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dateMore Than a Year Ago
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Avoiding Tour De Force Sample Code
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Avoiding Tour De Force Sample Code

Sample code is a wonderful way to teach and learn coding.  The problem with a lot of sample code is that it is just too complicated and to fancy. I call it tour...

Phun with Phidgets
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Phun with Phidgets

Recently I requested a free (for educators) starter kit from Phidgets. Phidgets are small controllers and sensors that are easy to use and with a helpful API. The...

Is Picking a First Programming Language the Hardest Problem in CS Education?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Is Picking a First Programming Language the Hardest Problem in CS Education?

All of a sudden the subject of the first programming language is getting discussed everywhere. OK, maybe not every where but it is in Twitter, Blogs, and Facebook...

Why Are Arrays So Hard For  Beginners?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Why Are Arrays So Hard For Beginners?

Beginner programmers often, dare I say usually, struggle with arrays. Sometimes it is hard for experienced programmers like myself to understand why but with years...

Getting Excited for CSTA 2021
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Getting Excited for CSTA 2021

As a member of the CSTA Conference Committee, I attended the first of two presenter training sessions today. Wow! CSTA 2021 will be good. Now I have read most of...

Exploring the Ternary Operator
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Exploring the Ternary Operator

I’ve never had a lot of use for the ternary operator. Until recently, I think I under appreciated it. I Don’t recall ever using it in professional development though...

Trip Report: Teaching as a Long Term Sub
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Trip Report: Teaching as a Long Term Sub

Well, this is not actually a trip report but its something like it. I spend the last couple of months teaching at Phillips Exeter Academy as a long term substitute...

Othello/Reversi for After the APCS Exam
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Othello/Reversi for After the APCS Exam

My good friend and former teaching partner, Tom Indelicato posted about his end of year project for his AP CS A student recently. With his permission I share it...

Learning From My Students
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Learning From My Students

Being back in the classroom has been a learning experience for me. For one thing I have had to learn a bit of Processing (the IDE) as students had been using it...

Which Sort Do You Use?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Which Sort Do You Use?

My algorithms class is studying sorts this week. I felt like we needed a little hands on sorting to get an understanding of how some sorts related to the types...

Back in the Classroom Again
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Back in the Classroom Again

“What would motivate you to come out of retirement to teach during a pandemic?” That was the question I was asked during an interview for a long term substitution...

CSTA 2021 Scholarships
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

CSTA 2021 Scholarships

Are you looking to attend the CSTA 2021 Conference but funding is an issue? There are a great many scholarships available that can help. Visit the scholarship site...

Learning To Teach To Learn
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Learning To Teach To Learn

A blog post by Eugene Wallingford  (TEACHING YOURSELF THE MATERIAL) reminded me of some things. As he says, “A common complaint from students is that the professor...

To Many Ways to Add One
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

To Many Ways to Add One

Someone posted a questions asking which sort of programmer one was from a list of ways to add one to a variable:X++++XX+=1X = X + 1Actually the initial question...

Programming using Text or Blocks? Why not Both?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Programming using Text or Blocks? Why not Both?

Continuing my look at papers from the SIGCSE 2021conference. The papers are available for free for a limited time. Get them while you can. In this post,  I take...

Zero Indexing Considered Harmful
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Zero Indexing Considered Harmful

As the old computer geek joke goes. the three hardest things in programming are naming things and off by one errors. Lately I have been thinking about off by one...

What’s Up with Novice Programmers and Comments
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

What’s Up with Novice Programmers and Comments

Continuing my look at papers from the SIGCSE 2021conference. The papers are available for free for a limited time. Get them while you can. I take a look at Usage...

Inch by Inch–The Inchworm Problem
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Inch by Inch–The Inchworm Problem

I am reading a bunch of papers from the SIGCSE 2021conference. The papers are available for free for a limited time.Get them while you can. I started with Exploring...

How Should We Evaluate High School Teaching Records?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

How Should We Evaluate High School Teaching Records?

Mark Guzdial posted several articles about evaluating the teaching records of undergraduate faculty. (Links below) They really got me thinking. Now evaluating secondary...

Does Bad Code Lead to Good Learning?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Does Bad Code Lead to Good Learning?

Last week a teacher posted an interesting problem. They were looking for an explanation of why to code produced the answer that it did. The code is this:    static...
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