Resources

Why C as Your First Programming Language? Why Not Other Programming or Scripting Languages?

Foundations for Success: The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (pdf)
The report by the National Mathematics Advisory Panel reports that "Research indicates that learning to write computer programs improves students' performance compared to conventional instruction. Other studies show that teaching computer programming to students can support the development of particular mathematical concepts, applications, and problem solving."

Why Software Is Eating The World
In this article published in the Wall Street Journal, Mark Andreessen, the co-founder of NextScape, said "many people in the U.S. and around the world lack the education and skills required to participate in the great new companies coming out of the software revolution. This is a tragedy since every company I work with is absolutely starved for talent."

Why Absolutely Everyone Needs To Be Software Literate
In Forbes (8/15), Penny Herscher, president and CEO of FirstRain, an analytics software company, wrote, "Software has changed the way we communicate, the way we shop, the way we listen to music, the way we create images, the way we find dates, the way we read books and watch movies, the way we work, the way our every action is stored and analyzed and the way we educate our" children. The "ability to create algorithms and apply structured logic, whether by writing the code oneself or by learning how to use applications that translate structured logic into code, can make us all active participants in the Digital Age and the software revolution." Herscher wrote, "It's time to encourage every child, every student and every worker to take an interest, to understand the basics of software and computing and to be an active participant in the creation of our new software-driven world."

US Schools Not Teaching Children The Skills They Need To Pursue Computer Science Careers
The Time (7/16, Aamoth) "Techland" blog reported that computer science is the only one of the STEM "fields that has actually seen a decrease in student participation over the last 20 years, from 25% of high school students to only 19%, according to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics. Meanwhile, tech companies are so desperate for talent that - in the face of a worker shortage partly due to the H-1B visa cap - a company is planning to build an 1,800-person floating city for foreign entrepreneurs in international waters off the coast of" California. "Take a look at the curriculum of many classes labeled computer science today and you'll find not much has changed from the days of dial-up modems." Also, even "if students wanted to dive into programming, the course is only offered in 10% of American high schools."

UMCP Professor: Maryland Schools Are Not Nurturing Future Computer Scientists
In an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun (7/18), James M. Purtilo, a professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Maryland, College Park, writes, "Computer science (CS) is the youngest STEM area and may be a victim of the speed of its growth. It was just two decades ago when computers became objects of study in high schools." When "markets exploded and demand for tech-savvy workers soared. Everyone wanted computer lore for young people - immediately. Schools responded, but unlike sciences that had centuries for scholars to reach consensus on educational best practices, computer science was a new beast." According to Purtilo, "Educators improvised, and as a result, kids today can learn something about computers, but the pace has given no opportunity for do-overs or reflection on what we teach. Yesteryear's hastily prepared practices became today's policies, whether or not anyone checked how well they work."