I'm a teacher in a public high school with (we think) better than average utilization of our information tech, at least on the teacher's desk. We take a LOT less meetings than 5 years ago, and the meetings we have are MUCH more abstract, more based on principles, overviews of our goals, and a bit of cheerleading, and SHORTER than back in the day. I totally commend my bosses for their tech-awareness, and their use of meeting times only for things that can't easily be said in email, or a video.
The exceptions are sort of interesting. The state mandated test regime requires a lengthy, plodding, punitive-feeling training session. Technology training. also a state mandate, is required to be administered by means of face-time. Basically, the theater of authority seems to require face-time: "I can make you show up and listen to me."
Perhaps this is what is really going on in meetings in the private sector, as well?
This is one of those questions that make people tend to talk past each other because they start talking about their favorite language rather than educational purpose.
I'm sure that the educational purposes that motivate professors of young adults who have declared themselves computer science majors are rather different than those for high school CS teachers such as myself. I'll talk briefly about teaching high school, and let higher ed folks talk about their educational purposes themselves.
I've taught procedural, functional (Scheme), and OO to high school students ranging from very young 9th graders to very advanced 12th graders for 18 years. None of these have been an utter train wreck, and all have caused interesting and worthwhile conversations.
Lately, I have been teaching Python to Non-AP CS-1 for a few years. It has been an almost uninterrupted joy.
I am totally convinced that ordinary 10th graders benefit from non-oo, state machine programming and tacking on oo late in the day.
This serves the purpose of reinforcing a high school student's algebra, planning and workplace skills, and a welter of logical thinking skills that I can't believe are merely computer programming, such as understanding the distinction between type and instance.
Another purpose CS-1 is serving is as a not-really feeder course for APCS. By which I mean it is not a formal requirement, but gives only a few things I have to deal with differently when they become AP students (teaching manifest typing vs. duck typing, for instance. But that's a worthwhile conversation).
I would strongly encourage secondary CS teachers to investigate Python and perhaps other python-like languages, with the warning that there's no curriculum you can take off the shelf, and will need to reauthor your course so Python works for you. I note in passing that it is also a terribly friendly language for a teacher improvising while students are watching-- it generally does what you think it ought to do.
I found Elenco's "electronics playground" to be really good for a grownup who wanted something more than just tinkertoys with electronics.
The copy in the manual is really pretty conceptual, one concept at a time. I think the "plumbing" analogy is really helpful.
It's conceptual enough I think it would defeat kids under about "algebra age". Of course they could follow the recipes and build the circuits without really getting the concepts, and I don't think that's worthless.
To add to the fun, get a cheap multitester and look at voltage differences etc.
Wow, this question was really throwing raw meat to Slashdotters. Goodness. This response is a little late but what the hey.
I would like to advocate for a minimal IDE. This keeps the widget sets from obscuring more conceptual issues, but isn't so nasty as the whole "ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny" 1970's command line approach.
The other question is what kind of I/O to use. I like using a little tiny non-oo library for simple UIs and another for rough 2-D graphics.
The point of this approach is to use something slick enough that it's fun, and yet is a good clear vehicle for conversations about concepts.
Gosh! What if ordinary people started *habitually thinking* that published materials might contain mistakes, plagiarism, and ideological axe grinding. Sounds like dangerous creeping skepticism to me.
As a high school computer science teacher, I'm hesitant to say what university CS departments should use.
But I can talk about what makes good teaching languages. The purpose of a teaching language is to serve BOTH those who will be programmers, and those for whom CS1 is just an interesting (hopefully not harrowing) life experience. Python, with its VERY low floor and VERY high ceiling serves both purposes exceptionally well.
I use Python with high school freshman and sophomores as a "pre-AP" language, and find it a real joy to use. In fact it has really turned part of my professional life around, and made me renew my commitment to teaching younger kids programming-as-such. I'm having a blast.
I have used Pascal, AP-ified C++, Scheme, and Java. I've taught structured programming, objects, and functional style.
I find that teaching state machine programming with Python is providing hooks to start many wonderful conversations about variables, values, expressions, control, objects, garbage collection etc. etc... And, mirabile dictu: the way the math works relates to Algebra in a comprehensible way!
Most significantly, students are showing inititative and making up little hacks on their own in a way that they haven't since Turbo Pascal. As a constructionist kinda guy, that's the big win for me.
I once visited a control room at a chemical plant here in Texas (this was the mid 70's) and the control board had a qwerty keyboard and also a generally squarish one with the letters in alpha order, and the digits 0-9 in a column.
The purpose was to make ANYONE in the plant able to enter the command "SHUT DOWN BEFORE YOU BLOW UP" (so to speak) reasonably quickly.
So it occurs to me this might be useful in a setting with total non-typists needing to type relatively quickly... But in the year 2005, really, where would that be?
I grew up in Brazoria County. Re the wikipedia article, I'd heard that the second wife refused to put whiskey in the coffin because she was a water-drinker...
Yes, but a conversation allows for lateral moves, yes? In any case having criticized him for being off topic, you then engage him point by point. What's up with that?
Errors with your points (my wife works in admin for school district):
And so you get the party line from management, yes? So I thought I'd add a few remarks from a real teacher.
1 - at least one PHB (or PhD) - First, not different every year. Only when change dictated by state. One PHB? You do realize that the principals almost always PhD's in education, not MBA's?
No, every two or three years as they get their vitas together. Still a source of disorder.
2 - endless mandatory meetings - No. Mandatory meetings are usually one per quarter, and they get the day and are paid travel. Every day is a blatent lie, plus it's not held in the county seat.
Not a blatant lie; that would be an example of hyperbole. The professional development overhead in my state (Texas) is not trivial.
3 - PHBs telling... better - That PHB is one with an education degree, you know, and more experience than the teachers below. Hardly a PHB.
Some are assuredly PHB's. Parent's wife I'm sure is one of the good ones I'm sure, but some are entirely as clueless and mean as Dilbert's boss.
4 - Time at the job is valued more - That's called tenure. It's the largest problem with ridding the system of bad teachers. When was the last time you knew a tech with tenure?
Score one there, kinda. We do have a much better quality of life than many tech workers (except perhaps our own). In particular, anyone who cares about raising their family (read: women) can be forgiven for finding tech a barren and unlovley place, and preferring the public schools. And I haven't noticed managers having much difficulty dislodging bad teachers, but that may be just my environment.
5 - can't move up to another position - A great display of your ignorance about the school systems. The organization is thus: Principal and staff followed immediately by a flat level of all the teachers (not University system). No team leaders, no senior programmers, no analysts; none of the hierarchy you see in many businesse
Score one there, sorta. No, you don't move up by getting other teacher's jobs. But Grandparent is basically correct that you can't go up the ladder as a teacher very readily. It takes a vast committment of time and money and bending your head around the principalship (which ain't for everyone). Though the barriers to entry seem (to me) quite high, the compensations must be nice; the competition for principalships is fierce.
That's probably too kind. There is some sort of weird theistic signaling going on here:
"Had they stuck with their original beliefs in the working of the Divine Mind, and boldly concluded that the *squares* of the lengths ought to be more important than the links themselves, then the history of mathematics would have looked quite different." {from the Chapter 1 sample.}
To me, this seems sort of nuts. Which of course has no bearing on whether the math is useful, or in some sense of the word, correct. Many great innovations stink of lunacy when they're hot from the oven.
My basic concern is that once we've chosen to accept the invitation to discuss technicalities of this system, that some sort of cow is already eating the cabbages, when instead we should be exploring the role of the Divine Mind in his thinking in some detail, to see if this particular cow should be allowed in the cabbage patch at all.
June 16th is honored as Bloomsday. That is the day that James Joyce's Ulysses is set. A truly exquisite choice of date for calling attention to Autism.
If Bill Gates and Ayn Rand and Isaac Newton and are considered Aspergery, pencil Joyce onto that list as well...
Asperger's Syndrome driving out women?
on
Women Leaving I.T.
·
· Score: 1
I'm a school teacher. I teach, God help me, computer programming to secondary kids. I've just been reading about "high functioning autism" or Asperger's syndrome. I am quite rattled by the implications.
Aspies can perseverate on tricky things, that like certain kind of things, they just don't understand certain kinds of social cues easily. Don't interview well, because they won't look the interviewer in the eye, etc....I won't enumerate symptoms; do a web search.
People who have (or are diagnosed?) with Asperger's are like 95% male. Instant gender issue.
I wonder what the percentage of Computer Science majors with Aperger's Syndrome or other autistic spectrum disorders actually is. I bet it's huge. And a culture of "Aspies" might very well drive away females like crazy just out of sheer cognitive dissonance. I wonder if this isn't a pretty big deal. Does anyone know if there is such thing as research in the psychology of programming?
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I'm a teacher in a public high school with (we think) better than average utilization of our information tech, at least on the teacher's desk. We take a LOT less meetings than 5 years ago, and the meetings we have are MUCH more abstract, more based on principles, overviews of our goals, and a bit of cheerleading, and SHORTER than back in the day. I totally commend my bosses for their tech-awareness, and their use of meeting times only for things that can't easily be said in email, or a video.
The exceptions are sort of interesting. The state mandated test regime requires a lengthy, plodding, punitive-feeling training session. Technology training. also a state mandate, is required to be administered by means of face-time. Basically, the theater of authority seems to require face-time: "I can make you show up and listen to me."
Perhaps this is what is really going on in meetings in the private sector, as well?
This is one of those questions that make people tend to talk past each other because they start talking about their favorite language rather than educational purpose.
I'm sure that the educational purposes that motivate professors of young adults who have declared themselves computer science majors are rather different than those for high school CS teachers such as myself. I'll talk briefly about teaching high school, and let higher ed folks talk about their educational purposes themselves.
I've taught procedural, functional (Scheme), and OO to high school students ranging from very young 9th graders to very advanced 12th graders for 18 years. None of these have been an utter train wreck, and all have caused interesting and worthwhile conversations.
Lately, I have been teaching Python to Non-AP CS-1 for a few years. It has been an almost uninterrupted joy.
I am totally convinced that ordinary 10th graders benefit from non-oo, state machine programming and tacking on oo late in the day.
This serves the purpose of reinforcing a high school student's algebra, planning and workplace skills, and a welter of logical thinking skills that I can't believe are merely computer programming, such as understanding the distinction between type and instance.
Another purpose CS-1 is serving is as a not-really feeder course for APCS. By which I mean it is not a formal requirement, but gives only a few things I have to deal with differently when they become AP students (teaching manifest typing vs. duck typing, for instance. But that's a worthwhile conversation).
I would strongly encourage secondary CS teachers to investigate Python and perhaps other python-like languages, with the warning that there's no curriculum you can take off the shelf, and will need to reauthor your course so Python works for you. I note in passing that it is also a terribly friendly language for a teacher improvising while students are watching-- it generally does what you think it ought to do.
I found Elenco's "electronics playground" to be really good for a grownup who wanted something more than just tinkertoys with electronics.
The copy in the manual is really pretty conceptual, one concept at a time. I think the "plumbing" analogy is really helpful.
It's conceptual enough I think it would defeat kids under about "algebra age". Of course they could follow the recipes and build the circuits without really getting the concepts, and I don't think that's worthless.
To add to the fun, get a cheap multitester and look at voltage differences etc.
And it's cheap.
Wow, this question was really throwing raw meat to Slashdotters. Goodness. This response is a little late but what the hey.
I would like to advocate for a minimal IDE. This keeps the widget sets from obscuring more conceptual issues, but isn't so nasty as the whole "ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny" 1970's command line approach.
The other question is what kind of I/O to use. I like using a little tiny non-oo library for simple UIs and another for rough 2-D graphics.
The point of this approach is to use something slick enough that it's fun, and yet is a good clear vehicle for conversations about concepts.
Gosh! What if ordinary people started *habitually thinking* that published materials might contain mistakes, plagiarism, and ideological axe grinding. Sounds like dangerous creeping skepticism to me.
As a high school computer science teacher, I'm hesitant to say what university CS departments should use.
But I can talk about what makes good teaching languages. The purpose of a teaching language is to serve BOTH those who will be programmers, and those for whom CS1 is just an interesting (hopefully not harrowing) life experience. Python, with its VERY low floor and VERY high ceiling serves both purposes exceptionally well.
I use Python with high school freshman and sophomores as a "pre-AP" language, and find it a real joy to use. In fact it has really turned part of my professional life around, and made me renew my commitment to teaching younger kids programming-as-such. I'm having a blast.
I have used Pascal, AP-ified C++, Scheme, and Java. I've taught structured programming, objects, and functional style.
I find that teaching state machine programming with Python is providing hooks to start many wonderful conversations about variables, values, expressions, control, objects, garbage collection etc. etc... And, mirabile dictu: the way the math works relates to Algebra in a comprehensible way!
Most significantly, students are showing inititative and making up little hacks on their own in a way that they haven't since Turbo Pascal. As a constructionist kinda guy, that's the big win for me.
I once visited a control room at a chemical plant here in Texas (this was the mid 70's) and the control board had a qwerty keyboard and also a generally squarish one with the letters in alpha order, and the digits 0-9 in a column.
The purpose was to make ANYONE in the plant able to enter the command "SHUT DOWN BEFORE YOU BLOW UP" (so to speak) reasonably quickly.
So it occurs to me this might be useful in a setting with total non-typists needing to type relatively quickly... But in the year 2005, really, where would that be?
I grew up in Brazoria County. Re the wikipedia article, I'd heard that the second wife refused to put whiskey in the coffin because she was a water-drinker...
Newbie, stay in a conversation about tech.
... better - That PHB is one with an education degree, you know, and more experience than the teachers below. Hardly a PHB.
Yes, but a conversation allows for lateral moves, yes? In any case having criticized him for being off topic, you then engage him point by point. What's up with that?
Errors with your points (my wife works in admin for school district):
And so you get the party line from management, yes? So I thought I'd add a few remarks from a real teacher.
1 - at least one PHB (or PhD) - First, not different every year. Only when change dictated by state. One PHB? You do realize that the principals almost always PhD's in education, not MBA's?
No, every two or three years as they get their vitas together. Still a source of disorder.
2 - endless mandatory meetings - No. Mandatory meetings are usually one per quarter, and they get the day and are paid travel. Every day is a blatent lie, plus it's not held in the county seat.
Not a blatant lie; that would be an example of hyperbole. The professional development overhead in my state (Texas) is not trivial.
3 - PHBs telling
Some are assuredly PHB's. Parent's wife I'm sure is one of the good ones I'm sure, but some are entirely as clueless and mean as Dilbert's boss.
4 - Time at the job is valued more - That's called tenure. It's the largest problem with ridding the system of bad teachers. When was the last time you knew a tech with tenure?
Score one there, kinda. We do have a much better quality of life than many tech workers (except perhaps our own). In particular, anyone who cares about raising their family (read: women) can be forgiven for finding tech a barren and unlovley place, and preferring the public schools. And I haven't noticed managers having much difficulty dislodging bad teachers, but that may be just my environment.
5 - can't move up to another position - A great display of your ignorance about the school systems. The organization is thus: Principal and staff followed immediately by a flat level of all the teachers (not University system). No team leaders, no senior programmers, no analysts; none of the hierarchy you see in many businesse
Score one there, sorta. No, you don't move up by getting other teacher's jobs. But Grandparent is basically correct that you can't go up the ladder as a teacher very readily. It takes a vast committment of time and money and bending your head around the principalship (which ain't for everyone). Though the barriers to entry seem (to me) quite high, the compensations must be nice; the competition for principalships is fierce.
That's probably too kind. There is some sort of weird theistic signaling going on here:
To me, this seems sort of nuts. Which of course has no bearing on whether the math is useful, or in some sense of the word, correct. Many great innovations stink of lunacy when they're hot from the oven.
My basic concern is that once we've chosen to accept the invitation to discuss technicalities of this system, that some sort of cow is already eating the cabbages, when instead we should be exploring the role of the Divine Mind in his thinking in some detail, to see if this particular cow should be allowed in the cabbage patch at all.
June 16th is honored as Bloomsday. That is the day that James Joyce's Ulysses is set. A truly exquisite choice of date for calling attention to Autism.
If Bill Gates and Ayn Rand and Isaac Newton and are considered Aspergery, pencil Joyce onto that list as well...
I'm a school teacher. I teach, God help me, computer programming to secondary kids. I've just been reading about "high functioning autism" or Asperger's syndrome. I am quite rattled by the implications. Aspies can perseverate on tricky things, that like certain kind of things, they just don't understand certain kinds of social cues easily. Don't interview well, because they won't look the interviewer in the eye, etc....I won't enumerate symptoms; do a web search. People who have (or are diagnosed?) with Asperger's are like 95% male. Instant gender issue. I wonder what the percentage of Computer Science majors with Aperger's Syndrome or other autistic spectrum disorders actually is. I bet it's huge. And a culture of "Aspies" might very well drive away females like crazy just out of sheer cognitive dissonance. I wonder if this isn't a pretty big deal. Does anyone know if there is such thing as research in the psychology of programming?