
One of my favorite people actually has built houses, camps, and even a barn - without a tape measure or normal "tools." He uses a plumb-bob, a s
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I just figured most would know the term as being from the 70s ,80s... I did a lot basic on the C64 not that it's really useful now.
This is confusing.
I was a special snowflake for all the wrong reasons. But no one bothered to give me a special reward for my effort.
Perhaps he used to "work" for "Seabrooks" "Crisps" (also known as the ones that weren't as good as Walkers or KP that you used to get on coach outings which were really just an excuse for your granddad to go to the pub and leave you outside with a small still orange and a comic, if you were lucky, for three hours).
http://www.juvalamu.com/qmarks...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What do the quotes around is signify?
HTML is a mark-up language. Appearently HTML + CSS 3.0 is turing complete, but lets be honest it'sn not a computational language.
Sorry, I teach "Computer" class at a middle school that replaces the High School "computer' course. As such, it is a High School computer course.
I have been required to remove all technical parts from my curriculum (even though they are still part of the state curriculum). I am only permitted to teach basic office; I am not even permitted to teach advanced usage (such as Headers and footers and If/Then statements). I am not permitted to have the students print; because, "that is not a 21st century skill."
The code.org site you mentioned is one that I am permitted to introduce the students to; but I am not permitted to score progress on it.
Simply, the classes, both Computer I and Computer II, are entirely centered around presentation development and delivery. As a teacher I have no say whatsoever in the curriculum I teach; trust me, that was made extremely clear.
The trouble is that I teach at the highest performing school in our district. On standardized tests we are head and shoulders above the others. As such, the district has been mandated to even out the scores; on paper our district is clearly both separate and unequal. To do this the district is allowing the lower performing schools to set the scope and sequence for the district. The plan is to even the scores, and gravity says one direction is easier than another.
The only thing that could save the computer programs in the Secondary schools is to institute standardized testing. That way the districts would not be able to turn the computer classes, which they are required to have, into a class where the students can "expect a break from the hard classes."
If they want to teach computers, how about learning how to use computers like typing, using the Internet, etc.? Computer Science is too much.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).