A Look Back on 2013’s Posts

Time for an end of the year look back on the posts from 2013. I was trying to decide if I should just report on the most read posts or do the work to list my favorite posts. Enough people recommended that I do both in some way that I am attempting that. There is some overlap but not 100%. Some posts get a lot of outside attention where outside is defined as people not in my usual audience. My most read post of 2013 fits solidly in that category. This is the top ten list according to Blogger statistics.

1. We Need More Operating Systems – not really a CS education post but it sure did attract some attention. Lots of it was through Hacker News but a couple of other sites picked it up as well.

What Is It With US Students and Programming Contests? – A lot of notice here as well as a wide range of people put in their opinions both as comments here and in Hacker News.

Beware the Self-Taught Know It All – Yet another opinion piece. I am a believer in formal CS education but when you talk about that people jump in with contrasting views pretty quickly.

Sexism and Women in Technology This is an important issue to me and one I write about often. I’m pleased that this post got as much attention as it did.

How Many Fart Apps Do We Need – a screed over the trade offs between quality and quality of apps. More a comment on the state of the industry than of education which is why I suspect it got more than the usual amount of attention.

Why Girls Don’t Go Into Computer Science (Infographic) – People really seemed to like this infographic. It was sent to me by the people behind creating it and so not really my work. But if people found it valuable I’m happy.

CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards correlated with the Common Core Standards in general and the Common Core are important these days with a lot of people looking for resources to help correlate them with what people are teaching. This post really serves to point to CSTA resources rather than to be a resource itself.

A Friendly Survey of Programming Languages A discussion about a course I would like to see. It is a favorite of mine. OF course anytime you start  talking about programming languages “religion” gets involved.

Opportunity Matters – A favorite of mine that talks about how students need opportunities to learn and how teachers need to help them get that opportunity.

5 Programming Mistakes To Warn Students About – Students are going to make mistakes. How well do we warn them about them or prepare them to deal with mistakes? It’s something I worry about a lot.

Now for some of my favorites from the past year that didn’t make the list of most read posts but which I am still very pleased with.
I am really proud of the series of Computer Science Educator Interviews most of which were posted over the summer. You can see the whole list at The Index. I tried to highlight some really great people doing innovative and creative things in computer science education. If you missed the series take a look at some of these interviews.
Teaching Problem Solving was just off the top 10 list for views and it is a favorite of mine. Problem solving is so much about what we talk about as part of teaching computer science and programming. Just how and how well do we do it though?
All You Know Isn’t Enough is a call for teachers to look beyond what they themselves know when teaching students. So much of what we do should be about encouraging students to learn beyond just the official scope and sequence.
Programming with Blocks was not written originally in 2013 but it has been updated over the year. It remains one of the all-time most read blog posts here because it is just so darn useful. It is one of my favorites as well.
Would You Hire Your Graduates? Some good stuff in the comments and there is something clearly different about university faculty and it does make sense that they worry about becoming ingrown. But I liked this post and the conversation it started even if not too many people read it.
A lot of posts are timely in that they are appropriate for the time but they also time out in that they have less value over time. I think those posts are important and even necessary. But I hope to develop more posts this coming year that have more lasting value. That’s my blogging goal for the year. Stick around and see how I do.