Last post was a little heavy so just a short fun one for today. "Just another day at StuyCS." That was the subject of the email Brian sent with the photo above. What's going on? We're working on advanced JavaScript while also looking at Backbone.js. Now, as sometimes happens, Batya, while in her CS class up at college, decided to open up a Google chat with me. This happens now and then.

If we don't do anything then only schools like Stuy will have CS. I heard that the other day. It was a comment relating to a number of efforts, both in and out of NY to get CS into the classroom. These programs abound and up front let me say that they're all well meaning and have the best of intentions. In NYC, programs receiving money, publicity, and support, include: The Software Engineering Pilot (SEP) Google CS First afterschool The NSF grant bring the Beauty and Joy of Computing class to NYC (BGP) Terrific – we'll scale up CS ed in NY from nothing to everyone in no time.

The other day, Fred Wilson sent out a short tweet storm turned post on determining if an entrepreneur's startup idea is a good one. It's short. Take a minute to read it over. At its core, the post and the comments talk about belief in an idea and it got me thinking about some things as an educator. Tweet 7: and you have to believe in yourself and your idea or nobody else ever will resonated with me, not just in terms of a startup idea, but with respect to one's passion.

I'm a born and bred New Yorker and more and more I'm lamenting what the city's becoming. New York used to be a collection of neighborhoods. Yes, we were the city that never slept, but there were scores of mom and pop stores, sole proprieterships. You could become a "regular." I'm reminded of Tom Shachman's book Around the Block which looks at the businesses around a single NYC block, mostly all gone now.

When starting the spring semester, students are frequently a little rusty. They just had a high intensity month of study, tests, and projects. That was followed by a week of nothing. I like to start with something lightweight that gets them coding again and ramps them up to speed. In SoftDev I started with a brief overview of the HTML5 canvas and then gave them a small homework assignment to do something fun.

Yesterday, I took part in a round table discussion on Ed Tech and Tech Ed, the latter being more, as they say, my wheelhouse. Afterwards a few of us were chatting and a friend observed that when she first started to talk to high school kids she was shocked that they really didn't know the local tech players - neither names nor companies. A couple of years ago, another friend was helping me organize an event for high schoolers.

I just read Alfred Thompson's predictions for next year. I was going to leave a comment but since it would have gotten somewhat long winded, I thought I'd comment in a post of my own. If you haven't read Alfred's post yet, check it out: http://blog.acthompson.net/2015/01/computer-science-education-predictions.html On more states allowing CS to count for a graduation requirement: Alfred's probably right but I'm leery. Sure, it could end up terrific but I could see a number of ways this could play out badly.

Spent most of vacation relaxing. Finished off the remaining college recs, tried to catch up on sleep, and worked on a few project. We've had an interesting December break dynamic in our household for the past few years. My son, Natan is very much into his music, both as a performer and a composer. A few years ago we discovered KlezKamp. It spoke to both Natan and Devorah. Batya, coming back from college wasn't so into it and I was somewhat indifferent.

In a recent post, Alfred Thompson referred to an earlier post where he mentioned rock star CS teachers. That's a term I've heard thrown around a lot in the past few years. I've heard some of my graduates referred to as rock stars - top tech people, and in fact I've seen some of them courted for positions in a manner that a rock star might be accustomed to.

Yesterday, my buddy Stan pointed me to this article: "To address tech’s diversity woes, start with the vanishing Comp Sci classroom" It gives a reasonable overview of the gender issues in computer science education. The article talks about the drop in popularity of the old Advanced Placement AB course and its eventually being dropped as well as thoughts on how the current A course is pretty dry. It made me think about the old vs new exams.