Computer Science

AVC.com: Teaching Computer Science To High School Students On The Way To Work

Link brooklynrob Uncategorized , , ,

relayengineers:

One cause that is important to many of us on the Relay Engineering Team are initiatives to expand CS and, in particular, to #teachkidscode, at public K-12 schools. Not only do we feel that computational thinking is an incredibly valuable skill for all sorts of professions (not just software engineering), but the intersection of education and technology is a natural fit given relaygse’s mission and our specific role in the organization. (Here’s a photo of some of the Relay Engineering team leading a codeorg #HourOfCode event at The #ParkSlope School psms282 this past December).

Our friend fred-wilson has a great post today about the #TEALS program – http://avc.com/2014/04/teaching-computer-science-to-high-school-students-on-the-way-to-work/. As Fred mentions, we’ll be hosting the first of two info sessions at Relay on April 15. By way of background, our CTO, rob-underwood, is a TEALS volunteer this year at Uncommon High School in Crown Heights. Says Fred about this initiative:

I know there are a lot of software engineers in NYC who read this blog. I am very grateful for all that you do for the companies you work for (including many, maybe all, NYC based USV portfolio companies). So it’s hard to ask you to do even more. But I can promise you this. Teaching kids to code is rewarding. It is important. It makes me feel good. And I think it will make you feel good too.

Rob commented on the blog post about his experience saying:

It’s been incredibly rewarding and fulfilling to be a TEALS volunteer this school year at UCHS in Crown Heights. Watching the kids grow and grasp important CS and coding concepts is just great. I love going out there.

As Fred says so eloquently this is a critical effort we all need to get behind, both here in NYC and around the country (and globe for that matter). The readers of this blog are busy people with a ton on their plate. But each of us need to each make time to do this. It’s just that important. We make time for the things we value. We need to make time for this.

Relay GSE, and the Relay Engineering Team in particular, are thrilled to be hosting the first TEALS info session on 4/15. We look forward to welcoming you to Relay and continuing to support TEALS, CSNYC, and similar programs that #teachkidscode. We salute the work that folks like Fred, Evan Korth, Cindy Gao, Nathaniel Granor, and Kevin Wang are doing to make this happen.

Finally, in Brooklyn we have had success working through and with local Community Boards (6 in particular) and Community Education Councils [e.g. cec13brooklyn] to advocate for more CS (e.g., more programs like TEALS) in schools. If you’re interested in learning more, don’t hesitate to ping me — I think working with CBs and CECs is something that can be easily replicated throughout the city.

No matter what else you do today, sign up for one of the info sessions and make plans to volunteer for TEALs or a similar program.

We urge you to volunteer for TEALS or another of the many great programs bringing technology, computer science, and coding to public schools. For more info, check out the CSNYC web site and/or TEALS web site. If you’re interested in volunteering but not sure just how to best help, you can submit your info on this CSNYC Google form. 

We hope to see you at Relay on April 15th!

AVC.com: Teaching Computer Science To High School Students On The Way To Work

AVC.com: Teaching Computer Science To High School Students On The Way To Work

Link brooklynrob Uncategorized

AVC.com: Teaching Computer Science To High School Students On The Way To Work

relayengineers:

One cause that is important to many of us on the Relay Engineering Team are initiatives to expand CS and, in particular, to #teachkidscode, at public K-12 schools. Not only do we feel that computational thinking is an incredibly valuable skill for all sorts of professions (not just software engineering), but the intersection of education and technology is a natural fit given relaygse’s mission and our specific role in the organization. (Here’s a photo of some of the Relay Engineering team leading a codeorg #HourOfCode event at The #ParkSlope School psms282 this past December).

Our friend fred-wilson has a great post today about the #TEALS program – http://avc.com/2014/04/teaching-computer-science-to-high-school-students-on-the-way-to-work/. As Fred mentions, we’ll be hosting the first of two info session at Relay on April 15. By way of background, our CTO, rob-underwood, is a TEALS volunteer this year at Uncommon High School in Crown Heights. Says Fred about this initiative:

I know there are a lot of software engineers in NYC who read this blog. I am very grateful for all that you do for the companies you work for (including many, maybe all, NYC based USV portfolio companies). So it’s hard to ask you to do even more. But I can promise you this. Teaching kids to code is rewarding. It is important. It makes me feel good. And I think it will make you feel good too.

Rob commented on the blog post about his experience saying:

It’s been incredibly rewarding and fulfilling to be a TEALS volunteer this school year at UCHS in Crown Heights. Watching the kids grow and grasp important CS and coding concepts is just great. I love going out there.

As Fred says so eloquently this is a critical effort we all need to get behind, both here in NYC and around the country (and globe for that matter). The readers of this blog are busy people with a ton on their plate. But each of us need to each make time to do this. It’s just that important. We make time for the things we value. We need to make time for this.

Relay GSE, and the Relay Engineering Team in particular, are thrilled to be hosting the first TEALS info session on 4/15. We look forward to welcoming you to Relay and continuing to support TEALS, CSNYC, and similar programs that #teachkidscode. We salute the work that folks like Fred, Evan Korth, Cindy Gao, Nathaniel Granor, and Kevin Wang are doing to make this happen.

Finally, in Brooklyn we have had success working through and with local Community Boards (6 in particular) and Community Education Councils [e.g. cec13brooklyn] to advocate for more CS (e.g., more programs like TEALS) in schools. If you’re interested in learning more, don’t hesitate to ping me — I think working with CBs and CECs is something that can be easily replicated throughout the city.

No matter what else you do today, sign up for one of the info sessions and make plans to volunteer for TEALs or a similar program.

We urge you to volunteer for TEALS or another of the many great programs bringing technology, computer science, and coding to public schools. For more info, check out the CSNYC web site and/or TEALS web site. If you’re interested in volunteering but not sure just how to best help, you can submit your info on this CSNYC Google form. 

We hope to see you at Relay on April 15th!

Support the NYC Foundation for Computer Science Education #CSNYC

brooklynrob Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

New York City VC and philanthropist Fred Wilson (Tumblr: fred-wilson) has a post today on his blog about the new NYC Foundation for Computer Science Education (website: http://csnyc.org/) and the fund they have put together to support efforts to teach kids to code in school.

I am a huge proponent of what Fred, Evan, and CSNYC are up to. It’s critical that we expand programs that expose students – elementary, middle, and high school – to computer science and especially coding. Initially the fund will be focused on efforts to build in-school (i.e., during the school day) capacity, especially but not exclusively first at high schools. But there is wide recognition that an “all of the above” strategy that includes in-school-day, after-school, and weekend programs will be needed to reach as many students as possible while the process of truly integrating CS into the core academic curriculum and class day happens.

I am trying to do my small part by advocating for increased CS in the area of Brooklyn in which I live, through bodies on which I serve such as Community Board 6 and Community Education Council 13. As possible I’m trying to connect programs (and funding) with schools. I’m doing this work in part to address the first of several challenges (all surmountable) I see that must be overcome:

  1. Expanding CS into schools – especially local, neighborhood, district public schools – cannot be seen as something done only from “on high”. We need to actively engage communities, community groups, parents, neighborhood associations, BIDs, PTAs/PTOs, CECs, etc. to get them behind these efforts and hear from them ideas for engaging young people. The grassroots, “on the block” component of this is crucial.
  2. Funding – Fred, Evan and others are on this and there are other efforts also in the works. I strongly encourage you to contribute to the Crowdrise campaign for CSNYC. I’d also suggest there are other models to explore, especially with and through PTOs/PTAs and BIDs. E-mail me at runderwood5 (at) gmail.com if you’d like to brainstorm on this topic. (I am co-VP on our PTO at The #ParkSlope School PS/MS 282 so this topic is close to home)
  3. Teacher Training and Professional Development – To teach computer science at scale, we’ll need to train a lot of people to be able to teach CS in schools. This can take (at least) two forms – CS professionals who need to learn teaching skills, and teachers who need/want to learn CS. I hope to help here a bit in my day job capacity, but in the meantime we need an all hands on deck approach to getting interested people ready to teach CS.

Whether you are liberal or conservative, #OWS or TP, plutocrat or populist, it’s tough to argue the importance of teaching our kids how to code and computer science overall. As Mitch Resnick discusses in this video, learning to code is not just a narrow technical skill, but a form of digital literacy important to all sorts of endeavors, not just the “job” called “computer programmer.”

Let’s do this.