By Dian Schaffhauser
GitHub has released Classroom Assistant, a tool intended to help streamline the grading process for teachers using Classroom on its open-source service that allows developers to share and collaborate on code.
By Dian Schaffhauser
Forty-one states didn't graduate a single new teacher prepared to teach CS.
By Dian Schaffhauser
Just as the College Board announced new resources and processes for its Advanced Placement exams, the organization also said that the number of students tackling an AP Computer Science assessment grew by nearly a third over last year's count. That count includes record participation by underrepresented groups, including girls and black and Latinx students.
By Dian Schaffhauser
Next, the state will finalize a plan for scaling up CS education, including how to support teachers. That's expected to be approved by March 2019.
KinderLab Robotics, maker of the KIBO robotics kit, has released a curriculum guide that provides lesson plans for student self-directed activities that can take place in a makerspace or other school activity center.
By Dian Schaffhauser
The company also recently opened up the platform to allow teachers to create their own lessons and customize already-available units. The new customization feature enables teachers to create, modify and submit lessons that can be shared with the community.
The makerspace isn't just a fixed space where kids come and go to complete busywork. It's an extension of a well-established approach to educating students that has applications and deep implications across disciplines.
LEGO Education has introduced a new coding kit for early learners. Dubbed Coding Express, the system is designed to build "foundational coding and transferable skills, including collaboration and problem solving, for the earliest of learners through activities that introduce concepts of sequencing, looping and more." It includes a Teacher Guide and lesson plans.
By Parker Thomas
Over the last few years, I've watched from afar as Pittsburgh's Remake Learning initiative has blossomed into a resource-rich network. Its 533-member organizations are striving to inspire and equip the next generation of innovators, problem-solvers and critical thinkers through hands-on, relevant learning.
If we need students to be learning coding now, yet the schools are not ready for it on many levels, where does that leave us?
By Dian Schaffhauser
Nearly 50 students attended classes at the downtown campus of the university, where they learned about programming, computer architecture, careers in computer science and cybersecurity and how to do professional networking. Now they're expected to return to their schools and serve as "computer science and cybersecurity ambassadors" and recruit a team of classmates to compete in Cyber Security Awareness Week, NYU's annual cybersecurity competition.
Parents, district administrators and the community agree that computer science and coding classes will help students develop the workplace skills they will need to be successful in the future.