Tech EDGE: CS4NE - CodeHS with Special Guest, Steve Garner

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08/21/2024 Added

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CS4NE, Computer Science for Nebraska - CodeHS with Special Guest, Steve Gardner. 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](upbeat music)
[00:00:06.240]Hi, I'm Guy Trainin.
[00:00:07.890]And I'm Kimberly Ingraham-Beck.
[00:00:09.390]And this is, "CS4NE."
[00:00:11.760]And today, we are talking about CodeHS.
[00:00:16.110]So recently, we both went to two conferences,
[00:00:19.140]to ISTE and CSTA.
[00:00:21.090]And you met with some of the providers
[00:00:24.630]of different curriculum for Computer Science.
[00:00:29.130]So tell me a little bit about the meeting
[00:00:31.170]with the CodeHS,
[00:00:33.390]just before we actually listen
[00:00:35.520]to a piece of the interview.
[00:00:37.140]Yeah, so it's a free software.
[00:00:40.470]They have free and paid versions.
[00:00:42.270]I have used it only in the free capacity,
[00:00:45.930]but they have recently been working
[00:00:47.670]with Shaun Young in NDE,
[00:00:49.170]to create a course that aligns perfectly
[00:00:52.320]with the new standards for our course.
[00:00:54.450]So they are like many other providers,
[00:00:57.150]very responsive to the needs.
[00:01:00.420]They listen to teachers
[00:01:01.800]and they improve their products working with teachers,
[00:01:04.650]but they also listen to the needs in different states
[00:01:07.500]and really tailor their product to that state,
[00:01:10.470]which is great because it is actually rare
[00:01:13.260]for a state like Nebraska to get that kind of an attention
[00:01:16.890]for any curriculum company.
[00:01:18.300]So I applaud that.
[00:01:20.400]Okay, let's go to the interview.
[00:01:22.410]Yeah.
[00:01:23.243]All right, good morning, thank you so much
[00:01:24.330]for joining us today.
[00:01:25.860]Good morning.
[00:01:27.360]So tell us a little bit about you
[00:01:28.740]and about your organization.
[00:01:30.300]Yeah, so I'm Steve Gardner.
[00:01:31.470]I'm the Chief Revenue Officer for CodeHS.
[00:01:33.798]CodeHS is one of the leading providers
[00:01:35.610]of K12 Computer Science Curriculum and Resources.
[00:01:39.690]We have a full K12 Curriculum. (crowd chattering)
[00:01:43.526]As we move into middle high school,
[00:01:44.520]we have over 150 courses.
[00:01:46.214]Wow.
[00:01:47.047]We support multiple pathways,
[00:01:49.020]including traditional programming,
[00:01:50.790]and like Python and JavaScript,
[00:01:52.950]Data Security, Cybersecurity, Game Design,
[00:01:56.190]Web Design, AI, Machine Learning,
[00:01:59.419]lots of great curriculum. Perfect.
[00:02:02.400]What are the unique benefits of your curriculum?
[00:02:05.130]I think just the breadth and depth
[00:02:08.520]of what we have. (crowd chattering)
[00:02:09.450]The ability to actually take somebody literally
[00:02:11.370]from kindergarten and get them out through AP
[00:02:13.410]or Capstone Computer Science in multiple pathways
[00:02:17.400]of interest is a real strength of our company.
[00:02:21.570]Absolutely, do you have any
[00:02:23.490]Nebraska Standards Aligned Curriculum?
[00:02:25.710]We do, we actually developed
[00:02:27.300]with the new high school requirement, we developed
[00:02:29.190]a, "Nebraska Introduction to Computer Science Course,"
[00:02:31.800]that's 100% aligned to the state standards,
[00:02:35.610]and that's now available for schools to use and access.
[00:02:39.030]Wonderful. (crowd chattering)
[00:02:39.863]Are you currently working with anyone in Nebraska?
[00:02:42.120]We have many, many schools
[00:02:44.430]and districts in the state that are using CodeHS.
[00:02:47.040]Recently, the Omaha Public Schools adopted CodeHS
[00:02:50.730]for Middle High School
[00:02:52.620]for every school in the district as one example.
[00:02:55.350]Wonderful, and what is the cost structure
[00:02:57.810]to use your curriculum? (crowd chattering)
[00:02:59.726]Yeah, so we have a free version.
[00:03:00.900]So the courses that I mentioned,
[00:03:02.490]any teacher can go create an account
[00:03:04.320]and start teaching using our Nebraska Course
[00:03:06.720]or any of the other ones that I mentioned.
[00:03:08.610]And we also have a pro-version
[00:03:09.960]and our pricing is on a per teacher model.
[00:03:13.650]And you can reach out to us and we'd be happy,
[00:03:16.890]you can actually go online for,
[00:03:18.047]if you just got 10 or 20 kids,
[00:03:20.070]you can get a quote right on our platform at codehs.com.
[00:03:23.880]Awesome, well thank you so much
[00:03:25.110]for taking the time to meet with me.
[00:03:26.220]Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.
[00:03:27.600]That was a great interview.
[00:03:29.310]And now, just to add some information,
[00:03:33.180]you've been teaching with CodeHS?
[00:03:34.230]Yeah.
[00:03:35.400]And I haven't, so if you can show me a little bit
[00:03:38.610]about what does it look like,
[00:03:40.860]and what can you do inside CodeHS, that would be great.
[00:03:44.490]Absolutely, so here I have pulled up the Nebraska Course.
[00:03:49.860]And so here we have different units that you can see.
[00:03:53.040]Yeah. So it starts off
[00:03:54.660]with some cybersecurity activities.
[00:03:57.090]The way it will look, I'm currently on the student side,
[00:03:59.850]but they're gonna open up a lesson.
[00:04:01.740]They have reading to do,
[00:04:03.630]sometimes they'll usually have videos,
[00:04:06.053]like a little interactive video.
[00:04:09.540]They have some free responses for students
[00:04:11.460]to kinda think through,
[00:04:12.840]where they're getting asked questions.
[00:04:14.880]Here we have a connection and more free response.
[00:04:16.920]And so here we actually have the video down here.
[00:04:19.200]That's not usually how they're set up.
[00:04:20.610]Yeah.
[00:04:21.574]And then a couple more free responses.
[00:04:23.066]So there's... So, and when you
[00:04:26.640]look at a piece like you just showed,
[00:04:28.680]how long does it take you to get
[00:04:31.470]through a unit like that with students?
[00:04:33.656]Yeah.
[00:04:34.489]Because there, it looks like a lot,
[00:04:36.150]but it could also be things that take two, three minutes.
[00:04:38.850]Absolutely, so we have 45 minute class periods in Gretna,
[00:04:43.230]and so we can usually get through two a day.
[00:04:47.610]Oh, okay. Pretty easily.
[00:04:48.960]So like 1.1 and 1.2.
[00:04:50.873]Okay. Some of them
[00:04:51.706]do take a little bit longer,
[00:04:52.770]especially when we get to the Coding Challenges.
[00:04:55.350]Sometimes they'll just take a little bit longer to do.
[00:04:58.620]But generally, I'd say we do about one or two a day.
[00:05:01.680]Okay. There's also great things
[00:05:03.570]that you can do to kind of extend
[00:05:04.830]and review the lesson as well, so.
[00:05:08.160]So can you show me,
[00:05:09.466]so the first one was about cybersecurity,
[00:05:13.230]the second one is about?
[00:05:14.820]It's Cryptography.
[00:05:15.990]Ooh! So
[00:05:16.823]I really enjoy teaching my students about encryption
[00:05:20.580]and doing different types of encryption with this.
[00:05:23.130]And this is not about cryptocurrencies, right?
[00:05:25.067]It is not about cryptocurrencies.
[00:05:27.360]And that's important to know.
[00:05:28.193]It is.
[00:05:29.026]The kids are gonna wanna know that too.
[00:05:30.180]Yes. (Kimberly laughs)
[00:05:31.800]The next one is System Administration
[00:05:33.870]and just kinda teaching about computer systems.
[00:05:36.490]'Cause some kids maybe only ever use whatever type
[00:05:40.874]of system they have in the school.
[00:05:42.510]And if your school only has one system,
[00:05:44.760]then they only learn that one system.
[00:05:46.440]So when you go into,
[00:05:47.760]can you open a lesson, I don't...
[00:05:49.510]Yeah, Yeah.
[00:05:50.580]Can students jump and go straight to the fourth activity
[00:05:53.730]or do they have to do it sequentially?
[00:05:55.440]Excellent question.
[00:05:56.340]So there's actually going to be,
[00:05:59.370]after these have been attempted,
[00:06:00.660]the circle will fill in with a color.
[00:06:02.640]Yellow means the lesson has been attempted,
[00:06:05.370]but not completed.
[00:06:06.300]And green means the student has attempted
[00:06:09.240]and completed the lesson.
[00:06:10.770]So it will show up on the teacher's view
[00:06:14.880]and the student's view that it's yellow
[00:06:16.890]and that it is incomplete.
[00:06:18.240]Yeah.
[00:06:19.410]So they could skip.
[00:06:21.180]but it'll be incomplete.
[00:06:22.260]So show us, let's look at an assignment,
[00:06:25.560]just to get a sense of what it looks like.
[00:06:27.150]Yeah, so here's an example of a Quiz.
[00:06:30.409]There's only one attempt.
[00:06:33.330]I use these as just a check
[00:06:35.790]for understanding and what the students did.
[00:06:37.980]I don't actually grade it based on the number
[00:06:40.522]of correct answers just to gauge to where they are.
[00:06:43.882]This is just to get them thinking
[00:06:45.240]and to make sure that they have some concepts
[00:06:47.430]and they're thinking through the problem.
[00:06:48.810]And that's very common.
[00:06:49.890]And that is you using that to encourage kids to think
[00:06:54.150]and not just to wait for the answer.
[00:06:55.680]They have to exercise some,
[00:06:59.370]just kind of logic skills?
[00:07:01.410]Yeah.
[00:07:02.243]And whatever they know to help them think through
[00:07:05.940]and that activity actually helps, right?
[00:07:09.184]Absolutely. So they're not
[00:07:10.463]passive learners, they're actually active in it.
[00:07:12.510]Yeah, then we have a little bit talking
[00:07:17.040]about the different operating systems here.
[00:07:19.410]So this is kinda what it looks like.
[00:07:21.360]Oh great, so there's examples of code
[00:07:23.670]and then there's questions about that
[00:07:26.687]and work that happens in the background
[00:07:29.610]and to help them realize what's going on.
[00:07:32.970]So that's great.
[00:07:34.080]And what do you think is really excellent about CodeHs?
[00:07:39.840]In my opinion, it's the amount
[00:07:41.820]of different courses that they have.
[00:07:44.042]So sometimes students will be real go-getters
[00:07:47.190]and they'll just kind of fly through the course material.
[00:07:50.070]And so they have, I don't remember the number,
[00:07:52.710]but a significant number of courses
[00:07:55.080]that you can also assign to students.
[00:07:57.600]So they have like app development and game development
[00:08:00.150]that you can assign students,
[00:08:01.470]that they're always interested in.
[00:08:02.370]So you can assign courses to students individually?
[00:08:04.927]Yes.
[00:08:05.760]Regardless of what class you are exactly teaching.
[00:08:08.220]So it could be a little bit more open-ended.
[00:08:11.400]And if you've got advanced students that move through fast,
[00:08:14.820]you can just give them more?
[00:08:16.511]Yeah.
[00:08:17.344]And that's also a way I think to entice
[00:08:20.250]and motivate other students.
[00:08:21.750]If you get through this, there's more.
[00:08:23.891]Absolutely.
[00:08:24.810]And you can learn more and do some more exciting things.
[00:08:27.506]Yeah.
[00:08:28.339]And, so that's one.
[00:08:29.640]So if you were telling students and teachers
[00:08:33.570]and parents why choose CodeHs, what would you tell 'em?
[00:08:38.700]The courses that we offer in Gretna,
[00:08:40.410]it just kind of aligned.
[00:08:42.210]We were able to use multiple curriculum
[00:08:44.760]that they have to fit multiple classes of ours.
[00:08:47.786](upbeat music)
[00:08:48.619]Okay, excellent.
[00:08:49.452]Yeah.
[00:08:50.432]Thank you, and we'll see you next time on, "CS4NE."
[00:08:54.026](upbeat music)

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Tech EDGE: CS4NE - CodeHS with Special Guest, Steve Garner

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