The last few years I have written start of the year posts about things I want to track in Computer Science education in the new year. Last year’s post is at Computer Science Education Things I'm Watching in 2018 At the end of the year, like today, I write about how those things tracked over the year.
The first thing I wrote about last January was Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles. I was half way through the year teaching it for the first time at that point. Now I’ve been through a whole year and am half way through the second. APCSP grew a lot and continues to grow. Curriculum from Code.org, Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) from UC Berkeley, and Mobile Computer Science Principles (Mobile CSP) from MIT continue to be top curriculum in use. It’s a heady time for AP CS. At this point APCS P is pretty settled into many schools and looks to grow even more. The existing “canned” curriculum and related training are key factors.
The next big item I was following was K-8 Computer Science Education. This is still an up and coming area. The #CSK8 twitter chat has been my best window into this area and it continues to grow. The first chat of 2019 will be 2 January 2019 at 5pm PT and 8PM eastern US time. I didn’t attend ISTE in 2018 and that is usually my other deep dive into K-8 CS. But K-8 CS continues to grow as the CSTA Annual Conference and local professional development events like the 2018 CSTA New England Regional Conference.
State Standards continued to grow as more and more states adopted them. In the last year or so my home state, New Hampshire, adopted new CS teacher certification guidelines, state standards, and passed a law including computer science as part of the definition of an adequate education. Other states moved forward as well. I confess I spent a lot more time looking at NH than other states.
It was a good year for computer science education in general. Here’s hoping we continue to see progress in 2019.
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