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Showing posts from January, 2013

Professional Development in Computer Science is hurting

A study by the University of Chicago's Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education and the Urgan Education Institue of high school computer science teacher professional development appears to me to be lacking if we want to invest in our future.  Look at this infographic and tell me it looks like a bright future that we must all wear shades. The Landscape of Computer Science Professional Development The Landscape of Computer Science Professional Development infographic by KellyQDesign .

What will you LEARN this year?

I'm not one for new years resolutions.  However, my smart and good-looking wife convenced me I need a learning plan.  Time to learn something new.  Time to become a beginner again, to struggle with a challenge, to wonder how I could ever know all this new knowledge.  So tonight my learning plan is due - or I pay her $100.  I'm not sure I remember making that part of the deal last week. So my plan is to learn a new programming language.  I use to know modern languages.  But time keeps falling through the hour glass.  A colleague shocked me when he said that Java was a dead language.  That it is stagnant and Oracle has killed it.  Ouch!  In 5 - 10 years I'm going to be one of the grey hairs that only knows dead languages (Basic, Fortran, C, Java).  Like those Cobol developers in the 80s & 90s.  Oh, sure they had a hey-day in 1999 with the Year-2000 bug. I'm selecting Ruby as a new language. ...