I wanted to chime in on Alfred Thompson's post last week on what to include in a HS CS class but was working on moving blogging platforms so didn't get a chance so I'll say a few words here. If you've been here before you probably know I'm not a fan of the standards and I certainly am no fan of the College Board and the AP program so what's my take?

If one looks at my twitter feed they'll notice that in addition to CS Ed, another issue I'm passionate about is school reform or rather resistance to what is popularly known as and mislabeled as school reform. I'm anti vouchers, charter schools, high stakes testing and more. One of the heroes of this resistance is education historian Diane Ravitch. I'm a big fan of Diane's and she's one of the true great champions of public schools, kids, and teachers.

I think it's time for me to start developing a CS Ethics class. An ethics course isn't a replacement for having teachers that live and model good behavior and weave ethical issues throughout the curriculum but still, adding a separate course on top of that has its merits. I'm not in a rush to create this course. I might be done in a month or it might take a couple of years.

In addition to everything I wrote about last time there were a couple of other big announcements at this year's CSTA conference. Both announcements deal with funding. First, there is a new class of CSTA membership. The free tier remains but now for $50 you can join CSTA+. This new level of membership comes with a bunch of extras that are probably good for K12 teachers but I doubt I'll use any of them.

While busy finishing off my sides for my talk at CSTA2018 this weekend I noticed a Facebook post about APCS exam grades now or shortly being available. I'm no longer teaching high school but still fancy myself a teacher first and part of the K12CS community. We're a growing community and we're growing fast. Usually, at this time of year we see a number of people posting their results. "I had 16 test takers, had 5 fives, 6 fours etc.

As I mentioned in my last post, this coming weekend is the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) conference. I've been a member of CSTA since the beginning but this will be only the second time I've made it to the annual conference. The CSTA conference might be the largest conference specifically for k12 computer science teachers and that makes it different from conferences like SIGCSE which is for CS education and education research at all levels or ISTE which seems to be more of an Ed Tech conference.

I saw a couple of tweets from Sarah Judd this morning: A lot of CS Ed PD assumes you are new to CS. I really want CS Ed PD for people like us that came from a CS background and want to understand the pedagogy for CS in particular better. Do you know of some? — Sarah Judd (@SarahEJudd) June 27, 2018 Yes! I love SIGCSE and CSTA. I just feel like.

There's been a lively discussion on pushback to CS for All at the K12 level over on Facebook. Mark Guzdial started a sub thread asking if CS for All should first be implemented at the undergrad level rather than K12. It's an interesting question and as good as anything to get me out of my month long non-blogging rut. Mark was right when he said that if Colleges implement CS for All, K12 will likely do so to follow - just look at AP.

The most recent NYC CSTA chapter meeting was "How do I assess CS?" I wanted to go but it's been such a crazy month I was just too wiped out. Fortunately, the meetup was recorded. I was able to watch the first half this morning while working out on my stationary trainer which leads me to today's rare Saturday morning blog post. The meetup consisted of two panels. The first was made up of K12 teachers who taught CS.

Alfred Thompson wrote about CS education tools earlier today. I've also been meaning to write on the topic but from a different point of view. I do my best to keep up with the latest and greatest in the CS world both on the academic side as well as the professional one. That's not really possible, but I do my best. When I have a small project to work on I'll some times use it as an excuse to play with some recent technology.