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Submission + - Straight Out of HBO Silicon Valley: FWD.us and Girls Who Code's SXSW Happy Hour 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Remember that HBO Silicon Valley episode where Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates throw a conference after-party at a bar with a Google-backed nonprofit that teaches middle school and high school girls to code, and the drunk techies start shouting 'throw the work to the bitch' and other parental advisory lyrics along with the rapper who's performing? Wait, that never happened? Guess my imagination just ran away with me when after seeing rapper Kent M$ney tweet an invite to Saturday night's SXSW "Innovation for America" Happy Hour, which is sponsored by Zuck's FWD.us PAC and Girls Who Code.

Submission + - edX Welcomes 'The University of Microsoft' into its Fold

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "At edX," explains the upscale MOOC founded by MIT and Harvard, "we believe in offering the highest quality courses, created by schools and partners who share our commitment to excellence in teaching and learning, both online and in the classroom." You know, like Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure (course trailer). On Tuesday, edX welcomed Microsoft as its first corporate member to offer MOOCs on edX.org. "Through this program," said edX, "Microsoft will offer the edX global learning community courses to acquire the core development skills needed to be successful in the cloud-first, mobile-first world." The new initiative, explained Microsoft, expands upon an existing Microsoft partnership with edX to create interactive online courses using Office Mix and PowerPoint 2013. Classes start March 31st, kids!

Submission + - Univ. of WA: Opponents of K-12 CS Bill "Same People Who Don't Like Puppies"

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Led by Washington State income tax killer Steve Ballmer, dozens of tech, education & nonprofit execs urged passage of a WA computer science education bill, calling for millions in state spending to help prepare K-12 kids for tech jobs. In a signed letter and full-page Seattle Times ad lobbying lawmakers to pass House Bill 1813, representatives from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and tech-bankrolled Code.org suggested WA State ante up $1 million-a-year for starters, saying "Let's give a united answer to the parent who asks, 'Why doesn’t my child’s school teach computer science?'" Hey, why not tell them it's because Ballmer dodged a possible $180M in state taxes on a planned $2B Microsoft stock sale that could have been used for CS education instead of enriching Donald Sterling! By the way, the University of Washington — on whose behalf representatives of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Code.org (including some WA state income tax opponents) coincidentally recently penned a letter pressuring WA lawmakers to fund a new $110M CS building — notes that HB 1813 went on to pass the WA House 91-7. "We don’t know who the 7 were," quipped the UW, "but it’s presumably the same folks who don’t like puppies." No word if that includes the WA State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who in public testimony on HB 1813 pushed back on Microsoft and Code.org's call for girls-first CS education, challenging advocates of "computer science for all" to instead put their tax money where their mouths are and support full funding of, well, statewide K-12 CS for ALL, if it's indeed all that important.

Submission + - Go R, Young Man

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Learning to code has become a mainstream fascination," writes Brian Liou in Why are YOU learning to code?, "but all the evangelization has been misleading. The problem in our Chris-Bosh-codes-so-should-you society is that people learn to code without first asking "for what purpose do you want to use code?" What in your day-to-day work could you actually automate using code? Let’s face it, your odds of creating the next hot iPhone app aren’t great, but the spreadsheets you look at everyday or the strategic business decisions you or your company makes? Coding can help you with those. Coding to better understand data would help everyone." Leada co-founder Liou's advice? "So to all non-technical professionals looking to get technical: If you want to become a software engineer, by all means learn Ruby or go through the JavaScript tutorials on Codecademy. But if you’re simply a business professional looking to gain an edge on your peers, trust me, you are much better off learning R." So, did Mark Zuckerberg steer 100 million K-12 coder wannabes down the wrong path with the JavaScript and Ruby preaching?

Submission + - Making CS Education an Issue Like Climate Change: Mission Accomplished?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Code is the New Literacy, declared tech-backed Code.org in a star-studded video two years ago as it teamed with politicians, educators, billionaires, tech giants, and the NSF to make CS education "an issue like climate change". And as the billionaire-bankrolled nonprofit celebrates its second birthday, it would appear that the mission's been accomplished. Last December saw K-12 educators in the U.S. and Russia clamor to make sure their kids get with the program(ming). Heck, Arkansas went so far as to declare a high school CS education state of emergency, New York City has tapped Code.org, the NSF, Google, and Microsoft to tag-team-teach schoolkids CS before, during, and after school, and AmeriCorps VISTA Members will soon be fighting the war on poverty using Google's CS First Curriculum. Hey, Harold Hill and Lyle Lanley could only dream of such success!

Submission + - Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The NYT reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. “It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” says Jason R. Baron. A spokesman for Clinton defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

Comment Same Crew Anteed Up Money to Defeat WA Income Tax (Score 4, Informative) 102

by theodp (#49152049) Attached to: Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook Press WA For $40M For New UW CS Building

Public Disclosure Commission records show that five of those who signed the letter calling for increased WA State spending - Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Director Brad Smith, Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi, Madrona VC and Amazon.com Director Tom Alberg, Ignition Partners VC Brad Silverberg, Trilogy VC John Stanton - contributed money in 2010 to defeat I-1098, an initiative for a WA state income tax. Other contributors to Defeat 1098 included Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon exec and Code.org Director Jeff Wilke, Microsoft Corporation, and other Microsoft execs, including then-CEO Steve Ballmer. After I-1098 went down in flames, Ballmer announced plans to sell $2B of Microsoft stock that might have been subject to as much as $180 million in state taxes under the quashed proposal.

Submission + - Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook Press WA for $40M for New UW CS Building

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Nice computer industry you got there. Hate to see something bad happen to it." That's the gist of a letter sent by Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Code.org, and other tech giants earlier this week asking the WA State Legislature to approve $40M in capital spending to help fund a new $110M University of Washington computer science building ($70M will be raised privately). "As representatives of companies and businesses that rely on a ready supply of high quality computer science graduates," wrote the letter's 23 signatories, "we believe it is critical for the State to invest in this sector in a way that ensures its vibrancy and growth. Our vision is for Washington to continue to lead the way in technology and computer science, but we must keep pace with the vast demand." The UW Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering profusely thanked tech leaders for pressing for a new building, which UW explained "will accommodate a doubling of our enrollment." Coincidentally, the corporate full-press came not long after the ACM Education Council Diversity Taskforce laid out plans "to get companies to press universities to use more resources to create more seats in CS classes" to address what it called "the desperate gap between the rising demand for CS education and the too-few seats available." Interestingly, had Microsoft, Amazon, and Code.org execs not quashed a proposed WA State income tax in 2010, the tax on Steve Ballmer's planned $2B Microsoft stock sale alone might have raised $180 million. Hey, better that Ballmer's tax savings further enrich Donald Sterling, right?

Submission + - AmeriCorps VISTA to Fight Poverty with Google's CS First Curriculum

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Conceived by President John F. Kennedy, VISTA has been on the front lines in the fight against poverty in America for 50 years. On Monday, Google announced it will be training newly-hired AmeriCorps VISTA Members to help Boys & Girls Clubs in six cities facilitate Google's CS First curriculum. "Working together," explained Google of its Code Corps partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Corporation for National and Community Service, "we can empower more young people with the technical know-how they need to succeed in today’s society and economy." The news comes the week after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Google will roll out after-school CS First coding classes for 100K NYC school kids, part of De Blasio's $10 million Tech Talent Pipeline initiative.

Submission + - U.S. K-12 Learn-to-Code Initiative Prompted Russia to Launch "Code War"

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Overlooked in all the excitement over President Obama 'learning to code' as he kicked off Computer Science Education Week last December was how enthusiastically Russia embraced the U.S. K-12 learn-to-code initiative that's been promoted and bankrolled by the tech industry and its leaders. Late last week, Code.org revealed that "7.1 million Russian students learned an #HourOfCode in December!"" compared to the 10.6 million U.S. participants, adding that the U.S. barely accounted for half of all participation during CS Education Week. So, how did a "partner campaign" of this magnitude involving Microsoft escape notice? "Our Russian partners managed a separate site (coderussia.ru)," Code.org explained in response to a question about inconsistent site stats, "because the ministry of education got involved and didn’t want to rely on a US org. Participation [in the Russia Hour of Code] was tracked here and added to our count after the week." Interestingly, Code.org told the House and the Senate in 2014 that "learning computer science is this generation’s Sputnik moment" as it argued for "comprehensive immigration reform efforts that tie H-1B visa fees to a new STEM education fund...to support the teaching and learning of more computer science in K-12 schools." So, is the K-12 "Code War" the new Cold War?

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