What kind of computer should I get for my (parent/kid/aunt/me)? Should my kid learn to type? Do you teach typing in tech class? Do you teach (name your basic office application)? That’s about it.  Here’s what I wish people would ask: What should I be doing to educate myself about the Internet? What skills do [...]

I’ve spent the whole day at our first official robotics competition.  One of our teams ended up as part of the winning alliance of teams that won the tournament.  In a way, they got lucky.  Their robot was good, but was only capable of scoring so much and mostly could do defense.  The teams they [...]

In a recent Georgetown University report on employment, one of the key findings is that those who invent and create technology do far better unemployment-wise and salary-wise.  This is something I’ve been touting for a long time and which organizations like CSTA and NCWIT try to emphasize.  Sure, it’s good to know the ins and [...]

Yesterday in my intro to CS class, I introduced dictionaries.  My students started on some “simple” text-based game projects before the break and when I looked them over, I decided they could all use dictionaries even though that’s not something I had planned on teaching this year.  To explain dictionaries, I went back to lists. [...]

I’m participating in a P2PU course that examines teaching programming to “free-range” students vs. teaching programming in more formal settings.  I’ve long been fascinated by teaching methods, and, of course, focused on teaching in my dissertation.  But back in those days, technology and programming were in support of another subject rather than a subject unto [...]

Yesterday I kicked off CS Ed Week by bringing in two hip Computer Science-y women to talk to our high school students.  Kimberly Blessing and Lindsay Lindstrom joined us to talk about why they like Computer Science and what they do.  They also showed off some resources for students who are interested in learning about [...]

Today, as I was moving around the room during robotics club, checking in with each team, I had a moment where I realized I really liked what was happening.  I still have reservations about robotics as a pathway to Computer Science, but there is so much the kids have gotten out of this.  They no [...]

This weekend, I participated in a robotics competition.  Like last year, I have a handful of high school girls (5) working with the boys high school down the street.  There’s one returning student, two students who have some experience from previous types of competitions and two who are new to the whole thing.  I also [...]

I knew that Computer Science and logic were closely tied together, but I’ve been surprised by how difficult that logical thinking comes to my students.  I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but I have to say my writing background is perfectly suited to CS.  Writing = Logical Thinking.  When I started doing some [...]

Audrey Watters wrote a nice post about me for Ada Lovelace Day.  I was going to mention Ada Lovelace to my faculty yesterday as we were having our first in-service, but decided not to.  In my mind, though, our technology-focused in-service was kind of about Ada’s legacy.  In a sense, helping faculty embrace and engage [...]