I’m volunteering a couple mornings a week at a local high school, helping out with computer science classes. The way the classes are taught, via an online curriculum, provides a great temptation to kids to get off-task, which they do, usually by entertaining themselves with their phones. They get off-task in other ways too — web surfing, doing homework for other classes — but the main distractor is the phones . . . “As I mentioned before, I worked with another CS class a couple years ago. No phones allowed in the classroom. “I remember one day the assistant principal was in class observing . . . a student had a phone out, looking at it . . . he was holding it under the table so no one could see it, but this guy, the assistant principal, he did see it. “Oh man, did he hit the roof!… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Programming
Teaching Computer Science: When You Need Help, Ask For Help
I’m volunteering a couple mornings a week at a local high school, helping out with computer science classes. It’s a mixed class . . . most of the students are taking AP Computer Science Principles, and about 10 kids just recently started a second-semester Visual Basic class. The VB kids were pretty inquisitive at first but started to get discouraged . . . in my opinion because of the way the material is presented to them via an online curriculum. The current approach to teaching computer science in American schools, because of the shortage of (I almost said “lack of”) qualified teachers is to use packaged courses delivered to students online. My observation is students assume that because they’ve been put in front of a computer full of lessons, they’re expected to be able to read and understand the material and complete the assignments on their own with no help.… Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Asking for Help
I’m volunteering a couple mornings a week at a local high school, helping out with computer science classes. This morning, in AP Computer Science Principles, the teacher went through an explanation of the hexadecimal number system, then gave an in-class assignment for students to convert their cell phone number to hexadecimal. Not in two parts, 3 digits and 4 digits, but as a 7-digit number. It seemed pretty obvious from the interaction and the body language and the looks on their faces that a lot of students didn’t get it, but in a class of 25 students, only one student asked for help. Until the teacher finished with that student and asked “Does anyone else need help?” and eight more students immediately raised their hand. I asked the teacher, “Can I address the class for a minute?” “First off, doing a 7-digit hex conversion is not easy. I know… Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: It’s Not Easy to Teach a Subject in Which You Have No Training
A recent issue of Science has an article on the pipeline for computer science teachers . . . The first sentence says, “It’s not easy to teach a subject in which you have no training.” That could be the whole article, really. That’s about all you need to know about the current state of computer science instruction: It’s not easy to teach a subject in which you have no training. Cameron Wilson, chief operating officer and president of the Code.org Advocacy Coalition, is quoted as saying, “It’s really hard to convince a computer science professional to give up a job that pays up to three times more to pursue teaching. And I don’t think we should.” Wilson’s opinion that computer science classes should not be taught by someone who actually knows something about computer science is probably influenced by the fact that Code.org is one of the leading providers of… Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Although I can’t claim never to have said these things myself, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say either a) “It was working fine 10 minutes ago,” or b) “It works okay on my machine,” I would be comfortably retired by now. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
What Does a Programmer Do?
I was asked to give a talk last week to a high school computer science class on “What Does a Programmer Do?” (I’m indebted to Jim McCarthy for the “lords and ladies of logic” section.) Programming is problem solving. At the highest level, the problem that programmers solve is that people want to be able to do things with computers that they can’t do. And by computers, I don’t mean just the kind of computers you have on the desks here, I mean phones, watches, cars . . . more and more different kinds of devices are running software. So one good thing about being a programmer is that pretty much every field of endeavor now uses software and data. You can work at a tech company like Microsoft or Google or Twitter or Facebook, but you can also work in healthcare, finance, education, sports . . . you… Read more →
I’m a Winner!
I’ve been doing the daily challenges at CodeFights for quite a while and yesterday’s challenge is the first time I got first place! (CodeFights ranks solutions by fewest number of characters, with solution time as the tiebreaker.) Read more →
AP Computer Science Revisited
I got a LinkedIn invitation today from a student I taught in an AP Computer Science class a couple of years ago. She’s now a computer science major at UCSB. Several of the kids from that class are now in college as computer science majors. Some of them would have been computer science majors anyway, without the class — they came in already having programming interest and experience — but this young lady was not in that group. She was quiet in class but when I worked with her one on one, she asked a lot of questions. She asked them quietly but she asked. And when I told her to do something a certain way she always asked why. She only has four connections at this time so I appreciate her thinking of me. 🙂 Read more →
Learn to Code
I’m a programmer . . . Job searches for me go like this: I’m old, I have to compete with people half my age, but I’ve worked in Orange County since forever so I know some people, and I can write good code in interviews, which the majority of programmers who show up for interviews can’t. I was out of work on January 5. It’s now January 24. I have three job offers and picked the one I like best. Moral of the story: Learn to code, kids . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Along with pleas for money, almost 100 percent of the cardboard signs I see being held by people on freeway off-ramps and the like include the phrase “God Bless You.” There seems to be a correlation between belief in God and begging for money on off-ramps. Notice that you never see Satanists begging for money. Why don’t they pray for the money? Maybe they did pray and God told them to make a cardboard sign? I tell my acolytes if they need money, learn to code. See you in Hell . . . Read more →
Teaching Prisoners to Code: What Could Go Wrong?
What could go wrong here? Criminal minds + coding skills = ??? One of my favorite Mr. Boffo cartoons shows a gang of robbers in a bank in the Old West . . . one of the robbers says to another, “Someday this will all be done by computer.” What an inspiring program to solve a big and growing U.S. problem. Posted by Code.org on Sunday, February 21, 2016 Read more →
Kidneys for Coders
The Ceiling Seems Very Low
I don’t know if this is good news or bad news. It would help to know what “trains” means but I read the article and it doesn’t say. Reporters need to be more inquisitive. Can someone with no knowledge of computer science or programming be “trained” to teach computer science or programming? What would that entail? How long would it take? Can someone who’s never played an instrument or listened to a piece of music be “trained” to teach a music class? Can someone who’s never picked up a drawing pencil or visited a museum be “trained” to teach an art class? Can someone who doesn’t speak Spanish be “trained” to teach a Spanish class? The ceiling on any of these approaches seems very low compared to hiring actual programmers, musicians, artists and Spanish speakers . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Hey Guys, I Wrote a Book!
It’s called Thus Spoke the Programmer: A Fictional Memoir. (Don’t be put off by the title if you’re not a programmer. It’s guaranteed to delight both technical and non-technical readers alike. 🙂 ) If you’re interested in having a look at it, you have a couple of options: Leanpub, a PWYW (pay what you want) platform, which means if you want to read the book for free, you can download it and read it for free. Amazon, available in paperback or Kindle format (not free). Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: The Last Day
On the last day of class, I gave students the code for a partially working Space Invaders game, along with instructions for adding collision detection and completing the implementation. The instructions didn’t leave too much to the imagination because I wanted to give everyone a chance to finish out the year on a successful note. I estimated it to be about a 30-minute activity. It didn’t occur to me that that students would do anything but finish the program and spend whatever time was left over blasting aliens. What they actually did was, they finished the program, tweaked the firing interval so they could shoot faster, changed the speed of the sprites, added more aliens, changed the program to shoot two bullets at a time instead of one, changed the program to shoot five bullets at a time, enabled the aliens to drop bombs, had the game recognize that when… Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Extra Credit
I wish I got a dollar for every time a student asks, “Can I get extra credit for [insert action for which it makes no sense to give extra credit]?” Today in class we did a difficult programming exercise. It wasn’t graded but I asked everyone to turn it in so I could evaluate the difficulty of the assignment. “Can we get extra credit for turning it in?” a student asked me. “How does it make sense to give extra credit for turning it in? Everyone is turning it in.” “It raises everyone’s grades,” he said. “Like a rising tide lifts all boats.” Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Combating Procrastination
Students had a project due last week and I got a lot of messages and emails asking for help. Of course, when we handed out the assignment two months ago, we advised students not to wait till the last minute to work on it. Teachers and parents saying “Don’t wait till the last minute” is just an understood part of the process. It’s something that gets said but it’s background noise. A couple of alternatives occur to me: Reverse psychology. Say “My advice is to start as late as possible. Try to do two months of work in the last week, or better yet, the last night.” This seems too easy to see through and therefore unlikely to work. Hand out the 20-page spec and tell the students that it’s due tomorrow. WHAT!? YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! NOBODY COULD DO THIS IN ONE DAY! “You’re right. It’s actually due in… Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Pro Tips for Finishing a Project
For many (most?) students doing an object-oriented development project for the first time, this assignment is too difficult to do without a lot of guidance. Therefore: ask for help early and often. If you wait till the night before a checkpoint, you won’t have enough time to finish and we won’t have enough time to help you effectively. Therefore: ask for help early and often. I’m seeing students struggling to write code that we’ve already given you. That’s not a good use of your time. Know what we’ve given you and use it. This is what your program needs to do: [Feature list goes here]. Pick a feature and try to implement it (or part of it). If you can’t do it, come to class tomorrow and ask a question. Repeat Step 5 until done. Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Lessons Learned
We did a programming lab in class . . . before we started, I mentioned several times that Java code that would be useful for the lab was posted on the class website. So it surprised me that several groups got stuck during the lab when they got to the part where the sample code would have been useful because they didn’t go to the website and download the sample code. Going forward, I will preface important announcements by saying “I cannot emphasize this strongly enough . . .” while pounding my fist on a solid object. Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Collected Thoughts
If you recognize the person on this next slide, please raise your hand. Don’t yell out the name, just raise your hand. About two-thirds of you recognize Derek Jeter. I thought everyone would recognize him, but still a clear majority. I’m not a Yankees fan or a Derek Jeter fan particularly but the Captain and I are on the same page on this topic. I have to admit I was pretty competitive as a student. I didn’t want anyone to do better than me and I especially didn’t want anyone to do better than me because they worked harder than me. This Jeter quote reminded me of a quote from another notable sports figure . . . This is Bob Knight, college basketball coach, most notably at the University of Indiana. He won 902 games, three NCAA championships, and he coached the 1984 Olympic basketball team to a gold medal.… Read more →