Author: kathleen

Yes, I believe so.  I've seen lots of good teachers and lots of bad teachers come and go in my sixteen years of teaching.

All the research shows that fully qualified teachers do a better job that those who aren't, one of the reasons that NCLB requires that, and one of the reasons that Texas makes us jump through hoops.

Unfortunately too many people in industry think they can teach and don't think they need teacher training.  Yes, I was one of those, and still don't regret a moment I spent doing teacher certification courses.   I've met a few in the classroom who I honestly believe sitting through and listening to some classroom management classes would help, but unfortunately they know too much and won't listen.

Actually I think that's a problem with a lot of people, not just CS and not just teachers.

I've seen a lot of bad teachers, some of whom I don't think have any of the necessary skills:

a) The ability to manage a classroom.

b) The ability to write a readible, maintenable program.

c) The ability to get what is in their head into words that a high school student can understand.

I think that not having these skills is really detrimental to the student.

I've had students who didn't want to be in my class, and I've had to pull out every classroom management skill I have, and then some.  A few of them have gone on to be good programmers and major in it in college.  I think that they would not have succeeded with teacher who had lesser skills or did not care.

I will brag — even my students who don't care for programming at the end of the year, recognize that I am passionate about the field, and I think they do benefit from the class, if nothing else they recognize CS BS when they see it.

I really believe that if we want to see successful CS programs we need to develop teachers.  I also think we don't need people who think of teaching as a stopgap or last resource of a poor economy.  I also don't think it should treated as a Peace Corps opportunity as it usually takes more than 3 years to turn a degreed, newly certified teacher into a competent teacher.  Myself included.  Unfortunately classroom management skills are learned.

Requested and got a Zune for Christmas.

I love it, though I wish it were able to work with my Bluetooth Stereo Headphones.

Getting it working with my desktop computers has been no-brainers.  I put it on my oldest, and realized that 120 gig portable device attached to a desktop with a 90 gig harddrive made no sense so I moved it over to my newer desktop.

However, I want to demo software development on the Zune (and XBox).  I can’t get it working with the district issued Thinkpad and I suspect it’s something to do with the Kasparesky Anti-Virus program.  I get a yellow exclamation mark in the Device manager and it continually requests a reboot.

So then I loaded it on the Gateway tablet.  The Zune software won’t work, I’ve gotten two seperate error messages and it doesn’t see the device.  HOWEVER, the XNA software works fine and lets me connect to the Zune so I do have a demo machine.

This is why I still recommend desktops over laptops.  Even though the desktops were all very cheap machines, they just work. 

Though oddly, neither desktop machine can pull video off my video camera and both notebooks can. 

I am making progress on my school projects.  Have some good stuff for the middle school camp and finally started grading today.  Man have I been putting that off.

Also have been doing some good purging in the office though I need to load up some electronics and get them out of here.

So far, good break and some progress.

You Tube at my audio so I reloaded.

The CSTA Organization asks this on their website:

We believe that this is a critical discussion for our professional community right now, so tell us:

* What are your experiences with certification/endorsement in computer science?
* What were the qualifications required of you when you were assigned to teach your first computer science class?
* Were you adequately prepared?

Computer Science Teachers Association: Addressing the Crisis in Computer Science Certification

I’m one of the lucky ones.  At the time I decided to become a teacher, I could find a certification program.  One of the things that helped was that I decided to become dual certified in math and computer science.  I was required to take both pedagogy and math courses.  Those math courses focused on being able to teach the material to their students.

I did my teacher certification at Texas Woman’s University which is designed as a teaching college (as well as other disciplines).  I was even required to take a CS course but then again I ended up teaching a lot of it, as the instructor was retired and recognized that I had just finished about 10 years of the discipline being taught.  It WAS a good experience, since it gave me some CS teaching experience, besides tutorial others.  However, it was a small class.

Even with pedagogy classes, I wasn’t prepared for classroom management.  That is the weakest part of my preparation.  A smart high school gives new teachers good mentors who are good at classroom management and not all teachers are.  I am known for my classroom management but it didn’t come easy or over night.  At lot of it is second nature now, and I really don’t think about it a lot. I will admit that I use my dog training skills a lot — and also use a very good source:  Karen Pryor’s – Don’t Shoot the Dog! – The new Art of Teaching and Training and can’t recommend it highly enough.  I’ll confess, I’m quoted in the 2nd edition.

I’ve seen the product of other computer science teachers who are not as good at classroom discipline and it is difficult for their students to learn in a classroom setting.  I don’t know what happens in their classroom on a day to day basis, but have seen them in a AP tutorial setting.  I’ve complained for years about the behavior of our SEM students — in the tutorial setting they were disruptive and rude when corrected — and that was fixed at our last tutorial session by a new teacher. 

I think one of the problem is the alternative certification program.  I’ve watched some of the teachers that come out of it, and they work really hard when it comes to classroom management.  At the same time, they don’t take advantage of the training given by the district.  We’ve been using CHAMPS, which I swear is right out of Karen’s book. 

Most of classroom management is coming up with entertaining lessons that have built in feedback, especially if you have a large class.  By the way, my average class size over the years has been 25+ so I know how to manage a large classroom.

In all, if you want to be a good classroom teacher, no matter the subject, you need good preparation, good mentors to watch and follow, and you need to find your own style. 

I will also say, that some of my best preparation has come from my Master’s in CECS (Computer Education and Cognitive Studies), which I obtained about 10 years after I started teaching.

Went over to Office Depot — figured they wouldn't be packed, any other shopping I do will be either Monday morning, or after Christmas. I was right. One of my issues with the new layout of the new layout of the classroom, is that it is SO long, that students feel I'm very far away.  I've been grabbing my rolling chair, and sitting with them, but that is still a bit uncomfortable.  I picked up a rolling laptop desk for $30.00 which will let me be more comfortable.

The other thing that helps is having a wireless access point.  It can't be heard outside my room, and really allows me to be more flexible.

Now that someone else does the heavy lifting on the blog — I am really mastering the twitter/blogging thing.

For example, someone asked me a question tonight that really needed a few paragraph answer which let to a blog post on video cameras.

I'm using TwitterFeed to automatically my blog posts on Twitter so I can even skip that step when I went.

I think it makes both experiences better.  Besides I can blog at school but have to use my mobile phone to twitter, so I don't often.  Besides, it looks like texting….

Last year, one of the things I purchased with my STEM award was a Buffalo TerraStation NAS.  For a lot of reasons, I want it at the house and want to be able to access it from school.  Especially during the installation of the computers.  Well, I managed to get the web access up and running, even through the Uverse firewall, and even have it set up so I can get to it through a domain name.

I'd like to use the Buffalo NAS service but it isn't that reliable.

I am also hoping to pick up some cheap hard drives for it.

I have three video cameras.  I will start out that I don't much video but am learning.  Oh, and I am certified in Digital Apps, and did take a course where I had to learn how to not only video tape but teach it.  However, I don't teach it and haven't.  Makes my head explode.  I would only offer to seniors, or mature juniors as it involves long term projects.  Average high school student cannot deal.  I might do it at a large high school with more students to pick from but we're a 4A.

My favorite camcorders for agility trials are Flips.  Cheap point and shot cameras.  I know have two.  The reason I like them is that they are light weight and you can hand them to the clueless and they can get a decent video for you.  Also they are durable, hard to break, difficult to get sand in and are cheap if you lose them.  I just got a 30 minutes Flip from WOOT.com for $70 bucks, ordered on Wednesday got today. 

My expensive camera is a JVC I've picked up used and had out of the house once.  I've got it set up for a tripod and am going to make some videos of my Christmas training sessions.

So far I like it.  Fairly easy to use, especially since I don't have the patience to read manuals.  I write them, but I only read them when I want to do something NOW.

My advice:  watch the internet and buy cheap stuff.  Works for me.

I want to take the program that is written about here:

http://www.devx.com/wireless/Article/39600

and set it up so it downloads all the SMS messages and lets you look quote and reply to the messages.

There is a sample program with the Pocket PC SDK kit that's the other half — it keeps a thread of SMS messages so I figure it is doable.

My first problem is that I can't get the above program to run.  I get a error that says:  No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.  I've decided that the problem is the anti-virus program that the district has installed on my computer and have moved it to another computer.

I've some progress, I've gotten a white screen to show up on both the desktop and the mobile, even on the laptop with the anti-virus, so it may just be that I don't know how to deploy this set of programs.

Would LOVE some help on this.  I've been able to write and deploy mobile phone programs before