The UTD High School Programming Contest is this Saturday the 13th.
Good luck to all competing.
The basic schedule is listed below.
There is still time to register if you are interested.
Contact Dr. Ivor Page if you want in on the fun.
10:40a Practice contest begins
11:30a Pizza and soft drinks for lunch (sponsored by Award Solutions)
12:00p Main Contest Begins
The 2013 UIL Academic season is underway.
UIL provides a great outlet for students with interest in an assortment of academic events.
Check out UIL Academics.
Check out District Meet Scores.
Regional Meets will be held on April 19th and 20th.
The State Meet will be held at UT Austin on May 20th, 21st, and 22nd.
Good luck to all.
The demand for Software Developers will continue to grow and increase 22% by 2020. I hope my students are listening and reading all of these articles I keep posting.
HP CodeWars is just around the corner. It should be a good time. My students have done very well over the last 3 years and we hope to keep that trend going in 2013. If you are not near a HP CodeWars location, consider hosting your own high school programming contest. Students love to crank code in a contest setting.
Tech Salaries are Still on the Rise
It looks like high demand and relatively short supply of Computer Science graduates is continuing to drive up salaries.
It seems like this is the case year after year, but many students still aren’t getting the news.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/21/financial_software_disasters/
This was sent to me by a friend who works out for a large software company.
It is rather interesting and an article I plan to share with my Comp Sci students.
Judy Hromcik and Glen Martin will be conducting a 2-Day AP Computer Science Workshop in San Antonio on February 1-2 in conjunction with the College Board’s San Antonio Math & Computer Science Conference.
It should be a rocking event with lots of great information for all!
The event will be held at the Omni San Antonio Hotel at the Colonnade in San Antonio, Texas.
Registration Link – https://apps2.collegeboard.com/olrWebApp/olrWebApp/meetingDetail.do?meetingID=3071302013
http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/AP-SWROFlyer.pdf
Sign up and enjoy the fun!
If you are looking for summer workshops, check out my AP SI listings for the summer of 2013
I plan to share this article with my Computer Science classes on Monday. The article discusses the need for workers with CS related high tech skills, but yet also shows that some of these jobs are not paying much considering what all is required to get the job. The skill set needed for some of these jobs is quite high, but the pay is quite low.
The 7 Lakes contest at 7 Lakes HS in Katy, Texas was great.
There were tons of teams and schools.
The written results can be viewed at :
http://www.apluscompsci.com/7Lakes_Fin_Results_Adv_Written.pdf
http://www.apluscompsci.com/7Lakes_Fin_Results_Nov_Written.pdf
Check out a sample written test at if you are interested in seeing one.
I have posted the 7 Lakes programming results and some pics on my A+ Computer Science facebook page.
The Computer Science contest season for Texas is underway.
Waller HS hosted the first contest of the 2012-2013 season on Saturday, September 29th.
There were lots of teams and the competition was fierce.
7 Lakes will host the next contest on the 13th of October.
There is still time to join the fun.
Email Paul Stroud at 7 Lakes HS – PaulMStroud@KATYISD.ORG
Check out all of the dates on my contest dates page.
Little Folks are Cranking Code in Estonia
This is a great article that discusses the decision in Estonia to start teaching Computer Science in first grade. I think Estonia has hit a home run.
I have been working with my sons’ elementary school classes for the last 3 years and have taught both classes how to write basic programs in Scratch. They can all use loops, ifs, variables, and lists to make games and class projects. It was cool to see many of them use Scratch to create their end of year projects last year. I am positive that many of the students in these classes will consider a career in Computer Science as they all feel very confident about the subject. Having working on numerous math concepts with my sons, I also feel these students now view mathematics in a totally different way after learning Computer Science concepts at an early age. Working with students when they are in the early grades is very important as it helps to reach them before they develop any bias towards a subject often perceived as difficult.