TechFlash article about the Programming Contest

Hélène wrote a nice article for TechFlash about our Programming Contest:

techflash.com/seattle/2010/12/inspiring-high-school-developers.html

December 2010 Programming Contest Results

Congratulations to the following teams for placing at the Dec2010 Programming Contest:

Overall:
1st Place - Tahoma HS - Colin Wallace, Andrew Reinman, Daniel Imaino
2nd Place - Garfield HS - Derek Gasaway, Seth Vanderwilt, King Xia
3rd Place - Homeschool - Alex Engelberg

Novice:
1st Place - Garfield HS - Tal Levy, Lucas Smith, Michael Proulx
2nd Place - Garfield HS - Alex Fu, Alisa Nguyen, Quincy Pham
3rd Place - Garfield HS - Matthew Goss, Eric Zeng

You can see the result of the results here.

Here are the problems, student files, and judges files for the contest (zip). Note that there are a few mistakes in the problems not noted in the corrections/clarifications.

Thanks again to our judges, PSCSTA members, UW helpers, and everyone else that made this contest a success. We hope to see you back in April!

Python workshop - December 11th

Files for file-reading exercises:

framework.txt
names.txt
meanings.txt
Star Chart Prompt
stars.txt

December Programming Contest - Registration closed.

Registration for the December contest is now closed - confirmation and drop notices have been emailed out to all registered teams. Please contact chess@tahomasd.us if you have questions/concerns about your registration

Python Workshop -- schedule correction

My mistake on the time of the Python Workshop:

Unlike our normal meeting schedule of 1:00 - 4:00 pm, this month's meeting, for the Python Programming Workshop, will be from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm.

This is so that teachers who are coming with their student teams for the Programming Contest can attend both. The contest starts at 8:30 am and should finish by 2:30. So teachers can start their teams off on the contest, then go to the workshop if they want to, and finish up in time for the end of the contest.

Details about the Python workshop are here. You should bring a laptop to work on, with Python installed on it, and please note Hélène's warnings about versions.


Sorry for the confusion on the original announcement.

Python Workshop, Dec 11

Just wanted to remind everyone that our next chapter meeting, on Saturday, December 11, is a double header:

• the Fall Programming Contest for students, 8:30 am - 2:30 pm

plus

• a Python Programming Workshop for teachers, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm

Details about the programming contest are here.

Details about the Python workshop are here.

And here is Greg's invite for the workshop, which will be taught by Garfield HS CS teacher extraordinaire Hélène Martin:

We are planning on offering clock hours (three) for those certificated teachers that attend. The fee is $10 (cash or check made out to PS ESD) to receive clock hours.  The objectives of the workshop are:

• Learn basic Python syntax.
• Gain familiarity with several Python frameworks that support instruction.
• Compare Python to other commonly taught programming environments including Java and Scratch.

Hope to see you and your students at the Programming Contest on December 11th.

Meeting Minutes, November 20, 2010

Attending:

• Hélène Martin, Garfield HS
• Andy Davidson, Roosevelt HS
• Mike Panitz, Cascadia CC
• Brett Crane, Redmond JHS
• Earl Bergquist
• Gautam Reddy, Microsoft
• Stuart Reges, UW CSE

Andy reports that Greg received an inquiry from CSTA sister chapter in Dallas/Ft Worth about simulcasting our meetings. They are impressed with our schedule of meeting topics and their members would be interested in hearing some of our presentations. In turn, our sessions would then be available to our members who can’t attend. No one saw any problems with that, except for wondering if the logistics of recording would be feasible and that we would want some of our meeting conversations to be private and not recorded. Stuart will inquire whether we might be able to use a room in the Allen Center that is already equipped for videoconferencing.

The main topic of this meeting was a discussion of the CS Principles project <csprinciples.org>, led by Hélène. This is an initiative by the College Board and the NSF to explore a new model for an AP CS course. It is related to a project called CS10K, which aims to put 10,000 new high school computer science teachers in classrooms by 2015. [I couldn’t find much of a link for this other than <www.computingportal.org/cs10k>.]

By way of background, until a few years ago the College Board offered two AP CS exams, called CS A, and CS AB. The A version is the equivalent of a first semester college introductory CS course, while the AB version modeled a full year intro course. The AB test has been discontinued for low participation.

The CS AP exams have not attracted large numbers, and especially not among minorities. (See “Unlocking the Clubhouse” <mitpress.mit.edu/0262133989> for info about women in computing.)

Since CS A is “only” about programming, which is not all that CS encompasses, the CB feels that its appeal could be broadened by having it deal with more general principles of computing. Hence the CS Principles program -- seven big ideas in computing, only one of which is programming. The seven ideas, reductively, are:

Computing is

1. Creative
2. Abstraction
3. Data and information
4. Algorithms
5. Programming
6. Solving problems
7. Enabling innovation

A group of faculty at leading university CS programs told the CB that they did not want the CS A exam replaced by the CS Principles concept. The CB will try to launch that exam in addition to CS A. We had trouble envisioning AP-level exam questions on these topics.

But for that AP exam to be useful, there must be a corresponding college course at these universities. Five universities are running pilot programs of prototypes of this course, often called Computer Fluency/Literacy or Computing for Non-Majors or CS 0 (where CS 1 = AP CS A, and CS 2 = AP CS B). It remains to be seen how these pilots will be received.

Stuart pointed out that CS 1 has been a stable concept for 25 years, which many see as a good thing. Those taking the CB side in favor of CS Principles cite the same 25 years without fundamental change as part of the reason for the low numbers of CS AP takers.

Hélène showed some clips of one pilot, at Berkeley, taught by Dan Garcia and Brian Harvey, entitled The Joy and Beauty of Computing. <inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/> Its premise is that there is more to computing than programming. And yet, only the lectures dealt with the “more,” while all of the considerable lab time was about programming.

Our group was quite skeptical, despite the quality of the course and instructors, about the scalability of this syllabus. Its success depends in large part, like most great teaching, on the knowledge, passion, and pedagogical skills of the teacher to make the subject come alive and inspire the students.

Given that, it seems highly unlikely that large numbers (say 10,000) of teachers with no formal training in computing could become effective teachers of computing principles.

Stuart’s analogy about teaching programming vs computing is:

Programming : CS :: Sex : Pornography

except that in CS, we are ashamed of programming.

So programming is the hook that gets people interested in the surrounding field of CS because it is fun to make things. Then one of the keys is having inspiring exercises and assignments for programming students. <nifty.stanford.edu> is a great collection of such.

Lots of discussion followed about our various experiences teaching computing and programming.

All in all, a stimulating and thoughtful afternoon on a topic to keep an eye on in the future.

.andy

Communications

Just a few notes on PS CSTA communication channels for everyone:

• We are now using the PS CSTA website (pscsta.org) for our main source of information and communication about our group's activities.
  
• The information on the Google Group site we have used in the past (groups.google.com/group/puget-sound-csta) won't be updated in the future, although we will leave the existing content there. If one of us gets time, we will try to move the old meeting minutes over to the PS CSTA website (which is hosted on Blogger).
  
• We will start using the blog at pscsta.org for all announcements, so we suggest you subscribe to its RSS feed, via the link on the home page.
  
• We will keep the Google Groups email list active though, for discussions, since it is convenient and people are already subscribed to it. All blog posts will automatically be echoed there.
  
  We suggest that you join the PS CSTA Google Group, if you haven't already, and enable email delivery of messages posted there so that you can hear and contribute to the discourse. You can do that by going to the group home page (at the URL above) and joining the group.
  
  You can post a message there, once you have joined, by sending an email to <puget-sound-csta@googlegroups.com>.
  

If you have any suggestions for the website, please let us know.

.andy

PS: We also suggest you join the CSTA (it's free) so that you can vote in chapter elections and take advantage of lots of useful content on the national organization's website: csta.acm.org.

December Programming Contest

Information is now posted about the December programming contest.

Registration is open until December 4th.

Please note the following changes from previous contests:
- 1 page of Written notes on file input/output is now allowed, but pre-written code on the computer is still not allowed.
- Teams MUST be registered AND paid before Dec 4th to compete
- New Contest Format
- Awards are given to Top 3 Teams Overall and Top 3 Teams Novice

Resources

Some of the teachers in PSCSTA share their materials freely. These sites are linked on the Resources link. Please let us know if you have a website you would like posted.

New Site

We just moved the PSCSTA website over to Blogger for easier editing and managing amongst some of our members. Check back for updates, meeting minutes, and more.