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C'est la Z

The SAT - should it be required

I saw a few days ago that Yale was reinstating the SAT. They're joining Dartmouth and Brown of the Ivies as well as MIT. I have no idea what percent of applicants, let alone percent those receiving offers, took the exam anyway for other school applications. Some of my friends thought this was great - a return to standards!!!! Others felt it was a regressive move and it will hurt diversity and equity.
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Charleston days 3 and 4 - Plantation visits and more food

As I mentioned in my CS-Ed Podcast post, yesterday was a washout. Seriously scary storms. We ended up spending the entire day in the hotel but was able to get to Middleton Place for dinner. The original plan was to do the entire plantation during the afternoon but that was a no go. Instead we got there a little before our reservation time which did let us wander the grounds a little before heading in to the restaurant.
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The CS-Ed podcast - teaching college without a PhD

It's our third day in Charleston and we're stuck in our hotel. Stormy rains and strong winds and a coastal flood alert telling everyone to stay home. Our car is in the parking lot with water halfway up the wheels. We had tickets to go to the International African American Museum this morning but got an email saying they won't be open until the afternoon and that our tickets would automatically be refunded.
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Charleston day 2 - Wrought Iron and Religion

We started day 2 with a walking tour. We've been using Free Tours by Foot or similar services. No fee or a small reservation fee up front and then pay what you want at the end. We generally haven't been disappointed and also generally end up tipping voluntarily about the same amount as what we'd pay for a pay up front tour. We walked around downtown getting more local and US history and learning about the city.
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Visiting Charleston

Depending how you looked at things, I started my retirement this past Fall. Part of the plan was for Devorah and I to travel a bit more - something we rarely got to do when we were younger. I did have a great trip with Batya to Holland and Belgium but Devorah and I, other than a couple of weekend getaways, weren't able to go anywhere. We planned to finally have a trip in January but I broke a toe.
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Teachers want to teach AI but how will we teach the teachers?

Saw this earlier as posted on Linkedin by Pat Yongpradit of code.org. According to the article, nine out of ten educators think that students should be taught how AI works prior to graduating from high school. How it works, not just how to use it. This is a good thing. Sure, opinions vary as to when to teach it - elementary, high school, or across the board but still, a good thing.
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Real world projects or made up ones?

There was a discussion to day on a the Facebook CS Educators group about project based learning. This was initiated based on the College Board's desire to more more project work in some classes including APCS-A. Most, actually I think all of the educators on the forum agreed that students creating projects are a good idea but the bone of contention was over real world projects vs what I'll call practice projects.
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AI in the classroom - it really isn't that simple

Earlier today, I saw a linkedin post by Code.org's Pat Yongpradit summarizing a series of articles on AI in K12 classrooms in Ed Week. I couldn't get far into the articles due to paywall restrictions but Pat's summary and the ensuing comments and discussion let me to writing this. One thing that stuck out in the comments, and this has been a recurring theme in AI in K12 classroom discussions is that a teacher who allows students to use AI, teaches AI, etc.
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Neighbors, Community and David Bouley

I read this morning that David Bouley has passed away at age 70. Bouley was an influential chef in New York city. A huge influence on the fine dining scene that has developed in the last few decades. Why am I, a retired computer science teacher writing about a decorated chef? As fate had it, there are some connections between David Bouley and Stuyvesant High School, specifically the new building, where I spent most of my career.
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Using Emacs 82 - Conda and Direnv

One of the things I want to do now that I have some time is get my head around all the modern AI stuff. I'm starting with a review or things I've already done by going through Andrew Ng's Coursera ML class. I'll probably continue with his courses but I'm certainly open to any suggestions (specifically for a CS guy who's not so strong on the math side). This means diving back into Python even though Clojure is usually my weapon of choice.
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