Mailing list for Alice Educators

Don Slater of CMU just posted this to SIGCSE-Members:

A mailing list for Alice educators is now available. On the alice-teachers list, educators will be able to ask questions, post ideas and nifty assignments, and support other members of the Alice teaching community. The list will be moderated to make sure that only those posts that are of interest to the Alice educational community will be distributed.

The following link will take you to a web page with more information about the list. This list is by subscription only but at NO COST and with NO SPAM. Please complete the form at this ListServ website to request a subscription to the list.

https://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/mailman/listinfo/alice-teachers

Computing in the Core is Launched

Coinciding with the release of the Running on Empty report was the announcement of the “Computing in the Core” coalition: http://www.computinginthecore.org/facts-resources.  “Computing in the Core” includes Microsoft, Google, SAS, ACM, NCWIT, CSTA, NCWIT, ABI, and CRA. Their goal is “to elevate computer science education to a core academic subject in K-12 education, giving young people the college- and career-readiness knowledge and skills necessary in a technology-focused society.”

Fewer than 65 percent of K-12 schools in the United States offer an introductory-level computer science course, much less rigorous training, according to a recent study conducted by the Association for Computing Machinery and the Computer Science Teachers Association—and an Oct. 6 Computing in the Core summit aimed to draw attention to the need for more computer science teachers.

James Shelton, the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, spoke of how computer science education was never explicitly included as a part of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition, which works to support STEM education programs for teachers and students.

“We want a well-rounded curriculum for students. That means reading and writing … but it also means the other things that add into making a student well-rounded,” Shelton said.

via Summit: U.S. needs more computer science teachers | Policy | eSchoolNews.com.