Tech EDGE - Introduction to CS4NE

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08/05/2024 Added

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Introduction to CS4NE, Computer Science for Nebraska. University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Technology (Tech) Education In Digital and Global Environments (EDGE) Innovation in Teacher Education College of Education and Human Sciences | Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education

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[00:00:00.000](bright music)
[00:00:06.120]Hi, my name is Guy Trainin.
[00:00:07.950]And I'm Kimberly Ingraham-Beck.
[00:00:09.630]And this is a new podcast from Tech Edge
[00:00:12.090]where we're talking about computer science,
[00:00:14.160]and our goal is to really communicate
[00:00:17.130]with teachers across Nebraska
[00:00:19.080]and really say to them:
[00:00:20.550]We are here for you.
[00:00:21.720]We will help you.
[00:00:22.950]If you have any questions
[00:00:24.240]or anything you wanna know, please send us an email.
[00:00:27.060]The email address will be on the bottom
[00:00:29.670]and ask the questions.
[00:00:31.020]We will try and answer them in future episodes,
[00:00:34.200]but we want to start by introducing each other.
[00:00:37.080]So we're gonna ask some questions so you'll get to know us
[00:00:40.170]and we'll get to know each other as well.
[00:00:42.990]So I'm gonna start.
[00:00:44.460]And what was your first interaction with computer science?
[00:00:47.820]So I was actually pretty fortunate.
[00:00:49.590]Way back in my day, they had,
[00:00:51.540]my high school had a single computer science course.
[00:00:53.940]Okay. It was unfortunately
[00:00:55.230]on future basic,
[00:00:56.550]but I, that was my first real taste of computer science.
[00:01:00.300]Alright.
[00:01:01.133]And what do you remember from doing that?
[00:01:03.810]I remember our teacher was a math teacher
[00:01:06.570]and he couldn't figure out
[00:01:07.403]why my blackjack code wouldn't work.
[00:01:08.664](both laughing)
[00:01:09.840]We spent days trying to figure out how,
[00:01:11.490]why that project wasn't working.
[00:01:12.600]And he finally said, "You know what?
[00:01:13.740]It's fine.
[00:01:14.573]You'll pass."
[00:01:15.406](both laughing)
[00:01:16.590]That's one way to pass. (Kimberly laughs)
[00:01:18.060]So how long have you been teaching
[00:01:20.490]and what have you been teaching?
[00:01:21.870]So this is,
[00:01:22.703]I'm going into my 14th year of teaching.
[00:01:24.450]Okay.
[00:01:25.283]The first part of my teaching experience
[00:01:28.020]was actually as a high school band and orchestra director.
[00:01:30.630]Oh wow.
[00:01:31.680]And then after six years I started to think,
[00:01:35.160]you know what?
[00:01:35.993]I kind of want something a little more techy.
[00:01:38.160]I integrated a lot of tech with my music.
[00:01:39.960]We had a device ensemble
[00:01:41.520]where we played on iPads and everything
[00:01:42.990]and played sheet music.
[00:01:44.070]It's pretty cool.
[00:01:44.903]But I decided I wanted more technology,
[00:01:47.100]so my current role opened up
[00:01:49.140]and I made the switch and I've loved it ever since.
[00:01:52.110]All right, and what do you do now?
[00:01:53.760]I am a computer science teacher at Gretna High School
[00:01:56.730]in Gretna East High School.
[00:01:58.020]All right.
[00:01:58.853]So really, Nebraska.
[00:02:00.250]Yeah. And that's important
[00:02:01.710]because I think that we face somewhat different challenges
[00:02:04.770]in other places,
[00:02:05.603]but also as we go and talk nationally,
[00:02:08.520]we do find out
[00:02:09.353]that there are some similarities across states
[00:02:11.640]and there's something to be learned from each other as well.
[00:02:14.460]So if you are from another state
[00:02:15.870]and you're listening, it's okay.
[00:02:17.490]We love you too. (Kimberly laughs)
[00:02:19.770]What's one myth about computer science
[00:02:23.580]that you would like to dispel?
[00:02:25.200]When I talk to people, they say,
[00:02:26.617]"Oh, it's just too much programming for me."
[00:02:28.410]And I'm like, computer science is not just programming.
[00:02:30.510]That's the main myth that I would say,
[00:02:32.340]is facing the computer science industry.
[00:02:34.050]There's so many jobs in the industry
[00:02:36.360]that have very little to no programming needed.
[00:02:40.080]And what's your favorite thing to teach
[00:02:44.430]when you teach CS?
[00:02:45.840]I absolutely love Java.
[00:02:47.910]There's so many little parts
[00:02:49.410]that just don't quite follow the same conventional rules
[00:02:52.470]that other parts do, like naming the methods and things.
[00:02:55.440]And it's, I don't know,
[00:02:56.520]it doesn't make sense and I love it.
[00:02:58.200]But cybersecurity really has my heart, so...
[00:03:00.660]Oh wow.
[00:03:01.493]That's quite a shift for me.
[00:03:03.091](Kimberly laughs)
[00:03:03.924]It's Java to cybersecurity,
[00:03:05.460]but I do get it.
[00:03:07.920]What's your message to teachers that are teaching
[00:03:10.650]or are going to teach CS for the first time this fall?
[00:03:13.650]So my main message is just reach out.
[00:03:17.100]There are so many of us out here
[00:03:19.290]who've been teaching for a few years who just wanna help.
[00:03:22.260]When I first started,
[00:03:23.490]I reached out to two different instructors
[00:03:26.670]and one literally said, bring a flash drive
[00:03:29.550]and copied his entire curriculum off
[00:03:31.560]of his drive and said, "Here you go."
[00:03:33.390]Another one sent like a four-page email
[00:03:35.790]of all of the different resources
[00:03:37.140]and his thoughts about them and what he used them for.
[00:03:39.690]We're more than willing to help.
[00:03:40.950]Just reach out, come find us.
[00:03:43.020]So welcome and welcome to podcasting,
[00:03:44.910]because I know- Thank you.
[00:03:45.743]It is your first time podcasting.
[00:03:47.415]Yeah.
[00:03:48.540]Awesome.
[00:03:49.373]My turn.
[00:03:50.206]Yeah, All right.
[00:03:51.039]So what was your first interaction with computer science?
[00:03:53.430]Well, I...
[00:03:54.570]there's two pieces kind of going back to high school.
[00:03:57.330]The first one was I came to the United States
[00:04:00.720]for the first time as a 15-year-old, 1982.
[00:04:03.690]So everybody can quickly make the math
[00:04:05.850]and see how old I am.
[00:04:06.900]Yes, I am that old.
[00:04:08.283]16.
[00:04:09.253]And the, my neighbor,
[00:04:12.330]I was invited to order their plants and to play.
[00:04:16.080]They had Atari 400.
[00:04:17.918]Ooh.
[00:04:18.780]With BASIC,
[00:04:20.670]I mean BASIC BASIC on it.
[00:04:23.160]And I just loved it at that moment.
[00:04:26.460]And then I had a chance in high school
[00:04:28.260]to take a class on computer science.
[00:04:31.170]It was the first year I think it was offered.
[00:04:33.600]We had no computers at all.
[00:04:36.300]Oh, wow. At the school.
[00:04:37.740]It was just like paper and pencil
[00:04:41.040]and you write down the program
[00:04:42.630]and you kind of figure it like math, right?
[00:04:45.420]You just go through the steps.
[00:04:46.680]We did Turing machines,
[00:04:47.670]we did some really interesting things.
[00:04:50.795]And interestingly,
[00:04:52.620]I think that all of these unplugged activities,
[00:04:56.070]I still love them to this day
[00:04:57.390]because I think they teach you the certain kind
[00:04:59.760]of discipline that you cannot just do trial and error.
[00:05:04.170]You've got to really think through the problems.
[00:05:06.240]And I think that's one of the things
[00:05:07.710]that computer science can teach,
[00:05:09.480]is you've gotta think through the problem,
[00:05:11.250]not just start programming immediately,
[00:05:14.040]which carries itself into almost everything we do in school,
[00:05:17.850]because it is all about problem solving.
[00:05:20.310]Yeah, absolutely.
[00:05:21.840]What's one myth of computer science
[00:05:23.280]that you'd like to dispel?
[00:05:24.542]Oh.
[00:05:26.670]Right now I'm thinking through AI
[00:05:29.670]and this immediate notion
[00:05:31.590]that AI is just gonna replace any need
[00:05:34.830]to understand programming.
[00:05:37.890]It may be that we get there one day,
[00:05:39.900]but we are not even close to that.
[00:05:42.510]I've played with some of the applications,
[00:05:45.900]they definitely help you.
[00:05:47.400]But if you don't know what you're doing,
[00:05:49.140]you still don't know what you're doing.
[00:05:50.640]And even if it is working, you're not sure why it's working
[00:05:53.730]and is it doing exactly what you wanted it to do?
[00:05:56.280]So as we think about more complex structures,
[00:05:59.100]if you're not able to follow the logic,
[00:06:00.990]it's not gonna go well in the long run.
[00:06:03.120]So we still need computer science
[00:06:05.220]and we are not just ready to move away from it
[00:06:09.330]and say, there's a machine that does all of this.
[00:06:11.760]There might be.
[00:06:12.593]Again, there might be one day,
[00:06:13.440]but right now it's definitely a myth.
[00:06:15.661](Kimberly laughs)
[00:06:16.500]Alright.
[00:06:17.333]Can you tell us a little bit
[00:06:18.510]about your partnership with Code.org?
[00:06:20.070]Yes, so the University of Nebraska,
[00:06:22.770]and I'm the one who's doing a good portion of the work,
[00:06:26.700]are the regional partners for Code.org.
[00:06:29.040]So many years ago, Code.org started
[00:06:31.020]and still is, if you don't know, look it up,
[00:06:33.600]is a not-for-profit
[00:06:35.340]that is aimed at really providing curriculum
[00:06:38.550]and professional learning for teachers who are going
[00:06:41.310]to teach computer science.
[00:06:42.420]They really understood early
[00:06:44.160]that the solution was to take teachers,
[00:06:46.920]whether they're music teachers
[00:06:48.060]or English teachers or whatever,
[00:06:49.860]that want to teach computer science and have the chance
[00:06:52.920]and give them the tools to go ahead and do that immediately.
[00:06:56.010]Any fourth grade teachers can log in
[00:06:58.680]and say, "I wanna start teaching computer science."
[00:07:01.080]And they'll tell you, "Here's a curriculum.
[00:07:03.060]If you want professional learning,
[00:07:04.440]here's an opportunity, go for it."
[00:07:06.690]Some of it needs some support from school,
[00:07:08.520]but the curriculum is free.
[00:07:09.660]This is really important.
[00:07:11.250]And they started
[00:07:12.810]by training everybody nationally, altogether.
[00:07:16.080]And they very quickly realized within a few years
[00:07:18.450]that if you want to go countrywide,
[00:07:19.890]you cannot bring everybody,
[00:07:21.531]every teacher you want to train to one place.
[00:07:24.360]And they created this structure
[00:07:25.950]that is the regional partners.
[00:07:27.720]We are the regional partner for Nebraska.
[00:07:30.330]We try to serve everybody in Nebraska as much as we can,
[00:07:32.970]although sometimes we send people to other states
[00:07:35.640]for professional learning, if that helps.
[00:07:37.920]So we do that as well.
[00:07:39.600]We are not making money in this process,
[00:07:41.580]we're just making sure that there's enough content here
[00:07:45.000]to satisfy the needs of the state
[00:07:47.970]and more recently, the work with Code.org
[00:07:51.120]and with Sean from the Nebraska Department
[00:07:55.530]of Education has been on creating materials
[00:07:58.680]that are specifically tailored for the university for-
[00:08:02.340]sorry, not the University of Nebraska,
[00:08:04.140]through the University of Nebraska,
[00:08:05.550]but tailored for all of Nebraska teachers
[00:08:09.600]and answering the specific requirements
[00:08:11.700]by law and by the department.
[00:08:13.650]Awesome.
[00:08:14.632]And what's a message to teachers
[00:08:16.342]who are gonna be teaching computer science
[00:08:18.000]for the first time this fall?
[00:08:19.410]And so you already said, "We're here for you,"
[00:08:21.360]so I'm not gonna say, but we are here for you.
[00:08:24.240]The second message is just go for it.
[00:08:27.600]That thing you described with your teacher
[00:08:29.790]where you're both meandering around code,
[00:08:32.370]that is not necessarily a bad thing.
[00:08:34.260]No, no, no, no!
[00:08:35.120]Saying-
[00:08:35.953]No. Yeah.
[00:08:36.786]That's I'm saying is it's actually a positive.
[00:08:38.340]We love it because when we're struggling together,
[00:08:41.490]that tells students,
[00:08:42.870]there isn't a canned book of answers like there is often
[00:08:46.800]in K-12 schools
[00:08:49.170]and we are all kind of making it up.
[00:08:53.100]We know a lot of stuff.
[00:08:54.300]I hope that as teacher, you know more,
[00:08:55.950]but it doesn't mean you need to know everything
[00:08:57.860]that it's going to work just as you go along.
[00:09:02.250]So that's my big message.
[00:09:04.140]Awesome, alright, well thanks so much
[00:09:06.030]for doing this podcast with me
[00:09:07.950]and showing me the ropes.
[00:09:09.060]I appreciate it.
[00:09:09.893]Yeah, and thank you.
[00:09:10.980]And we'll see you next time on CS4NE.

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Tech EDGE - Introduction to CS4NE

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