Teaching CS in Dallas

Quoted from http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/13/skittles.suspension.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories:

School clears kids in contraband candy caper - CNN.com

The New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy, school spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo said.

Posted by at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I can't find anyone who can instruct the students at all. My criteria for a sub: there hasn't been a fight when she's been in the room, there hasn't been major equipment missing -- this year, whenever I'm out a mouse disappears. It's happened twice. Weird, but I think it is a student punishing me.

I'm worried about the Game workshop, I'll be out three days, at the end of the six weeks.

Teacher absences are hurting learning - Education- msnbc.com
Duke University economist Charles Clotfelter, among a handful of researchers who have closely studied the issue, says the image of spitballs flying past a daily substitute often reflects reality. "Many times substitutes don't have the plan in front of them," Clotfelter said. "They don't have all the behavioral expectations that the regular teachers have established, so it's basically a holding pattern."

Posted by at 10:07 AM | Permalink

This is REALLY true in the computer science classroom. I am not out often, and try to keep it to one day at a time. I went to TCEA for a week once, and found my classroom in complete chaos when I came back.

I can't find anyone who can instruct the students at all.  My criteria for a sub:  there hasn't been a fight when she's been in the room, there hasn't been major equipment missing -- this year, whenever I'm out a mouse disappears.  It's happened twice.   Weird, but I think it is a student punishing me.

I'm worried about the Game workshop, I'll be out three days, at the end of the six weeks.

Teacher absences are hurting learning - Education- msnbc.com

Duke University economist Charles Clotfelter, among a handful of researchers who have closely studied the issue, says the image of spitballs flying past a daily substitute often reflects reality. "Many times substitutes don't have the plan in front of them," Clotfelter said. "They don't have all the behavioral expectations that the regular teachers have established, so it's basically a holding pattern."

Posted by at 1:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What is it with educators and binders?  I swear to god, some idiot either gives us one, or makes us keep up with them.

I hate binders.

Seriously.

Nothing is worse than having to pull something out of a binder, use it and then have to put it back in.

My system:  folders

Seriously, folders are much easier.  When I had a real job, worked real hours, and made real money, everything was kept in a file cabinet.  I loved my last cube.  I had a nice square cube, with a really nice horizontal file cabinet.  Everything went in it.  My purse, my files, everything.  When I went to a meeting, I pulled out the hanging folder that contained that project with all the materials that went with it.  When I came back, I just dropped it all into the cabinet. 

I just went into a huge hissy fit over the binder we are required to keep this year.  We are up for cycle 3 for the Texas Educators Grant and we have to document everything we do to death.  They've given us a binder, dividers and tabs for it.  <ARGH!!!!>

My solution?  A file box.  They make lots of different sizes.  So I have hanging folder for each portion of the things we have to document -- like the task force I'm in.  Then I use separate folders for things individual items I have to keep up with.  When I come back from a meeting, I toss the stuff in the box and periodically file it (I never have time to file).   I even toss the binder in the box just in case someone wants it some day and when it comes time to turn in the binder, I'm putting a big rubber band around the files and putting them in the binder and turning it in that way.

It appalled our department chair until she saw it and then she agreed it was better than a binder.

And when people give me a binder in the future, I'm just going to do the same thing.

Posted by at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This really irritates me.   

By December, administrators reported their conclusions: The supplemental system operated with little oversight amid a "culture of entitlement."

Extra pay a boost for DISD workers | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas News

Yes, I make lots of extra money. 

In the past year, I taught an online course -- oh, by the way, I haven't been paid for that yet.

I ran a tutorial program on some Saturdays for TAKS.

I presented at an AP tutorial session.

I wrote curriculum.

I wrote district finals.

I'm part of the AP Incentive program.

None of the above is part of my base pay.  I should get paid extra, and guess what I get $20.00 an hour!  They really should be paying me more.

And even more -- they don't seem to want us to have our longevity pay.  This is the first year I'm eligible.

Posted by at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's the deal.  You have 3 teachers in teaching area 1 and one is retiring.  You have 4 teachers in teaching area 2 and none are leaving.  Both areas are electives.  You have to reduce head count because your school is downsizing.

So here are your choices:

Keep everyone who wants to stay at your school and move the students you can not accommodate in teaching area 1 into teaching area 2.

RIF a teacher from area 2 and hire a new teacher for area 2.  And here are your choices in the RIF:  You have two 20+ year teachers, one of which will probably retire next year.  Of course, she said that last year.  One has been in the school for three years, for two of those years his nickname was coach and he hasn't changed his teaching style.  The fourth is a very hard worker, and pitches in when she is needed.

In my opinion you're better off keeping what you have and know, rather than bringing someone new, especially since turn over is high in both areas.

Sadly, the people in teaching area 1 can't see the forest for the trees.

Like I said, I'm glad it isn't my job.

Posted by at 7:11 AM | Permalink

I honestly don't think they can be prevented without making major changes in how we live.  I'm watching a PrimeTime Special and they showed how students let other students in the dorms.  I know our building isn't at all secure.  We joke that we're secure from 7:30 - 8:40 but that isn't even true.  Since we have portables, we have to have full access into and out of the building.  Anyone can get in with no problem and the metal detectors are only out from -- you guessed it from 7:30 - 8:40.

You'd have to completely reconstruct our building if you wanted it to be secure -- and that kind of money just doesn't exist.  As it just isn't OUR building that needs to be fixed but almost every building in the country. 

One thing that can be fixed though -- I'm sick to death of the faculty members who won't wear a badge -- it's time to grow up and act like an adult.

Funny -- I didn't realize that it bothered me that much until I started typing.

Posted by at 3:49 AM | Permalink

We do need to teach our students -- or at least the students in my school -- computer applications.  The first month in my Webmastering, CS I and PreAP CS classes are mostly computer applications.

Kids today do figure out a lot of "computer stuff" on their own. They certainly could figure out a lot of the things we generally teach in computer applications courses. The problem is that they don't. I gave placement exams for a computer applications course for years and very few, perhaps 10%, of those who thought they "knew it all" actually knew enough to test out of the course.

Source: Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : Do We Really Need Computer Applications Classes?

My students got quite a bit of computer applications in grades K-6.  At least one of the feeder schools does a fabulous job.

However, the kiddos get one semester of computer literacy in middle school, usually in 7th grade. 

The low income kiddos no computer access from that time until they hit me.  If they haven't forgotten what they have learned, the applications have progressed and they don't know how to use them. 

We spend a week on common web applications -- email and searching.  A week on word processing, a few days on spreadsheets, and on power point.  I finish the unit with a project.  The kiddos are to shop for their "Dream Computer", and create a word document, presentation, and a spreadsheet supporting what they want to buy.  The even more fun part -- many parents DO go out and buy the system the kids want, or one similar.

I believe a student can't use an IDE well, if they can't use a word processor.  I also think that all CS students should be able to do a simple spreadsheet -- that's why I have them comparison shop -- they have to at least come up with totals.

I go a bit further with the web kiddos -- they have to publish their products on the internet.  Real life things that web creators have to do.

We also have a lot of kids that were NOT educated in our system.  Most of them are non-English speakers and many haven't touched a computer until they get to us.  These kiddos go to a local credit keyboarding class and then BCIS.  After that, I'm happy to have them. 

So yes, we do need to teach computer applications in high school and will probably have to have a few sections for the non-English speakers of keyboarding then applications.  Otherwise they will be victims of the digital divide.

Posted by at 1:54 AM | Permalink

I thought for a long time, that we are covering way to much material in both subject areas.

However, I'm not sure what material should be cut from the A exam.  Having experienced and taught Java for a few years, the coolest part of Java is inheritance.  It definately needs to be included.  Perhaps moving arrays and array lists to the AB exam might be a good choice.  I know that some colleges don't do them until the second semester of CS.

The AB exam is also way too big.  It was fine when it stopped at queues and stacks.  Most data structure classes stop there, or only briefly touch on Maps and Sets.

I honestly do not believe that the AP CS program would survive another language change.  However, I wish we'd never left Pascal.  It was designed as a teaching language and there is nothing wrong with that.  I would never, ever want to see us go back to C++.  Even going there was a big mistake.  It drove a lot of high school teachers out of teaching computer science.  It also drove a lot of schools out of it, because it was just too expensive.

Changing to Java drove out teachers also, but most of those are ones who had trouble with coping with the C++ change, and thought it would be as bad.  I know a few who left during that area and I think they should have hung out longer.

I do believe Java is a good choice.  I just don't think we should be jumping to each major release.  Remember, it takes a long time for textbooks to be revised and a longer time between adoptions.  Texas adopts new textbooks every 7 years.  We should also give the teaching tools time to adapt.

The main reason I like Java is there are a lot of good free materials out there.  However, there are not enough yet.  Many of them are written by college professors for the college market and these are high school students. 

I also like the case studies.  I've tried using them as I go, but it never seems to work out.  This year is working out well though.  I am also really looking forward to GridWorld though I think it is not much different than the MBS.  However, the biggest reason I like the case study is that the students have access to a large body of code to model on during the test. 

I would like to see the local universities do more to help us.  They have talked about it in the past, but they never seem to follow through.  I'd also like to see more online learning opportunities, and not just for the AP program.  There are a lot of high schools who have choosen Visual Basic and I would like to see Microsoft giving us more support.  The Mainfunction was a great website, but we need more!

Link to Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : Advanced Placement Computer Science - Time for a Big Change?

Posted by at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I hope this is for disclipine conferences only.  I would sure hate for it to be for missing the biannual scheduled conferences. 

Parents beware: Miss a meeting with your child's teacher and it could cost you a $500 fine and a criminal record.

Source: Texas bill proposes fine for missing teacher meetings - CNN.com

By the way, the Texas legislature usually only meets every two years, so it is a big deal when they get together.  And big ideas come out of it, fortunately not all get implemented.

Posted by at 5:19 PM | Permalink

Did I just wake up on the wrong side of the bed?

Something happened today that just irritates the heck out of me.  One of our less than computer savvy teachers walked into my classroom while I was obviously teaching a class to get an answer for a probably stupid computer question.

I honestly do not mind people asking dumb computer questions, but I hate it to happen when I'm teaching my students how to write a program.  If I walk into a classroom and I see a teacher is working with students, I leave.  If it is real important -- like a quick question about something I'm doing for them, I might ask it, but usually wait and come back.

Not this woman!  She just keeps standing there while I am teaching.  I had to stop and ask her what she wanted, but I wasn't able to help, because my mind was still on the program I was writing for my students.

In fact, I just sat down and wrote down my gripes and sent it on to our Faculty Advisory Committee.  It probably won't help, but I feel better I wrote it here, and sent it in.

Posted by at 3:23 PM | Permalink

He is not kidding when he says Computer Science teachers are over worked. 

Link to Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : The Computer Teacher is Overworked

My first year of teaching, I taught three preps.  AP Computer Science which was Pascal, Computer Math, and Algebra II.  That wasn't too bad.

Currently I teach the following:

AP Computer Science II - 1 student in a mixed class with 4 other subjects.

AP Computer Science I - 5 students

PreAP Computer Science -- 3 class periods.  My first period is half PreAP, 4th Period is all PreAP, and 7th has two students.

Regular Computer Science - 4 class periods.  Half of first period, all of second and fifth, and I have one student taking it 7th period.

Webmastering - 1 class period 8 students, three are special ed.

I'm also trying to learn Spanish, but may hang that up, the first week of class was not good.

Posted by at 4:17 AM | Permalink

We've been having extremely bad weather in Dallas.  It was actually snowing when I went to school yesterday.

Up north, it would have been a no-brainer.  Have school.  Unfortunately, just about every other district in the area shut down for the day, we didn't.

Here's why we don't.  We know that there is a large number of parents who are going to have to go into work.  Let's face it, in bad weather, it's the lowest paid workers who have to go to work.  That means their children, if we don't have school, are not being supervised and are not getting lunch.  Not a huge problem for my population, though I would argue that most of the 9th grades and some of the 10 graders need the supervision.

So we had school.

However, our local ABC affliate, Channel 8, WFAA, decided to announce that we did NOT have school.  Quite a few teachers, parents, and students, including myself, heard that.  Many of us went back to bed.  I started to, but my dogs wouldn't let me.  They wanted to be fed.  So I sat down after feeding them and ate my own breakfast.  Whoops!  DISD spokeswoman came on, blasted Channel 8, and told us we would have school.

I made it there, and before official school time, but not as early as I would have liked.  I also didn't like the added stress from leaving 20 minutes late, but I did get here.

We did have school.  I gave some "free" answers to some assignments as a reward to my students that were here.  I also took a group of another teacher's students, who didn't make it here, and put them on computers and had them do "Texas Web Tutor". 

All in all, it was a good day.  No thanks to Channel 8, which I am no longer a watcher of their local programs, especially their news.  That also means Goodbye to Good Morning America, since it was during their time, that the misannouncement was made.

My biggest problem with Channel 8?  They haven't sufficiently apologized.  In fact, they are obviously holding the position that we should NOT have had school yesterday.

Well, back to the facts -- there are students in the district that would not have had supervision and would not have fed yesterday.  The majority of our cafeteria workers were here.  Everyone that was here, pitched in and made the day good for the students.  It was the right decision.  And sadly, it might not count as an attendance day and we still might have to use our inclement weather day -- meaning that I didn't really get paid for yesterday.  All because Channel 8 decided to make their own announcements up.

Posted by at 3:24 PM | Permalink

When I got home and things got calmed down, I decided to research the issue on the internet.  I actually went out to the Websense site and found their site look up tool.

If anyone else runs into it, it's at http://www.websense.com/global/en/SupportAndKB/SiteLookup/

I looked up my site (you have to do the registration thing), and sure enough, it's listed as "Personal Web Sites".  I went in, and requested that the relist it as Educational.

Nothing has happened, but it was Friday night.  However, they do claim 24/7 support.

I looked it up on Saturday, and again requested it.  The database claims to have been updated on Saturday, but still it shows as a Personal Website.

I also looked it up today, and again requested it to be moved.  Still hasn't happened.  One thing I do not like, is that you do not get any type of acknowledged besides the accepted webpage.

One thing I'm planning to do today, is to change Metatags, and information on the first page so it looks more like an educational site.  Hopefully that will help.

Let me know if you have any ideas.

Posted by at 5:55 PM | Permalink

I hate Websense.

Right now if your organization uses Websense you cannot read this. This whole domain is classified as Membership and Clubs. That is not my main concern though.

It's my other domain kweaver.net which is the problem. And frankly the whole thing has been upsetting.

First kweaver.net is a domain I use for teaching. I have a really cool set of php pages that hit a MySQL database. It tells my students their assignments, their grades, and their status with me. What they have turned in, what I have graded and what they need to do to fix programs to get a higher grade.

Nothing in our acceptable use policy says I caanot do this. All it says is that they have the right to the code since I did it in their employ and have worked on the code when it was broken in class.

So here was what happened.

Came in Friday morning and all was fine first period. I took a quite look at 2nd periods assignment from the website. Kids came in and they tried to login to find out the assignment and they got the websense message. Nervous laughter. they told me and I checked and found sure enough Websense blocked "personal website".

I emailed the person I last talked to about this issue and since I did not hear from him by the end of the class period, called Network Services and talked with the supervisor in charge. He told me to fill out a form and email it and I did. When I left at the end of the day the email had been read but the site was still blocked.

Posted by at 5:47 PM | Permalink

Give All the Teachers a Big Raise | Alfred Thompson | Microsoft 10

I think that the biggest problem with education is that all teachers with the same experience get paid the same.

Teachers should get paid according to how much they attract students and by how much they affect school rankings.

That tends to shut people like in the foot, since CS teachers don't tend to affect student performance as much.

But that IS how the real world works.

Posted by at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Education Columnist Scott Parks

I really don't care for this guys opinion when it comes to education. I rarely think that he gets it right.

I also don't know what is going on at Preston Hollow right now, and in the past few years, BUT ...

I teach their older siblings.

All of my classes are completely mixed. Though my AP CS is the least mixed but the sample size is smallest -- 3 anglo boys and 2 hispanic girls -- though one of the anglo boys has not been educated in America until recently and wants to go back to Europe to school.

I have black, hispanic and aglo students in every other class. Even my Pre AP classes are fairly well represented by each ethic group. I will say that the majority of my students are Hispanic.

I also believe that the students treat each other fairly most of the time, and that race or background rarely comes into play.

If students are being placed in classroom based on their skin color and not their proficiency that has to stop. I just don't see it at our school.

Posted by at 7:25 PM | Permalink

We have Visual Studio 2003 on our computers, and I had a spare moment today, so I took a few minutes and wrote a quick and dirty VB program, created the CAB and downloaded it to my phone.  Same level of program my regular CS kids are writing and creating.

I am not sure they got how cool it is that it is THAT easy to do, hopefully they will.  I'm going to show all my classes that today.

By the way, I got the idea of doing it from Alfred Thompson's blog! 

Posted by at 3:15 PM | Permalink

Alfred and I are having a conversation on what is computer science...

Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : High School Computer Science - What's it all about?

And part of the problem, is that I do teach the office products during the first weeks of class. I take it MUCH faster than BCIS (what we call our office applications class). I did Word in a week, Excel in 3 days, etc.

I basically want my students completely comfortable with computers as tools before we start programming.

After we do the tools, and I include the internet, email, searching, etc. with that, we do basic hardware and software. That takes up about 9 weeks of the first semester and we've yet to even think about flowcharting in that time.

Posted by at 8:48 PM | Permalink

That drove me crazy last year, but never had time to research it.

And an addition. If you are using a network share, for your URL, put

file://SERVER NAME/DIRECTORY/*

Setting a Trusted Location

With Visual Studio .NET (including 2002, 2003 and 2005) files on a network share may give an error. This error is caused by a security setting designed to protect the machine that Visual Studio .NET is running on. This is a set of instructions on setting the network share as trusted so that you can operate without the error message.

Posted by at 4:17 PM | Permalink

Threads in Computer Science (Education Blog On 10)

This definately seems to be the wave of the future. I think Carnegie Melon is already doing that.

But students still need a broad introduction, in my opinion before they pick.

Posted by at 2:57 PM | Permalink

Chron.com | Textbook funds can't be used for laptops, AG says

I really can't decide how I feel about this. Though I'm not sure that the taxpayer should be required to buy computers for students to take home.

Posted by at 2:37 AM | Permalink

Our local paper -- Dallas Morning News -- has a blog that their columnists contribute too, and their education guy made the followig statement. -- Correction -- he's the highway guy. The education columnist got it better.
.

The Dallas Morning News | Bold Types Blog E-mail This Entry

Teachers also have a lot of opportunity in summer to earn extra income.

Certainly worth discussing here.

I will start out by saying, I'm pretty happy with my pay and life these days, BUT when I started out teaching, the pay cut was a bit tough to take.

There are many reasons that I left programming as a profession and went to teaching, but I will have to state that the pay cut was hard. It was easier because I went without pay at all for a couple of years while I was getting my teachign certificate, but it was still hard to take.

I started teaching during a time period when it was not hard to get teachers for our district. In fact, the district had a reduction of force.

The good news is that I am able to pick up a few thousand dollars extra each year, but the bad news, is that I don't come near close to making up the $24,000 I lost each year by going into teaching. And that doesn't take in account the raises I would get.

This summer, I'm doing summer school, district finals, and I'm going to get paid for setting up and teaching an online course. I also get extra money for tutoring for TAKS, AP incentives, and this year I also got a math stipend. All told, I get about $4000 extra. Like I said, not the $24,000 difference.

It was real funny but until after I completed a year of teaching, my husband thought the same way. He even encouraged me to try to find extra money.

But as each year goes on, he encourages me NOT to find the extra money. He didn't want me to teach summer school for example. Why? He wanted me to recharge and relax.

Teaching is stressful and a lot of things get neglected. Summer gives me a chance to clean the house really well, assses what needs to be repaired/replaced and get that sort of thing done. Same thing goes with the cars, and other things in our lives. He prefers that I take the summer to deal with that sort of thing.

So the point of this -- have you managed to make up the pay cut YOU took to teach (as there isn't anyone teaching high school CS who hasn't taken a cut in pay). And if you do, does it take away from your energy during the school year? In other words, what is the true cost?

The education columnist has a better editorial at http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/all/stories/071706dnmetbenton.3598a74.html and isn't part of the Bold Types blog. His editorial shows how the starting pay is not going to keep teachers because our raises from one year to the next are pretty flat.

My district is starting at $39,150 with a Bachelor's and with a Master's Degree and 14 years experience, I'm getting just above $49,000. That doesn't seem quite right, does it?

Posted by at 7:03 PM | Permalink

The latest issue being attacked at DISD is the P-Card, or procurement card program. I actually have a friend that has one -- she teaches the business variety of Coop along with other things.

I get things the old fashioned way. I get a budget with x amount of dollars, I spent it, mostly through the warehouse (there is a better name for that), and through Office Depot. Mostly paper, toner, blank CDs and a few electronic items to make my students life a bit better. I have purchased a scanner, hard drives for our server, and a few other things. I also get books through Borders.

It takes several months to get the items after I ordered them and I always lose a bit of money in the budget, any left overs are put in the general fund and occasionally I'll get to order items from that.

Posted by at 9:49 PM | Permalink

Coding Horror: The Noble Art of Maintenance Programming

Timely Post

I will admit that I didn't try hard enough, but the only programming jobs I could get was as a maintenance programmer, and the hardest part of that was the hours. I literally was on call almost before pagers and cell phones, (back in 1983) almost every night and almost every weekend. The only way I could get off call was to go out of town and be unreachable. We used to take turns. Hmmm, I could have lied, but I lived to close to the worksite, and knew I would get caught. In fact, I think I did once.

As a teacher, sometimes I think all I do these days is maintenance -- fixing the kiddos programming mistakes!

Posted by at 5:16 AM | Permalink

Students find ring tone adults can't hear - Wireless World - MSNBC.com

I really haven't discussed this with other teachers but as long as the phone doesn't distrupt my train of thought, I don't really care.

In fact, I told my summer school students today, as I made sure that my ringer was off, that if they needed a calculator, feel free to use the one in their phone -- and then whipped my phone out about 20 minutes later when I needed a calculator.

I honestly don't even care if they text message as long as it doesn't bother my train of thought and they aren't cheating.

Posted by at 4:57 AM | Permalink