Author Archives: Stacey Armstrong

CS News – Alice 3.0 / Online Problems

Alice 3.0 News
My campus is beta testing Alice 3.0 and it is very impressive.
We use Alice 3.0 to do lots of things, but really like using it to teach searching algorithms.

Looking for some problems to solve?
Python Challenge – if you want to write some code in Python to see if you are a hot shot Python programmer!
Project Euler – some really cool math problems
USACO Training Gateway – an online contest problem training site

CS News – High School CS Enrollment

The following article is pretty interesting.
High School CS Enrollment is Down
How do we fix this problem and reverse the downward trend?

Show students the ways in which Computer Science is changing the world – make the content relevant.
Show students the many disciplines that use Computer Science  – lots of careers use Computer Science skills.
Find a more creative way to teach Computer Science – there are lots of choices.

In this blog, I have posted articles and links that address all of my points above.

We do all of these things at my campus and we have over 400 Computer Science students.
Cy Woods High School CS Article

CS News – Enrollment and TCEA

University CS Enrollment Is Up
High Engineering Dropouts a Myth

TCEA, the Texas Computer Education Association, announced today that it has ended its high school programming contest.  http://www.tcea.org/Announcements/Pages/ChangesinTCEAStudentContestsAnnounced.aspx

High school programming conests promote Computer Science education and help to increase enrollment.  It is always unfortunate when a contest goes away.  Those of us that hold local contests will have to find a way to consolidate our efforts in a way to make up for the loss of the TCEA high school programming contest.