NYC Computer Science Opportunity Fair

This past Monday, over 1200 NYC public school students went up to Columbia University for the second annual NYC Computer Science Opportunity Fair.

In 2014, at the first event of this kind, we had about 300 students attend. The fact that the number of students who take CS classes in a NYC public school and want to attend an event like this has gone up 4x in a year is testament to the great work that a handful of non-profits in partnership with the NYC Department of Education are doing to dramatically change the availability of CS classes in middle school and high school in NYC public schools.

This school year, 2014-2015, CS classes are being taught in over 100 NYC public schools to over 10,000 students. Given that there are over 1700 schools and 1.1 million students in NYC’s school system, there is a lot more work to be done. But considering that three years ago, only a few of the elite “test” schools, were offering such programs, I think there is a lot to be excited and encouraged about.

The financial sponsors who made this event possible were Microsoft (who hosted it last year), AOL, Facebook, Two Sigma, the NYC DOE and EDC, and CSNYC.

The following companies had booths where the students could learn about technical job opportunities in NYC that will be available to them if they continue their technical education through high school and college: 

  • AOL
  • Codesters, Inc.
  • Etsy
  • Facebook
  • Floored Inc
  • Google
  • IBM
  • J.P. Morgan
  • Jozii LLC
  • Kickstarter
  • Microsoft
  • NYTimes
  • onTarget Technologies Inc
  • PhotoShelter
  • Stack AI
  • TreSensa
  • Two Sigma
  • Vidcode
  • Viridis Learning
  • Yext

The following higher education institutions had booths where the students could learn about where they can continue their technical education in college:

  • Columbia University Office of Undergraduate Admissions
  • Columbia University, Computer Science
  • CUNY- City University of New York
  • CUNY – Graduate Center
  • ITP/NYU
  • NYU Courant
  • NYU Game Center
  • NYU Poly
  • Pace University

And the following after school/weekend/summer programs had booths where the students could learn about where else they can continue their technical education: 

  • All Star Code
  • CSTUY
  • Dream it. Code it. Win it.
  • FIRST Robotics
  • Flatiron School
  • Girls Who Code
  • Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship
  • NYC Department of Youth and Community Development
  • NYC Parks and Recreation – Computer Resource Centers
  • The Flatiron School
  • The Knowledge House
  • The Makery
  • MakerState

Here are a couple of my favorite tweets I saw on Monday, from NYC’s CTO and Cornell/Technion’s Director of K-12 Education. In them you can see both their excitement for what this means for the future of NYC and the kids themselves.

and

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Comments (Archived):

  1. Russell

    #awesome Amazing stuff to get so many organisations bought into the idea that kids should learn to code, and to get the kids themselves interested. Nevermind the companies, this will be your real #legacy

  2. William Mougayar

    Trifecta win: Tech Companies, High Schools and Universities.

    1. fredwilson

      with the kids at the center of it

  3. JimHirshfield

    Opportunity FTW!

  4. awaldstein

    Just great stuff.In my neighborhood the Robotics club at the local High School is always on the streets on the weekends demoing their rather cool stuff and rallying support science and programming.Raised by a science teacher, my dad, this just feels right.

    1. fredwilson

      Yeah. My dad was an engineering professor and I feel similarly

  5. Mike Zamansky

    Great event – loved all the companies there with nothing to pitch except “here’s the range of neat things you can do if you learn tech.”

    1. fredwilson

      exactly. the carrot being waved in front of them!

    2. Joe Cardillo

      That’s nicely said. I was just talking w/creative friend last night about episode of This American Life ( http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ra... ) that looks at public school students in the Bronx who visited an elite private school a few miles away. Things like this CS fair that broaden the world of / provide access to a range of students are really important for a host of reasons, among them a) increasing depth and variety of talent pool b) making entrepreneurship accessible to folks who may not have the connections / financial resources to try it and c) encouraging agency / self-determination.

      1. Mike Zamansky

        An interesting note is that the private schools are not doing any better than public w/r to CS education and exposure.

        1. fredwilson

          it could be argued that they are doing significantly worse

          1. Mike Zamansky

            I was trying to be nice 🙂

          2. fredwilson

            you did a nice job of being nice!

          3. bsoist

            Others, it could be argued, are doing much better. 🙂 cc: @zamansky:disqus

          4. Mike Zamansky

            I’d love to hear is you know any private schools are doing interesting things. I know of a couple that are trying to get something going and many others that haven’t jumped on the band wagon yet. It would be great to connect with them.

          5. bsoist

            I was just poking at Fred a little bit. I work with private school students and they are learning and doing some amazing things. Delaware private schools are better than average ( perhaps because the public schools are not).Not very familiar with what is going on in NYC, but I would like to attend meetups to learn more. I’d also like to know more about what you are working on with your students.

          6. Mike Zamansky

            You could poke around my blog to get an idea of the types of things I do: http://cestlaz.github.io/al… but it’s certainly not representative of what’s going on in the city.Always happy to talk shop – just shoot me an email ([email protected])

          7. bsoist

            Will do.

  6. laurie kalmanson

    this is awesome

    1. fredwilson

      yup. and we can do so much more. imagine this event in five years with 10,000 kids and 250 companies.

      1. laurie kalmanson

        YES … and when it becomes commonplace everywheremy kid goes to a good school, and everyone is issued a macbook air, but they have nothing like this happening.

      2. LE

        …and a road show to other cities.

  7. Ryan Frew

    I have a little brother with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and am hoping to help him learn how to use computers from a technical perspective (coding, programming, hardware, etc.). He is 12 and only possesses basic skills right now. We’re in Cincinnati, so don’t have quite the same opportunities that Fred mentions above. Not to derail the conversation, but can anyone recommend a good starting point for me? What’s the best subject material/resource to get him moving on first?

    1. Kirsten Lambertsen

      Does he play Minecraft?

      1. Ryan Frew

        He does not. He got internet a week ago (so his mom could watch Netflix on the PS3 :/) and I’m buying him a computer this week. That’s an awesome suggestion though.

        1. Kirsten Lambertsen

          My 7 year old son started playing Minecraft on his Kindle. It’s really accessible. And it once you download it, you don’t necessarily need constant internet access to play it. Now he’s starting to ask about how he can make his own mods :)I know so many developers who got their start playing Minecraft.

          1. laurie kalmanson

            my daughter loved minecraft for about two years and then was on to more trivia games and 2048 things. it helped make her fearless.

      1. Ryan Frew

        I’d dig that because he and I could run through some Codeacademy classes together. Do you think kids need a foundation with HTML or anything simpler prior to JS, though?

        1. fredwilson

          codecademy has found that kids can go right into JS and be successful

          1. Mike Zamansky

            Ryan – codecademy has some really good stuff – my wife is currently using it but on the Python track.Just make sure you’re also able to give support – even the best online resources have holes, ambiguities and other annoyances that can leave a kid tremendously frustrated.

          2. Ryan Frew

            Cool. Done. Little dude will start learning Javascript this week. Some of your previous posts were the impetus behind this. Right now, he’s a latchkey kid who spends the day bored/unproductive because he isn’t allowed outside in his neighborhood. Tomorrow, he’ll have more to do/learn and he’ll be building something, which will be a new experience for him entirely. Thanks!

          3. fredwilson

            yessssssss

          4. kirklove

            Super!

        2. laurie kalmanson

          i know js devs who can sort of read html but it’s not their thing at all; there’s overlap but they are also separatehtml is dead simple to learn enough to make something; it’s not a bad place to start because the rewards are so fast and so obviousall the great devs i’ve known say they got started, “just by playing with it;” their brains are wired that way — see where his talents are and what he can do when he applies effort

          1. bsoist

            Have you run through the JS lessons at Codecademy yourself?

        3. Vasudev Ram

          >Do you think kids need a foundation with HTML or anything simpler prior to JS, though?Definitely a good idea, IMO. Reasons: 1) HTML is simpler than JS. It is a markup language, not a programming language. 2) More importantly, JS is mostly used with HTML (and CSS for styling, etc.) on the front-end, i.e. in browser-side code, although from some years now it (JS) is also being used on the server-side, as in Node.js, Meteor, etc. 3) Because of point 2), if he learns JS without HTML, there will be less (though not zero) that he can do with the JS knowledge.Edit: Also, it’s not necessary to learn full HTML before learning JS. It is enough to learn, say, the following HTML elements (roughly) – html, head, title, body, li, ul, ol, table, th, tr, p, div and maybe a few others (all of which can be done in a few hours).Then he can get into JS and keep learning more HTML on the side.

          1. Ryan Frew

            Thanks – I agree. Like I mentioned to Fred, I’m excited for him to experience the feeling of having built something – watching something that just looked like random text come to life on a screen is rewarding, especially when you are the one who did it. For the nerds like me, it can actually be an adrenaline rush. Giving him a week or two in HTML will provide that feeling quickly. He can spend an hour in a text editor putting an HTML page together and throw it online in no time. Appreciate your thoughts.Any other ideas? I’m crowd sourcing, here. First, HTML 101. Then, CodeAcademy JS. Then…database administration? More programming language? Hardware?

          2. Vasudev Ram

            You’re welcome. For more ideas, and also for the order, I’d have to think about it some, but will say a few points now:- SQL usage (DDL, DML) and basic database design concepts (e.g. table/field design, normal forms – upto 3NF is enough in practice), should precede database admin, since the former are prerequisites for the latter.Another programming language is a good idea. Python / Ruby / C / etc.(Long paragraph ahead)One point I think (some) people miss out recommending, is that at some point (reasonably soon, if not right at the start) in a beginner’s computer learning, they should learn at least a little about how computers and software (interpreters, compilers, operating systems) operate under the hood. This need not be a course. It can be got from books for children or teenagers, or from sites like HowStuffWorks.com and similar. Part of the reason for recommending this, is that I (and others) have found that unless a person has that knowledge (basic level), they often get stymied by why computers and software give the errors they do (short answer: in response to wrong input data or wrong commands, almost invariably – it is extremely rare that it is a case of hardware or compiler/interpreter error). And the world seems to be divided into two classes of people – those who have understood (enough about) how computers and software work under the hood, and hence are not fazed when errors or unexpected results occur, and those who throw up their hands and give up (for ever) on computers (except as casual users), due to not understanding that stuff. Which is kind of sad, because most people can actually understand those foundations if it is presented properly.

          3. Ryan Frew

            Great comment. I consult for Microsoft in the Dynamics CRM space, so SQL usage and basic database design is really what I meant by DBA. It’s just all the same to me, ha. Couldn’t agree more regarding your point about understanding what’s under the hood. This is true in all walks of life. You shouldn’t try to tune an engine before you learn to change the oil, let alone why the oil is there in the first place.I think we’re going to start by building a computer together, using a kit. I haven’t built one before (shouldn’t be that hard), but it should provide him with some insight. I’ll have to give more thought to the items you mentioned like compilers and operating systems.Thanks again!

          4. Vasudev Ram

            Quite welcome. Glad you found the suggestions useful. I think that’s a great idea to build a computer together. Sure that it will be fun. Good luck 🙂

    2. Matt Zagaja

      Codecademy is great. One of the people at Codecademy sent me a review copy of their “For Dummies” book http://www.amazon.com/Codin… which I believe does a good job at providing a high level overview of things.After Codecademy I think that Harvard’s CS50 course is by far the best resource to get deeper exposure into CS and programming concepts: http://cs50.tv/. The lectures are great and I enjoyed them even after having taken AP Computer Science and the like previously.

  8. Kirsten Lambertsen

    That is really really cool. I’m excited by how many ladies I can spot in those pics, too :)I look forward to the day when I can use some of my time to volunteer for an org like Girls Who Code.

  9. Chimpwithcans

    JP Morgan stood out for me as different – how popular was their stand?

    1. Mike Zamansky

      The most popular booths were the ones with Oculus Rifts. We’re going to have to get some for next year.

      1. fredwilson

        yup. this photo from the event is awesome

  10. Thor Snilsberg

    This growth is inspiring. Clearly a long way to go to reach the 1.1 million students in NYC alone.Fred, thank you for the list of coding orgs and opportunities available in NYC. I’ve duly added them to CityScience’s list of resources that we share with our partners. In providing STEM Coaches to 20+ schools and after-school programs per year I see a clear need for a centralized ‘community’ where educators can find STEM programs/partners….and ideally discuss/share their experiences.1X events like the CS Opportunity Fair are great. Yet, the fractured nature of NYC’s STEM universe continues to put a huge drag in implementation. I’ve batted around ideas for building a tighter STEM community with a couple foundations and sought advice from thought-leaders like our colleague Nick Grossman. What are your thoughts on better connecting the communities of educators to the communities of STEM programs/professionals?

    1. fredwilson

      you should attend our NYC CS teacher meetups. that is where the community comes together. they are very popular (almost 1000 members to date) and meet monthlyhttp://www.meetup.com/CSNYC…

    2. Thor Snilsberg

      Thanks for the info/invite. I’m there and was just on CSNYC’s website reading-up when you replied.I love our teachers who geek out on one STEM content area – they make excellent educators! Yet, I keep going back to the question, how do we build a community where the educator participating in CSNYC can connect coding to orgs delivering life science (raising a 1B oysters or caring for 1M street trees) or to nonprofits addressing community needs (air pollution, better schools, housing, etc).Hey, I’m biased, clearly CityScience believes students are motivated by context and improving the world they live in. ….lets get our of our silos!

      1. Michael Preston

        Thor – a lot of hackathons for kids focus on solving a social issue, like something impacting your school, your family, your neighborhood. And working together with a team. So kids’ early exposure to making technology is for social good, and collaborative. It’s baked into the model.I agree, we need to do more to connect educators and partners across the city. That’s one of our goals.

        1. Thor Snilsberg

          Yessss! Hackathons are a great example. Looking forward to seeing you at Friday’s STEM Network meeting.

  11. pointsnfigures

    About fifteen years ago, I postulated that the talent crunch would get really bad for corporations and the only way to create new talent would be ground up. This is a great way to do it-but if I were Facebook or Microsoft, I’d go further. Knowing public school education in the US is broken, I’d build my own elementary through HS network. Every kid that went there wouldn’t become my employee, but every kid that went to my school would contribute to the network effects around my company in some way. Creating that network from K-12 would be a competitive advantage.

    1. JimHirshfield

      Microsoft Elementary School…Google Middle School…Apple High School? #FacebookSummerCamp

      1. pointsnfigures

        Yup. Better for students, and better for the companies. Better for teachers too.

        1. JimHirshfield

          Likely true. Would like to see my kids’ educations supported by these companies.

      2. kev polonski

        Would Microsoft Elementary School allow android and iOS devices? Would Apple High School tolerate Linux desktops? Would Google Middle School require you to work for Google at some point in the future? Nothing wrong with a for-profit company setting up a school. However, if the company is doing it to grow employees, then questions do arise.

        1. JimHirshfield

          Oh, for sure; real world challenges would ensue.

        2. Christie Ma

          I had a friend who taught at the SMIC private school in Shanghai, a school that was setup by a semi-conductor manufacturing company. Seven years ago, at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the students had one parent working for the company. In a similar vein, I know some Chinese companies are interested in buying or setting up schools in the SF Bay Area to entice Chinese families with kids to move.

      3. Ryan Frew

        This is kind of tongue-in-cheek, but actually a fascinating thought exercise.

        1. JimHirshfield

          Yes

    2. Richard

      Broken schools have a lot in common with crumbling roads..they are both part of the most innovative economy the world has ever known

    3. laurie kalmanson

      sputnik 2The launch spurred a series of initiatives by the United States,[6] ranging from defense to education. Increased emphasis was placed on the Navy’s existingProject Vanguard to launch an American satellite into orbit. The preceding Explorer program that saw the Army launch the first American satellite into orbit on 31 January 1958 also saw a revival.[7]By February 1958, the political and defense communities had recognized the need for a high-level Department of Defense (DoD) organization to execute R&D projects and created the Advanced Research Projects Agency. This was later renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. On 29 July 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, the creation of NASA.[6] Despite campaigning in 1960 on closing the “missile gap”,[8] President John F. Kennedy decided to deploy 1,000 Minuteman missiles. This was many more ICBMs than the Soviets had at the time.[9]Education programs were initiated to foster a new generation of engineers and support was dramatically increased for scientific research.[10] Congress increased the National Science Foundation (NSF) appropriation for 1959 to $134 million, almost $100 million higher than the year before. By 1968, the NSF budget stood at nearly $500 million.Americans experienced a “techno-other void” after the Sputnik crisis and continue to express longing for “another Sputnik” to boost education and innovation. During the 1980s, the rise of Japan filled that void temporarily. Following the Sputnik crisis, leaders exploited an “awe doctrine” to develop knowledge “around a single model of educational national security: with math and science serving for supremacy in science and engineering, foreign languages and cultures for potential espionage, and history and humanities for national self-definition.” But American leaders were not able to exploit the image of Japan as effectively despite its representations of super-smart students and a strong economy.[11]

      1. pointsnfigures

        Public unions weren’t legal back then. They are today. There is one key difference. The government bureaucracy was much smaller then. Today it costs $200B to manage $500B in federal grant money (which is why I invested in Streamlinksoftware.com) Private and charter schools perform consistently better than public schools. The US would be better off if the big corporations designed their own private educational system. Corporations would be better off because they’d be building their own cadre of talent from the ground up.

        1. kev polonski

          Some more inconvenient stats – in 1950, 63% of kids grew up in intact homes with a father and a mother. Today it is 46%. Worse, in some demographics, blacks for example, only 17% of kids are being raised in intact homes. 70% of black kids grow up fatherless (with well-documented, predictable consequences). Beyond a tech-talent crunch, we have a societal breakdown phenomenon. I know, very politically wrong to state these, but unfortunately, it is factually correct.

          1. JimHirshfield

            Yeah…sad stats, but perhaps “intact” is not the best term. I’m sure there are many single-parent households where that parent feels that their household is intact. Perhaps not your word, but one you lifted from the “media”…so, not directing this as a criticism of you.

          2. kev polonski

            Lifted from the “report” for sure. The question is who should feel their household is intact, the single parent or the child? How can a child who wants a father for instance but doesn’t even know what he/she lacks from the absence of the relationship vouch for himself or herself? And a lot of time the decision is made long before the child is born.

          3. Joe Cardillo

            Changes in household dynamics (single vs. two-parent etc.) certainly have an effect, but I don’t think it’s as much doom and gloom as people make it out to be. I think the bigger problem is the access to and support for self-determination. If your family has very little access to and support for good healthcare and nutrition, for example, then CS classes might not do much for you. I’ve worked with kids in a few areas (including teaching) and the biggest barrier to improving their lives was essentially not having control / agency over their situation. We could argue all day about The Cause of that and still only be painting part of the picture.

          4. JLM

            .The measure of poverty — # of parents per child, tech per child — is not just money.The stats you cite are correlated exactly with crime and long term cost to society.Children clearly grow and mimic their parents.Well played.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          5. LE

            Also, number of children per parent.

          6. LE

            Worse, in some demographics, blacks for example, only 17% of kids are being raised in intact homes. 70% of black kids grow up fatherless (with well-documented, predictable consequences).To add to that thought there is also the neighborhood. You really can’t compare being surrounded by the dangers and typical “occupants” of people in poor neighborhoods to being in a better off neighborhood.One of my cousins grew up in a row house area of Philly. He said to me a few years ago that he was lucky that the group of kids he hung out with were all serious kids who did well in school. Had he hung out with another group he feels his life would have turned out differently.Me being into behavior analysis, and since he wasn’t academic in any way, I’ve concluded that the reason he got to hang out with that group was because (and I’m serious about this) he was really funny, personable, and well liked. So in a sense they were happy to be friends with him (the “right” kids). If he lacked the humor (or for that matter the interest in sports or the sports ability) I think things would have turned out differently.

        2. Matt Zagaja

          There is literally nothing stopping them. Yet the trend actually seems to be the opposite: shedding training programs to public sector job training initiatives.

          1. pointsnfigures

            The path to improving “shareholder value” is too long. That leads me back to Fred’s comment a while ago about “building great companies” which leads to higher returns for investors.

        3. LE

          Private and charter schools perform consistently better than public schools.While that is probably the case (I will assume the numbers show that) keep in mind that kids that end up in charter schools (just like kids, even poor ones, that end up in private schools) come from families typically with different motivations and involvement in the education process.One of the big advantages of going to a private school (or an Ivy League or “top” college) was not (and this is often missed almost universally even by Malcolm Gladwell) the actual “education”. It’s being surrounded by kids who have in many ways more of a “nose to the grindstone” and drive than kids in other high schools or colleges.This doesn’t mean that they are better than kids in public schools or that those schools don’t have the same type of kids. They do. But the total student body is just different. And that has an effect on all participants. And is a great motivator to any individual.So, as a group, it is just different. In many ways. Just like immigrants who make the effort to come to this country are different than immigrants who don’t (but could do so).

          1. Joe Cardillo

            Agree, plus the class sizes at private and charter schools are a huge factor.

          2. LE

            I had some classes in teachers apartments. They typically lived on campus. Typical class size was 7 or 10 something like that.Here is my English teacher at the time, she is now at Swarthmore. She absolutely tore apart my writing to whip me into shape:http://www.swarthmore.edu/S…She told me “you are not Penn Material” (she was a graduate). She was wrong. I ended up doing very well there. So much for good guidance, eh?

        4. Mike Zamansky

          Actually, charter schools don’t on the whole outperform public schools and there are lots of questions about those that do — backfill, counseling out, test prep, low numbers of high needs and English language learners, grading state exams in ouse…

      2. JLM

        .Great comment. Well played.In fact, one could argue that the Internet was the result of DARPA’s surge after Sputnik.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  12. kev polonski

    The irony of a CS fair after congressional hearings into California Edison and the job loss to H1Bs.

  13. Tom Labus

    It will be interesting to see how these kids evolve as they get older. But even if they branch out knowing coding will be a plus for them

  14. Sebastien Latapie

    I wish I had more of this when I went to school. Most of my computer science courses were about making flash animation – fun, but far from very involving.

    1. LE

      You’re lucky. We had a one of the sports coaches who also did “computers” with a Teletype Model 33 and time sharing. God I remember that machine chugging away to this day. Loved the sound of that thing and IBM selectrics with the ball.Photo is an actual “program” on punch tape that I wrote for an exercise. Video is random pull from youtube.https://www.youtube.com/wat

      1. Sebastien Latapie

        That is incredibly cool! What did the program do?

        1. LE

          It computed the square root of a number, that’s all!

        2. LE

          Attached is a mag tape, from the Wharton Computer Center (in Vance Hall) Decsystem 1090 a few years later. I have no idea what is on that and probably won’t ever be able to easily find out.

          1. Cam MacRae

            My first job out of university was to dump the monthly parts pricing data on to tape and send one out to each customer. It took days to write all the tapes, a day to label them for the courier, and a day to redo all the tapes that were returned with parity errors. We’ve come a looooong way!

  15. Emily Merkle

    huge.

  16. LE

    Wow what a turnout. They definitely need a venue with more space judging by the crowd in the photos that you posted.

  17. kirklove

    Yesssssssssss!

  18. Guest

    .The big takeaway here is that this is privately funded (I did see a couple of gov’t entities. Was I wrong?) and is companies needing tech employees acting in their own self-interest.This is how free markets behave when left to their own devices to innovate and to fix their own problems.It is gratifying to see that universities are also recruiting tech students.Long term this is something that can be driven down to the charter school level.The arts have already done this in both the public and private arenas.More importantly, there is an aspect of tech that must be taught in every discipline. Even poets need to learn some tech. Traditional engineers now need five years to get a degree because the implementation of their discipline requires both theory and the ability to implement that theory using computers, software and technology.The other day I told a structural engineer that I knew how to design suspended two-way slabs (like in a high rise office building) by hand and he said: “I didn’t know it could be done by hand. We just punch it into the program and the design is spit out.”Glad he didn’t ask for a presentation.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  19. Matt Hardy

    This is wonderful to see. Supply of teachers is obviously an issue, but all too often used as an excuse to neglect CS entirely. There is no doubt events like this will continue generating interest from young people and eventually create enough explicit demand so this market imbalance we all know exists corrects itself.I’m only 25 and the extent of my formal “Computer Science” exposure growing up was a half year course in word processing and photo editing in 8th grade and another half year course in 10th grade on the same topics, but slightly more advanced – emphasis on slightly. This post made me wonder whether CS opportunities have improved at my high school. I tracked down the current curriculum and course descriptions to discover things have gotten worse! The only requirement now is Computer 8, which has the following course description:”This course provides a preparation for lifelong use of the computer as an educational tool. The students are given the opportunity to gain a working knowledge of the software packages included in Microsoft Office, as well as Garage Band and iMovie. Practice is also provided in using the Internet effectively to search for information.”This is quite unfortunate, especially for a well respected private school with seemingly less constraints than the public school system. Is there any specific info available on the courses these NYC schools are starting to offer? I’d love to share it with my high school’s administration as an example to aspire toward.

  20. Diane Levitt

    Don’t forget the great ScriptEd! Described on this blog a few days ago. They were at #CSFairNYC too. And are doing amazing work. http://avc.com/2015/02/scri

  21. Travis Henry

    Companies, schools, and non-profits seeding young people with technical skills and passion is so cool. Win-win for all groups as you groom the next generation to join organizations like yours.

  22. John Henry

    It was an honor to speak on the panel alongside respected peers and inspiring the kids! Looking forward to next year 🙂