tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18677687.post638902411657397194..comments2024-03-27T15:13:24.764-04:00Comments on Computer Science Teacher: AP Computer Science or AP Art HistoryAlfred Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05575057876858763822noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18677687.post-61843896412929390092013-10-15T16:50:09.351-04:002013-10-15T16:50:09.351-04:00I like your idea of introducing CS much earlier. I...I like your idea of introducing CS much earlier. In my case, it was, as I was handed a LOGO prompt and a little essay on binary arithmetic titled "1,2,4,8" between school grades of 3 and 5. When, exactly, is a little fuzzy. Then again, I grew up in the same college town where Hofstadter lectured while writing Godel, Escher Bach...<br /><br />How about starting CS off with The Little Schemer as text? It serves as a nice leveling factor and introduces a lot of concepts in a most succinct manner.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18677687.post-49821344962745437242013-10-15T11:05:03.515-04:002013-10-15T11:05:03.515-04:00We do not offer APCS simply because I would most l...We do not offer APCS simply because I would most likely only get a couple of students. These kinds of numbers would not justify the time or expense. The local public high school offers APCS. Last I heard he had 5 students, this is out of 3000! As far as AP courses go my school does pretty good number wise: AP English – 19, AP Chem – 11, AP Hist – 34, AP Calc – 14. This is out of a school of 180. No two ways about it, these courses are hard yet they get real good numbers. This makes me think it is not the “hard” that scares students away from CS; I think it is more the perception of what CS is. The perception is “boring”. The perception of sitting in front of a monitor for hours on end is a killer. The fact that that perception is pretty much true does not help. <br /><br />This national promotion of getting kids to go outside and play games instead of sitting in front of a computer game 24/7 is not going to help the CS numbers. We need to promote more anti-athletics, pasty skin as a sign of beauty, near sightedness and rampant acne to reduce social activity with the opposite sex. If we promote sales of thick black glasses frames and advertise the excitement to be had with the chess club this might improve the numbers of kids taking CS. Without these measures I think we are stuck with what we got until we can get rid of the “boring” label. High school kids are really not too worried about the future income thing yet. AP Art History or APCS? Art History is more fun so Art History it is.<br /><br />There are things happening to counteract the “boring” label; robotics, game programming, Arduino, changes in introductory languages, and changes in teaching methods to name a few. We just have to keep putting things out there to temp the kids from the Dark Side and into the light.<br />Garthnoreply@blogger.com