Category: Blog

Yesterday was my last full day of school.  It really hasn’t sunk in yet.  For one, unlike last year, I don’t want this one to end.  I really love the kids I’ve had this year, even my 5th period class.  Okay, I could do without my 7th period.  They weren’t bad, I just couldn’t ever get them to be serious about their work.  They always had something else to do.

I got a very good evaluation — the best I’ve gotten for years, though we all lost points when our school was on the NCLB Unacceptable Yearly Progress list.

I am really looking forward to summer.  I’m going to be writing our district finals for our Visual Basic class and going to staff development and that’s all.  And because I won the STEM Award, I don’t have to work unless I want to.  I am thinking about doing a short term web design contract.

All in all, it’s been one of my best years of teaching.

This is the award I won. 

Texas Instruments Innovations in STEM Teaching Award 2007

Source: Dallas Education Foundation-Programs

I had two people observing my 4th period class today.  Channel One comes on at the beginning of the class period — now, I could have unplugged the TV before they came, but I chose not to.

When the bell rang, I told them — we start the class period with Channel One that period, so we’re pretty informal.

Like most days, some of the students watched Channel One.  Some checked on their assignments that I had graded and returned yesteday.  Some were doing email.  There was an interesting segment with the Govenator talking about how technology and environmentalism can work together to make being green economical which I pointed out to the kids.

When Channel One was over, I answered a few questions about yesterday’s work.  Once that was wrapped up, I started the lesson — we started a new unit, so I showed a Power Point presenation — did questions and answers, etc.

So then I cut the students lose to work on their assignments.  I see one young man instant messaging — he says it’s his mom.  I read the screen and they were talking about ripping up carpet.  Not normal kid stuff — so I said:  Well tell mom I said hi — and that I also said you needed to get back to work.  He typed that in AND did get back to work.

Wonder how the observaters felt about that….

I’ve got my counts and schedule for next year.  It will probably be tweaked quit a bit.

The good news — 19 in AP Computer Science.

The bad news — 36 in PreAP, that is 8 more kids that I can handle, but we’ll probably do some rearranging.  Also I’ll lose some of my count due to attrition and singleton courses.

It looks like 2 sections of Webmastering, 2 sections of CS I, 1 section of PreAP and 1 Section of AP.  I’m going to try to move kids from Webmastering to CS.

In contrast to the New York Times article, Scott Hanselman talks about programming languages. 

What programming languages should a New Programmer experience early so that they might be more able to “hear the tones later” when a new languages comes along? What language should a new programmer be exposed to first?

Source: Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen – The (Programming) Language Explosion

I think language diversity is important. 

I got my B.S. in the early 80’s, from a university (Southern Mississippi), that recognized early that computer science was constantly evolving.  We went from Basic, to Fortran, to Assembly Language than Cobol in two years.  After that we took “Programming Languages”.  We also studied databases from a purely theoretical level since much of what was purposed wasn’t doable yet on a machine.  That in additional to all the other “stuff”.

As a result, I have been extremely adaptable.  I worked in an environment for 10 years where I was expected to implement the same functionality over several different types of machines while giving the user the same interface.  As a teacher, I’ve had to move from QBasic, various forms of Visual Basic, and from Pascal, to C++ to Java.

I believe my early background has made me extremely adaptable, and I urge my students to do the same.  I have many students who take Visual Basic their first year and Java their second, though more just learn Java in the two years.  That maybe changing though. My current principal apparently does not like PreAP or AP courses. 

I personally feel that this is a cool way to go, if you have to go.  Let’s face it, he was 76, and had a very full, long life.  He’s accomplished a lot.  I hope his life and his death inspire his students.  It certainly touches me. 

Professor Librescu never moved from the door of Room 204 in Norris Hall at Virginia Tech, witnesses said, even as the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was shooting. Directing his students to escape through windows, Professor Librescu was fatally shot.

Source: Professor’s Violent Death Came Where He Sought Peace – New York Times

Alfred asked me to clarify what I meant in my comments.  I’m happy to teach what ever anyone wants me to teach in Computer Science, be it regular, PreAP, or AP. 

Tell me, provide me with materials, and I’m happy with it. 

That being said, I do think programming in a modern, GUI oriented programming is right up there with what we should be teaching.  What is it that students interact with most when they interact with computers — yep, programs.

One of the reasons I mention programming in a GUI oriented programming, is that I believe that the human computer interface should be a focal point in a beginning CS class.  The earlier you learn to design interfaces the better.

I also do believe that computer networks is also right up there with things that kids should know — why, because of the internet.  Students also interact with computer networks.

I also believe students need to understand enough about hardware that they can actually go out and buy a computer system, set it up and install it.

The hard part though, and the part that AP development committee faces each year, is how to do test any of the above?  It’s easy to test obscure programming stuff, harder to test concepts.

Interesting comment — I keep wondering what people who make this type of comment think we SHOULD teach in high school computer science and how we should teach it. 

The Advanced Placement high school course in computer science may be part of the problem, according to Dr. Cuny. “The AP computer course is a disaster,” she said. “It teaches Java programming, which is very appealing to a lot of people, but not to others. It doesn’t teach what you can do with computers.”

Source: Computer Science Takes Steps to Bring Women to the Fold – New York Times

Got an email as I was on the way out the door this evening.  My AP Computer Science A syllabus was approved by the College Board.  Since my AP AB was already approved, I’m done with that process.

It was actually pretty easy.  I teach out of the same book as one of the samples, so I copied it, added the stuff I do different, deleted the stuff I don’t do, and submitted it.

I did almost the same for the AB syllabus.  I use the A plus materials for that class, so I used Stacy’s information, formatted the same as the first syllabus.  That one took a bit more effort, but I still didn’t spend a whole lot time.

Whew — and what a pain in the rear.

I’m lucky.  I live in Dallas.  We’ve got SMU a stone throw’s away, we have UTD a bit farther and then UNT and UTA.  Here’s the deal.  Only UTD has ever tried to help me. 

I felt really bad for the guy, they sent a professor down to observe my classes for a few days.  He threw up his hands in disgust after about 10 interruptions in 5 minutes and wondered how I would ever get anything done.  Last I heard of him.

I know UNT thought about workshops for teachers a few times but I’m not sure why they never happened.

What we need are short and sweet workshops, either in the summer or in the early fall.  Maybe as late as January, but we start panicking about getting our students ready much past that.

One week workshops are hard on the body.

The best workshop I’ve gone in recent years was up at Hendrix University.  Their workshop was a couple of weekends before school starts — it was great because that’s when I start thinking about this year’s assignments.  They provided transportation to and from the airport, put us up in a dorm, and fed us every meal.  It was great for the teachers because we could concentrate on the workshop.  It went from Friday morning until Saturday night.

I still speak fondly of that university. 

I’d gladly do something like that IN town too.  Show us what you do in the first couple of CS classes.  Have your instructors give the workshop.  Give us time to do your assignments that you have your kids to do.

It really is not that hard.  I believe Hendrix got a local business to spring for the workshop expenses.  And it is a good way to get publicity for your CS department.