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Submission + - Walt Disney Presents: 'Frozen' Princesses to Star in 2014 Hour of Code 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "At the CSTA conference," reads a recent post on the Computer Science Teachers Association blog, "there are regular sessions on attracting women to the field, on ways to structure assignments to be gender neutral and/or racially sensitive." So, isn't that kind of at odds with the choice of Disney Frozen princesses Anna and Elsa to star in Code.org's signature tutorial for the 2014 Hour of Code, which aims to introduce CS to 100 million schoolkids? Au contraire, insisted Code.org, when asked by the Seattle Times if boys will be as enthused as girls about Anna and Elsa. "If you see all the sing-alongs and crazy Frozen-ness, it’s not only for girls," reassured a spokeswoman. Gender-targeted product lists at the Disney Store, on the other hand, seem to suggest otherwise.
Programming

It's Not Developers Slowing Things Down, It's the Process 186

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-not-the-heat,-it's-the-humidity dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Software engineers understand the pace of writing code, but frequently managers don't. One line of code might take 1 minute, and another line of code might take 1 day. But generally, everything averages out, and hitting your goals is more a function of properly setting your goals than of coding quickly or slowly. Sprint.ly, a company than analyzes productivity, has published some data to back this up. The amount of time actually developing a feature was a small and relatively consistent portion of its lifetime as a work ticket. The massively variable part of the process is when "stakeholders are figuring out specs and prioritizing work." The top disrupting influences (as experienced devs will recognize) are unclear and changing requirements. Another big cause of slowdowns is interrupting development work on one task to work on a second one. The article encourages managers to let devs contribute to the process and say "No" if the specs are too vague. Is there anything you'd add to this list?

Submission + - Obama's Immigration Order to Give Tech Industry Some, Leave 'Em Wanting More

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "The high-tech industry," reports the Washington Post's Nancy Scola, "will have at least two things to be happy about in President Obama's speech outlining executive actions he'll take on immigration. The president plans to grant the tech industry some, but not nearly all, of what it has been after in the immigration debate. The first is aimed at increasing the opportunity for foreign students and recent graduates from U.S. schools to work in high-tech jobs in the United States. And the second is aimed at making it easier for foreign-born entrepreneurs to set up shop in the United States. According to the White House, Obama will direct the Department of Homeland Security to help students in the so-called STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — by proposing, per a White House fact sheet released Thursday night, to 'expand and extend' the controversial Optional Practical Training program that now allows foreign-born STEM students and recent graduates remain in the United States for up to 29 months. The exact details of that expansion will be worked out by the Department of Homeland Security as it goes through a rulemaking process."

Submission + - Are Disney Princesses the Answer to America's Tech-Talent Shortage?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: If you were waiting to see what some of the nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations would come up with to solve America's tech-talent shortage, wait no longer. "Thanks to Disney Interactive," writes CEO Hadi Partovi, "Code.org’s signature tutorial for the 2014 Hour of Code features Disney Infinity versions of Disney’s "Frozen" heroines Anna and Elsa!." Partovi adds, "The girl-power theme of the tutorial is a continuation of our efforts to expand diversity in computer science and broaden female participation in the field, starting with younger students." In the tutorial, reports the LA Times, students will learn to write code to help Anna and Elsa draw snowflakes and snowmen, and perform magical 'ice craft.' The new tutorial is part of an effort by Code.org and their tech company partners to introduce coding to 100 million students by the end of CS Education Week in December. The Seattle Times addressed the elephant in the room: Will boys be as enthused about Anna and Elsa? "If you see all the sing-alongs and crazy Frozen-ness, it’s not only for girls," reassured a Code.org spokeswoman, adding that "there's crossover appeal ... it’s cool that you can write your own program, see the art you make and the share it."

Submission + - NYT: Privacy Concerns for ClassDojo, Other Tracking Apps for Schoolchildren

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The NY Times' Natasha Singer files a report on popular and controversial behavior tracking app ClassDojo, which teachers use to keep a running tally of each student’s score, award virtual badges for obedience, and to communicate with parents about their child’s progress. “I like it because you get rewarded for your good behavior — like a dog does when it gets a treat," was one third grader's testimonial. Some parents, teachers and privacy law scholars say ClassDojo (investors) — along with other unproven technologies that record sensitive information about students — is being adopted without sufficiently considering the ramifications for data privacy and fairness. "ClassDojo," writes Singer, "does not seek explicit parental consent for teachers to log detailed information about a child’s conduct. Although the app’s terms of service state that teachers who sign up guarantee that their schools have authorized them to do so, many teachers can download ClassDojo, and other free apps, without vetting by school supervisors. Neither the New York City nor Los Angeles school districts, for example, keep track of teachers independently using apps." A high school teacher interviewed for the article confessed to having not read ClassDojo’s policies on handling student data, saying: "I’m one of those people who, when the terms of service are 18 pages, I just click agree." And, if all this doesn't make you parents just a tad nervous, check out this response to the "Has anyone ran a data analysis on their CD data?" question posed to the Class Dojo Community: "I needed to analyze data in regards to a student being placed on ADHD medicine to see whether or not he made any improvements. I have also used it to determine any behavioral changes depending on if a student was with mom/dad for a custody review. I use dojo consistently, so I LOVE getting to use the data to evaluate and share with parents, or even administrators."

Submission + - Three's a Crowd in Billionaires' Record-Breaking Code.org Crowdfunding Project

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Whether it's winning yacht races, assembling the best computer science faculty, or even dominating high school basketball, billionaires like to win. Which may help explain why three tech billionaires — Code.org backers (and FWD.us founders) Mark Zuckerberg, VC John Doerr, and Sean Parker — stepped up to the plate and helped out Code.org's once-anemic Hour of Code Indiegogo crowdfunding project with $500k donations. When matched by Code.org's largest donors (Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman and others), the three donations alone raised $3,000,000, enough to reach the organization's goal of becoming the most funded crowdfunding campaign ever on Indiegogo. On its campaign page, Code.org remarked that "to sustain our organization for the long haul, we need to engage parents and community members," which raises questions about how reliant the K-12 learn-to-code movement might be on the kindness of its wealthy corporate and individual donors. Code.org started shedding some light on its top donors a few months back, but contributor names are blank in the 2013 IRS 990 filing posted by the organization on its website, although GuideStar suggests the biggest contributors in 2013 were Microsoft ($3,149,411) and Code.org founders Hadi and Ali Partovi ($1,873,909 in Facebook stock). Coincidentally, in a Reddit AMA at Code.org's launch, CEO and Founder Hadi Partovi noted that his next-door-neighbor is Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, whose FWD.us bio notes is responsible for Microsoft's philanthropic work. Just months before Code.org and FWD.us emerged on the lobbying scene, Smith announced Microsoft's National Talent Strategy, which called for "an increase in developing the American STEM pipeline in exchange for these new [H-1B] visas and green cards," a wish that President Obama is expected to grant shortly via executive action.

Submission + - U.S. Education Chief Don't Know Much About Online CS Education History 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Writing in Vanity Fair, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan marvels that his kids can learn to code online at their own pace thanks to "free" lessons from Khan Academy, which Duncan credits for "changing the way my kids learn" (Duncan calls out his kids' grade school for not offering coding). The 50-year-old Duncan, who complained last December that he "didn't have the opportunity to learn computer skills" while growing up attending the Univ. of Chicago Lab Schools and Yale, may be surprised to learn that the University of Illinois was teaching kids how to program online in the '70s with its PLATO system, and it didn't look all that different from what Khan Academy came up with for his kids 40 years later (Roger Ebert remarked in his 2011 TED Talk that seeing Khan Academy gave him a flashback to the PLATO system he reported on in the '60s). So, does it matter if the nation's education chief — who presides over a budget that includes $69 billion in discretionary spending — is clueless about The Hidden History of Ed-Tech? Some think so. "We can't move forward," Hack Education's Audrey Watters writes, "til we reconcile where we've been before." So, if Duncan doesn't want to shell out $200 to read a 40-year-old academic paper on the subject (that's a different problem!) to bring himself up to speed, he presumably can check out the free offerings at Ed.gov. A 1975 paper on Interactive Systems for Education, for instance, notes that 650 students were learning programming on PLATO during the Spring '75 semester, not bad considering that Khan Academy is boasting that it "helped over 2000 girls learn to code" in 2014 (after luring their teachers with funding from a $1,000,000 Google Award). Even young techies might be impressed by the extent of PLATO's circa-1975 online CS offerings, from lessons on data structures and numerical analysis to compilers, including BASIC, PL/I, SNOBOL, APL, and even good-old COBOL.

Submission + - U.S. Education Chief's Khan Academy Aha Moment was Roger Ebert's Deja Vu

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Writing in Vanity Fair, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reports that Khan Academy is "changing the way my kids learn" with its online lessons, including coding, which Duncan points out his pre-teen kids' school doesn't offer. Interestingly, while seeing Khan Academy seems to have been an aha moment for the nation's education chief, it was a deja vu moment for the late film critic Roger Ebert, who reported on computer-assisted instruction 50 years earlier. In his 2011 TED Talk, Ebert remarked, "When I heard the amazing talk by Salman Khan on Wednesday, about the Khan Academy website that teaches hundreds of subjects to students all over the world, I had a flashback. It was about 1960. As a local newspaper reporter still in high school, I was sent over to the computer lab of the University of Illinois to interview the creators of something called PLATO. The initials stood for Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations. This was a computer-assisted instruction system, which in those days ran on a computer named ILLIAC. The programmers said it could assist students in their learning." PLATO, Duncan may be surprised to learn, was teaching kids how to program online in the '70s, and it didn't look all that different from what Khan Academy came up with for his kids 40 years later. "There’s a fascinating and important history of education technology that is largely forgotten," explains Audrey Watters in The Hidden History of Ed-Tech. "We can't move forward," she adds, "til we reconcile where we've been before."

Submission + - Duke: No Mercy for CS 201 Cheaters Who Don't Turn Selves In by Wednesday

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The Duke Chronicle published an e-mail reportedly sent to hundreds of Duke students who took Computer Science 201 (Data Structures & Algorithms) last spring, giving those who copied solutions to class problems until Nov. 12th to turn themselves in for cheating. "Students who have violated course policies but do not step forward by November 12, 2014," warns the e-mail, "will not be offered faculty-student resolution and will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct for disciplinary processes without any recommendation for leniency." Dis Gon B Gud, quips an animated GIF comment. The Chronicle adds that CS Prof Owen Astrachan, co-director of undergraduate studies, admitted that there is a fine line between collaboration and cheating in computer science — online and in person, although Astrachan made it clear in comments that "Students who copied code from the Internet are in violation of the community standard and course policies." Hey, let ye who is without copy-and-paste sin cast the first stone in the comments!

Submission + - Google Takes Over Operations Of NASA Airfield

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "After years of using Moffett Field as the home and launch pad for the private jets of Google’s founders," writes TechCrunch's Ryan Lawler, "the company has agreed to a deal in which it will lease the airfield from NASA for the next 60 years. As part of the lease, Google will take over operations of the airfield while the U.S. government retains ownership of the land." In its press release, NASA explained, "We are making strides to reduce our footprint here on Earth" with the $1.16B lease, which is expected to reduce the government agency’s maintenance and operation costs by $6.3 million annually.

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