Online Programming Environments are Poor Preparation

Got your attention didn’t I? More and more teachers are using online coding environments to teach computer science. I used one myself to teach Advanced Placement Computer Scie3nce Principles. I’m not sure I did the right thing. Let me explain.

Recently I attended a panel talk at the CSTA New England conference on what high school teachers could do to better prepare students for university level computer science. Yes, I know that not all of our students will take CS in university but a great many of them will. So what did university people suggest?

As with most things, it’s complicated. Apparently, university professors are finding that students do not know how to do some simple things like deal with file directories or install software or use installed IDEs. Phones and apps are responsible for a lot of this. Students do not know where there work is stored or how to move files to a download location.  Some universities have actually added class modules to help here. Yes, remedial computer usage! Do your students need that?

They are also struggling with the tools that university professors expect them to use. Like installed IDEs. In university, students are expected to use IDEs like Eclipse, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code or others. They are also expected to know where the files are being placed. They do not learn any of that with online IDEs.

Now I understand that for teachers working with incompetent IT departments, of which there seem to be far to many, are limited to online IDEs. It seems like IT departments are often the biggest obstacle to teaching computer science. But teachers need to fight back more. Teachers who can use installed IDEs should do so.

Online IDEs really do to much. Or perhaps I should say that they hide to much from students.  I am not advocating going back to the punch card days, fun as that might be, but we need students to get closer to what universities and industry are doing if preparation for later CS is our goal. And it should be a goal.

Installed IDEs do a lot for students. That’s true. They also force students to do a lot for themselves. That’s good. It helps them later on.

Does AI Mean The End Of Teaching Programming

The tl;dr of it is no. At least not yet. As more and more people use artificial intelligent agents to help write code we’re learning that AI is not quite all there yet. Take this article from CIO magazine Devs gaining little (if anything) from AI coding assistants

It appears that there is still a lot of need for people who know how to code to do debugging and tuning or AI generated code.

My former students who are developers tell me that they are using AI quite a bit. And they say it helps them. No one has said they have been replaced by AI yet. Frankly, I don’t see that coming anytime soon.

A professor from a major university told me about a study where students were asked to write secure code. Half were told to do it on their own while half were told they could use AI. The students without AI wrote more secure and less buggy code.

More research needs to be done and we can argue over research methods as well. But I think that the jury is still out on AI. Will it get better? Probably. Will AI reduce the need for human programmers? I don’t think we have that answer yet. For the time being though we’re going to need actual people involved in the software development arena.

Changes in Social Media Where to Find Me

It appears that a lot of people are leaving X (formerly Twitter) I confess to being one of them. Frankly, X isn’t the same for me. A lot of people seem to be moving to BlueSky and I have created an account there. You can find me at @alfredtwo.bsky.social I am trying to get the #CSed hashtag as a popular way to connect with other computer science educators. If you are on BlueSky, I hope you will join me.

I am on Threads and Instagram as well.

CSTA New England Conference 2024–Exhibit Hall

Today I was able to attend the 2024 CSTA New England conference. There were 14 exhibits at the conference and I spent some time with several of them. One of the images below shows the list of conference sponsors. It was great to see so much support for CS education.

GradeThan was one of the firsts booths I visited. They have an online development environment that incorporates Visual Studio Code. I was impressed with the demo I saw. It's worth a look if you are looking for an online IDE. Especially if you are limited to Chrome books. It's not free BTW.

imagi was another interesting exhibit. Also not free but they have these cute imagi charms (pictured below) that I think a lot of younger students will like. They have curriculum of course.

Lego Education was there showing their curriculum and device options. I have to say that LEGO Education seems to be very interested in supporting CS education. And selling product as well of course but they show up!

Pickcode is another online IDE based product. PickCode was originally developed by a CS teacher.  There is a limited free version for individuals but for full teacher/class support there is a cost. Also web based BTW.

Sphero was there with two booths. They have some very cool robots. One or two I have thought about buying for my own use or for teaching my grandson.

KinderLabs was there showing of Kibo which is screen-free coding for PK through grade 5. Programming is done with actual physical blocks.

The Lifelong Kindergarten from MIT was also there with a display. They were highlighting octostudio Something for FREE! It is a coding app that runs on phones. It lets one

“Create interactive animations and games on your phone. Shake, jump, and tilt to interact with your projects. Share with family and friends.”

I didn't get a picture but Kira Learning was there showing their “AI-powered” teaching solutions.

Well, that’s a snapshot of what I saw. I hope it gives you some things to look into. And maybe an incentive to attend next year’s conference. Rhode Island next year.

NCWIT Aspirations in Computing High School Award

The NCWIT Aspirations in Computing High School Award is an amazing program for young women THe students I have had who earned these awards have found it very useful. And yes, it looks great on a college application. Encourage your students to apply.

From the web site:

The NCWIT Aspirations in Computing (AiC) High School Award honors 9^th - 12^th grade women, genderqueer, and non-binary students for their computing-related achievements and interests, and encourages them to pursue their passions. Award recipients are selected based on their aptitude and aspirations in technology and computing, as demonstrated by their computing experience, computing-related activities, leadership experience, tenacity in the face of barriers to access, and future plans. Since 2007, more than 25,000 students have received an AiC Award.

The multi-tiered award structure includes Winner, Honorable Mention, and Rising Star designations at National and Regional Affiliate levels, serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, all U.S. overseas military bases, and Canada. Regional Affiliate Award programs are hosted in 79 locations nationwide by NCWIT Alliance member organizations—a powerful, national network of universities, companies, non-profits, and government organizations working to increase the influence and meaningful participation of girls and women from every community.

Questions Keeping Me Awake Tonight

It’s about 2:45 AM as I start this post. Why am I writing at this hour? Well, it’s because some things are keeping my mind from shutting down and maybe by writing them out I can get back to sleep. Basically there are a bunch of questions about teaching computer science that have no good answers. Certainly none that everyone can agree on.

Let’s start with “what should CS teachers know (in CS concepts)?” The answer really depends on a second question – what should students know about CS when they finish K-12?

The answers to that second question range from more than we could possibly teach in the time available to eh, not much. How one looks at that question depends on what is the goal of teaching CS in K-12?

I think most agree that we're not trying to make everyone a CS professional or even a CS major. Can we? What then in the goal?

We, as a community, have some projects going on to provide some guidance but I wonder if we’re going about it correctly. Now the CS Standards from CSTA, ISTE, and others are being revised again. We have the CS Framework that came out several years ago.  Attempts are being made to bring input in from wide swaths of the CS teacher community. I wonder if we’re ready for it.

Now, Alfred, the Framework came out in 2016, we’ve been doing this standards stuff for close to ten years. And discussing it for far longer. What do you mean are we ready for it? Just that. We don’t have answers to the important questions. Yes, the Framework and standards are an attempt to answer the question of what should K-12 students know and when. I’m just not convinced that they are the right answers.

They are popular answers. And they may be close to the right answers. Maybe the best we can do right now. I’m just not convinced that they are the end all and be all that many want them to be.

We’re just not talking enough.They want be 150 or even 200 people involved (in theory) but most of the conversations are happening in private meetings with reports being presented and put open to comments. That’s probably all that is practical but that doesn’t mean it is enough.

There are too many teachers still who don’t even know these documents and their writing processes even exist. There  are too many teachers who are not members of CSTA or who are but who don’t pay much attention because they are to busy being to hard at work trying the teach and have some work/life balance. We’re getting standards written by the activists – the people who know a lot and who often know more than the average CS teacher. Many of them have specific goals in mind before starting the process of writing standards. Oh, really we all have goals in mind before starting. That’s why we volunteer.

So we get highly motivated people. Great. We start with an end goal in mind. Maybe great. And who ever is in charge of selecting the prime movers selects people with their shared vision. What? Tell me  it isn’t so! Can’t do that. It’s human nature. It’s even done with the best intentions.

Yes, I know there are “public feedback periods, several in-person feedback sessions, virtual focus groups, and strategic interviews” going on. Not impressed. Public feedback is easily ignored and the rest involve hand selected individuals. How many of those selected were known or expected to be dissidents? Without strong push back and resistance weak ideas can prevail.

I don’t have good answers to any of this. If I did I would be writing them up and not laying awake in bed stressing over stuff like this. What I would like to see is a lot more conversation in a lot more places. I see some on Facebook but not nearly enough. Blogging is just about dead. Many of my favorite bloggers are retired and not blogging. Or blogging a lot less (like me). Comments just don’t happen like they used to. Maybe CSTA chapters could have discussion sessions although disseminating the various points widely is difficult, if even possible.

As I said earlier, maybe we’re doing the best we can. I just wonder if it is enough.

Post CSTA 2024 Thoughts

The 2024 CSTA conference was the best one ever for me. It was wonderful to catchup with old friends and to talk to many people I had never met before. CSTA is about community for me so an in-person conference is the dream for me. The sessions were also good and I learned a lot. The Thursday keynote was outstanding and I hope it was recorded. It was that good.

Thursday I would have said that this year’s conference would be remembered as the first big Artificial Intelligence conference. For many of us, we will remember it as the conference we had trouble getting home from. CrowdStrike is now a “dirty word” for us. I am writing this from a hotel room in Las Vegas two days after the conference ended. Hopefully I will get home tomorrow.

I guess  we all have another story to tell about bad software and the need for testing.

But back to the conference. The venue was great. We had lots of sessions but getting from onto the next was easy. The exhibit hall was large and roomy. The exhibitors were friendly and seemed happy to be there with us.

Las Vegas had plusses and minuses. Hotel rates were pretty good for the most part. Food was expensive though and options without going in the heat were limited. Did I mention the heat? For a New Englander like myself who looks forward to winter 110 degrees is hot. I would have preferred an airport with more direct flights.

The conference committee  did  a  good job selecting session (if I do say so as a member of the committee) and there were many good options every day. As expected, AI was a focus of many of they. I wonder how many of them will be as valuable in two years. What I mean is that we still don't really understand the impact of the uses of AI. Not just in CS education but in the wide wide world.

There are still more questions about AI without good answers.