Posts from computer science

Teach Computer Science To Kids On Your Way To Work

A few months ago, I read about this amazing program called TEALS that allows software engineers to stop by a local school on their way to work and teach computer science to high school students. I thought "what an amazing idea".

Fast forward and I am happy to tell you that TEALS is coming to NYC this fall. About a dozen public high schools in NYC have expressed interest and the final group of participating schools will be nailed down in the next few weeks.

The way this works is a software engineer literally stops by the school on his or her way to work, teaches the class in partnership with one of the existing teachers in the school, and is out the door on the way to work before any of his or her colleagues is out of bed. The TEALS program teaches two classes, an Intro To CS class based on the Berkeley curriculum, and an AP CS class based on the University of Washington curriculum. Software engineers who choose to participate get trained during the summer to teach one or both, and then they teach up to a few days a week on the way to work.

THE ASK: We need to recruit up to 50 software engineers here in NYC to make this a reality. The first info session is next Monday, March 4th, at 6pm. It will be held at the Microsoft office in midtown. If you would like to attend, let us know, and we will put you on the RSVP list.

There will be a second info session at USV on March 20th at 6pm and Kevin Wang, founder of TEALS, will be talking at the NY Tech Meetup on the evening of March 19th as well. So if you can't make next monday evening, there will be a few more chances to learn about this amazing program.

In other "CS in NYC schools" news, the the Dept of Education is rolling out a CS curriculum in 20 middle schools and high schools this fall. The Mayor will announce the 20 schools that are getting this CS curriculum today. There will be participating schools in all 5 boroughs. Approximately 50 students per school will participate, so this program will reach around 1,000 students, starting this fall. 

And there are a number of other interesting programs bubbling up all around the city which I can't or shouldn't talk about yet. All of this happening in addition to the dedicated school model (AFSE) that I have written about a few times here at AVC. This is all a reflection of the dedication of folks in City Hall and the DOE to bring more CS opportunities to our kids here in NYC. It's a fantastic thing and I am very excited by all of this.

NOTE: MBA Mondays is taking a break, probably for just this monday, but it could be a bit longer. I need to figure out where to go next.

#hacking education#Web/Tech

CSEdWeek

Folks in the AVC community are well aware of my passion and energy for bringing programming education and curriculum into our classrooms, both at the K12 and Higher Education levels. I feel like good things are starting to happen but we need to do so much more. We are not aligning the needs of the 21st century workforce with the skills we are teaching in our classrooms and that is a big mistake.

Congress has endorsed the week containing December 9th as Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) to recognize the critical role of computing in today’s society and the imperative to bolster computer science education at all levels. I am involved in some local efforts in NYC around CSEdWeek and I would like to highlight it to all of you because it is coming up.

The CSEdWeek website has resources for all the key consituents in this effort. Look for the box on the website that looks like this:

Csedweek

You can also sign the pledge for CSEdWeek. I just did that.

But most importantly, you can celebrate CSEdWeek in your school, your community, your company, and anywhere else you think it is relevant. This is at its core a movement by regular people trying to stimulate change in our education systems and help them make needed changes.

My partner Albert posted yesterday about what he is doing in his kids' school. It is efforts like that, which many of you have also taken on, that will bring the change we need. And that is what CSEdWeek is all about.

#hacking education

The AFSE Rec Room

The Academy For Software Engineering (AFSE) is opening in a few weeks. Roughly 125 high school freshmen will be starting a four year program that is designed to prepare them for secondary education if they want that and also for a career in software engineering and web development.

The inspiration for AFSE was the computer science program that Mike Zamansky has built at Stuyvesant High School in NYC over the past 15 years. When I first went to visit Mike at Stuy a few years ago, I walked into his office through a room where a bunch of his students were hanging out after school. These high school students could have headed home after school, or they could have hit the streets. But instead they were hanging out writing code, listening to music, playing video games, and in general geeking out together. I thought "this is where the magic happens."

So when we negotiated with the DOE for space for AFSE at the Washington Irving Campus, I was insistent that we create something similar for AFSE. We got a room and Frank Denbow is leading the effort to deck it out.

He needs the following stuff:

Furniture: Bean bag chairs, couches, small tables, tv stands

Electronics: TVs, game systems, speakers

Books: Technology, entrepreneurship, etc

Misc: Anything else that you think might be interesting to high school students interested in computer science

If you can help, please email Frank @ frank at startupthreads dot com.

#hacking education#Web/Tech

The Academy For Software Engineering

A number of years ago, I wrote a blog post talking about the need to teach middle school and high school students how to write software. In the comments (where the good stuff happens), a Google engineer told me to go down to Stuyvesant High School and meet a teacher named Mike Zamansky who had taught him to write code in high school. So I did that and thus begun my education into the world of computer science education in the NYC public high school system. What I learned was that other than Mike's program at Stuyvesant and a few other small programs, there wasn't much. So began my quest to see more computer science and software engineering in the NYC public school system. 

Yesterday I went up to the Morris High School in the Bronx to watch Mayor Bloomberg's State of The City Address. In a speech that was largely about the intertwined nature of education and the economy, he announced that the city is opening The Academy For Software Engineering this fall in the Union Square neighborhood of New York City. It was a proud moment for me and Mike Zamansky, who was seated next to me on the stage.

I want to personally thank the Mayor, his education team led by Dennis Walcott, and his economic development team led by Robert Steel for adopting an integrated set of technology, economic development, and education policies and then aggressively rolling them out city wide. The Academy For Software Engineering is just one part of a much bigger strategy of developing new industries and new jobs in New York City and making sure we have the education resources, both in K-12 and at the college/university level, to properly staff these new industries.

The Academy Of Software Engineering is not a "specialized school." It will be open to all students as part of the high school admissions process in NYC. The City's goal (and mine too) is to open up opportunities for many more students than the small number of specialized schools can deliver. Hopefully the curriculum that is developed and teachers that are trained at the Academy will get rolled out into high schools all over the city in the coming years.

The Gotham Gal and I have provided the initial financial support to hire a new schools team and recruit a top notch Principal. But we do not want to be front and center in this story. The team at the DOE and City Hall that has brought this school to life and the Advisory Board of educators and industry leaders (led by Evan Korth of NYU) should get way more credit for what has happened to date. And we will need more financial and industry support (as well as a fantastic Principal) to make this school a success. So if you would like to join us in this effort, please email me via the contact link at the bottom of this blog and let me know how you would like to help. This is an ambitious effort and we will need it.

#hacking education#NYC#VC & Technology#Web/Tech