Tag Archives: Innovation

Tech Jobs Without a Degree

There is quite a bit of buzz right now about all of the open tech jobs.  Many articles are being written about the job openings and what is needed to get one.  USA Today recently posted a nice article about all of this.  Some of these high paying jobs that do not require a degree.

Texas recently passed HB5 which cuts down on mandatory graduation requirements and testing in order to give students options for graduation.  One of the options allows for students to take Computer Science for 2 years in place of other graduation requirements.  Texas recognizes the job demand in the tech field and they are attempting to give students more flexibility to start working towards those careers while in high school.

CS Skills in Manufacturing

CS Skills in Manufacturing

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.

Cheap Computers

Once these computers come online and you can actually buy one, I am getting a Raspberry PI for 25 bucks.  It appears that there are 100,000 or so back orders in the queue ( that is British for line ) so we may all be waiting for a good while to get one.  The 35.00 model has a few more features like a network connection, but either one would be fun to have in a Comp Sci class.  My students all thought this was awesome and they all want to buy one and think that everyone else needs to buy one as well.  Happy Hunting!

CS Ed Week Pledge

Take a minute to read the following message and then go out and pledge your support for CS Ed Week!

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We are wrapping up the third annual Computer Science Education Week (December 4-10), but there’s still time to pledge your principled support for CSEdWeek (no $ required). It takes less than a minute to do so: www.csedweek.org/forms/sign/pledge-step1
Why does it matter? It’s crucial that policy makers and the general public see there is grass-roots support for computer science education. Your pledge helps us demonstrate that support.

If you’re participating in some activity in support of CSEdWeek’s mission, please take the second step in pledging and tell us about it. It doesn’t even have to happen during the week; you can pledge anything you’re doing any time to promote computing or support computer science education.

And, if you only have five minutes to do something in support, here are some ideas on how you can turn those five minutes into support for K-12 computer science education: www.csedweek.org/m/c/zzhcw54r/bkpcjhhm/j2qxjfzt

Thanks in advance for your pledge … it’s important for our future.

Algorithm Speeds Up MRI

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/better-mri-algorithm-1101.html

This is kind of stuff that students need to read and learn about if they are at all interested in Computer Science.
How does Comp Sci make the world a better place?
How can learning Comp Sci skills change the world?
These are important questions and this article helps shed light on the answers.
The article also provides lots of context for how Comp Sci skills are used in the real world.

CMU kicks OOP to the curb in intro CS

CMU says adios to OOP in intro CS

OOP was all the rage a few years ago, but appears to be losing some of its luster.  CMU has gone and done what lots of folks have been discussing on blogs and lists for some time.  “Objects never or hardly never” was a topic on Mark Guzdial’s blog not too long ago.
It is extremely important that intro students can develop logical solutions / algorithms to given problems no matter the paradigm.  This is way important to me than knowing where to put lots of keywords and punctuation marks.  I want my students to be prepared to effectively develop solutions to problems in any environment.  The more tools you have in your tool belt the better a Batman you will be – or something like that – you need to be flexible and adaptable and a fancy tool belt should help – at least in my mind it makes sense.  I think Batman is cool and he has a cool tool belt.  Who doesn’t like Batman?  🙂

CS News – Is Software the Modern Language of Science?

Is Software the Modern Language of Science?

This article does attempt to make that point and provides some nice research and examples to back up the claim.
There are some nice links to sites with data that  suggest there is a stronger relationship between Science and Computer Science than at any point in the past.
It is shame that more high school graduates do not have access to this information as most of them do not see any connection between Science and Computer Science.

CS News – Lots of Jobs in Tech

Lots of Tech Jobs

According to the article and several others I have read lately like it, there is high demand for mobile app developers.

A few great quotes from the article :

“Because of the labor shortage, companies do some pretty incredible acrobatics to attract good talent. That means it’s a good time to be a graduating senior with a degree in computer science.”

“If you can develop software applications for mobile devices, you’re sitting pretty.”

I have quite a few students interested in developing apps and the Android platform seems to the most popular choice.  The environment is easy to use and apps can be developed quite quickly.