amichlin

NJ Computer Science Praxis? Not so much.

UPDATE October 15, there was a miscommunication with the NJDOE and you do have to take the Praxis exam. Recently, I blogged about the consternation over NJ’s new 1820 Computer Science Credential. After much craziness with the NJ Department of Education (NJDOE), I learned it was mostly nothing to worry about. I had a veryContinue reading “NJ Computer Science Praxis? Not so much.”

Demystifying the Praxis Computer Science Test (5652)

Of late, states are trying to codify the credential pathways for computer science teachers. For example, New Jersey has mandated that 6th-12th grade teachers (but not, mercifully, K-5th grade teachers – Correction: K-6th grade teachers with no more than one-half of the daily instructional assignment) who currently teach computer science (and have good evaluations) areContinue reading “Demystifying the Praxis Computer Science Test (5652)”

Repurposing ChromeBooks

Our school, like many school, has had no choice but to end of life a significant amount of ChromeBooks. Without wading into the ewaste debate, I took it upon myself as a personal challenge to find a way to make these ChromeBooks, which could no longer run ChromeOS, useful for the classroom. This turned outContinue reading “Repurposing ChromeBooks”

Untangling the Meaning of Object Oriented Programming

xkcd source This post began as a response to a teacher who posted in the Unity Teach Community Facebook group that he had been advised by college video game teacher that object oriented programming (OOP) is a key skill needed for success in collegiate video game programming. OOP was, in part, a reaction to increasinglyContinue reading “Untangling the Meaning of Object Oriented Programming”

A Warm Up for Capture the Flag

I have been using Capture the Flags (CTFs) in my classrooms since 2013 and been training teachers in their use since 2017. While I wholeheartedly appreciate the staggering amount of work picoCTF and Carnegie Mellon do and did, I always felt that there was a learning curve issue they were having difficulty meeting. At theContinue reading “A Warm Up for Capture the Flag”

Why You Shouldn’t Teach Recursion (Yet)

Picture taken from this presentation My esteemed colleague Shriram Krishnamurthi has written an interesting draft blog post on How Not to Teach Recursion that details some of the common, perhaps misguided, ways computer science teachers teach recursion. Let me start by saying that I agree with much of his criticism. Fibonacci is a contrived exampleContinue reading “Why You Shouldn’t Teach Recursion (Yet)”

How I Teach vim

The positive response to my post about “Why I Teach vim” has been extremely appreciated and the most common question I have received is “OK, but how do you teach vim? This is a much more difficult question to answer in a blog post as I have repeatedly found trying to explain teaching methods inContinue reading “How I Teach vim”

Why I Teach vim

The why of why people use vim has been covered fairly extensively, so I thought I would spend a little time explaining why I teach vim to my high school students, even in 2020. It all began when I was assigned a mixed class of ninth through twelfth grade students in computer science just afterContinue reading “Why I Teach vim”

Last Meeting – Bill Atkinson and HyperCard

Guest blog post by Jay Michlin, circa 1987 (used with permission). A recounting of a presentation by Bill Atkinson at the Stanford Macintosh User Group (SMUG) HyperCard. Bill Atkinson. The auditorium was packed and everyone stayed until the end.What more need be said? I considered stopping this month’s report right here, because the first paragraphContinue reading “Last Meeting – Bill Atkinson and HyperCard”

public static void whaaaat?

This post is inspired in part based on a question (Facebook account and membership to the group required) that came up on the AP Computer Science A Teachers Facebook group (please consider joining if you teach Java or AP CS A). For those without Facebook access, the question amounts to “What does each part ofContinue reading “public static void whaaaat?”