From your Board: Help your friends, get involved, connect your students to Opportunities!
It's Computer Science Education Week!!!!
Computer Science Education Week is an annual call to action to inspire students to learn computer science. This is an excellent opportunity to market and promote computer science, advocate for equity, and celebrate the contributions of members of the computer science community. We're here to help you prepare!
A feature from our President in the Teachers of Connecticut website.
3.2.1 GO!!!
Computer Science Education Week Resources from us to you!
From us to you!
INSPIRE - Google Classroom Banners featuring STEM and CS Pioneers
ENGAGE #1 -Aninfographicwith a collection of hour of code activities for all age ranges and skill levels.
ENGAGE #2 - A resource from us to you! A daily slide deck featuring a Computer Science hero, an Hour of Code activity, and a quote from a CS pioneer. Use it, change it, make it yours - because we love you! (Courtesy of Christopher Kerr- Newington High School)
ENGAGE #3 - Resources from our friends at West Hartford
SHARE - Crowdsource and Promote! Here's a folder we'd love for you to drop your own resources, photos of your events in action, and anything else you'd like to share on the topic of CS Ed Week. Feel free to look at what we've all put together! We'll post some photos on Twitter and Facebook after the event concludes.
Important: Ensure any student photos contain only students who you have approval publicizing.
Other Fantastic Resources
The official CS Ed Week website is full of great activities to help you teach, inspire, advocate, celebrate, and get more involved.
Hour of Code has activities and how-to guides to engage students of all ages and ability levels in computer science in as little as one hour.
CS Unplugged has interactive activities for teaching computational thinking concepts to students without computers. Try these out!
TEAM Module Show & Tell - Module 3 - Instruction (Share out what cool software you're using!)
Your Chapter in Action
How we're advocating for all
What is up is the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut who are co-sponsoring HR 3602 the Computer Science for All Act of 2021. After a presentation from your Chapter’s leadership, Representative Larson has agreed to join Representatives Hayes and Hines. We are now the first State with a majority of its Representatives co-sponsoring the bill. Of course, Connecticut it is a small state. But only New York and California have more co-sponsors. We have also presented to Representative DeLauro’s office and have reached out to Representative Courtney’s office. We hope to be the first state whose entire delegation is co-sponsoring the effort.
Along these lines, we are also looking for commitments from our Governor Lamont. This year’s chairman of the National Governors Association, Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, has picked computer science education as his Chairman’s Initiative. We hope that Governor Lamont will be a signatory to the compact that will be rolled out at the winter Association meeting.
As always if you’d like to help with these policy issues contact Norman Sondheimer, NKSondheimer@gmail.com You will find that citizen action is effective!
The 2021 State of Computer Science Education created by CSTA, ECEP and Code.Org has been released. You can both look around the country and inside Connecticut to understand where everyone stands with the twin challenges of access to computer science education and participation in that education. It is worth your time.
Would you like to take a leadership role in our community? The Secretarial position has just become available. Typical responsibilities are sending out bulletins like this using our friendly WYSIWYG editor, composing a tweet, and keeping up on meeting notes during meetings.
It's the first step towards a larger role in your community and it looks great for Domain 4 evaluation data! Reach out to Christopher to inquire on how you can join us!
Our President featured in Teachers of Connecticut!
Read about the story of a technology professional trying to transition directly into CS Education and the obstacles currently in place we at the CT CSTA are trying to resolve for future working professional attempting a career change into Education.
Southern Connecticut State University adds two CS-themed Graduate Certificate Programs!
SCSU proudly presents two Graduate Certificate programs related to computing: Computing Foundations, and Data Science. There are 4 courses (12 crs.) to each certificate completion. Courses start in Spring 2022.
The Education Development Center (EDC) is recruiting high schools to participate in a new, grant-funded program to support student participation and success in AP Computer Science Principles (CSP) courses. They are hoping to partner with schools that would be interested in:
sparking the curiosity and creativity of students through computer science;
participating in teacher PD with an available stipend of $1000 per CS teacher; and
participating in school-based computer science planning.
To learn more about this program, please reach out to June Mark. She is also happy to answer any questions via email or arrange a call.
If you are interested in this opportunity we will ask you to complete a brief application due December 10th to provide a little more information about your school.
This year our theme is all about building community, leadership, and uplifting our educators. Each meeting will have time for the Computer Science Praxis preparation, sharing out of best practices in the five TEAM modules, and more! Take a look below at a VERY brief view of what we've put together. Each meeting will also have a guest speaker, product demo, or the like.
Praxis Subject Area: Computing Systems and Networks
TEAM Module Show & Tell - Module 5 - Professional Responsibilities (Share out that cool website, PD, you've found! Self-nominate for a CT CSTA position!)
Remember, your Connecticut Computer Science Teacher's association loves you! Thanks for everything you do!
