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CIO
Against a backdrop of an IT industry pushing hard to more fairly represent women in leadership positions, the Association for Computing Machinery has announced that an all-female board has been elected to head up the society. Leading the new team is incoming President Vicki Hanson, a Distinguished Professor of Computing at Rochester Institute of Technology, and Professor and Chair of Inclusive Technologies at University of Dundee. Hanson, an IBMer from the mid-1980s until 2009, is currently Vice President of the ACM. She replaces Alexander Wolf as ACM President.
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Education World
A recently released report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation found that computer science is only offered in a fraction of U.S. schools, and most lack the ability to teach students the core principles of the subject. The report recommends significant changes to how computer science is taught in K-12 in order to optimize student success, notable because President Barack Obama has made computer science a national priority this past year.
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Chicago Tribune
In February, Chicago became one of the first school districts in the U.S. to make computer science a core graduation requirement. But financial issues and other concerns could stymie its progress. Chicago Public Schools plans to require students in the class of 2020, which enters high school this fall, to take at least one computer science course to graduate. CPS said 460 teachers have been trained to teach computer science over the past two summers, and 76 high schools are equipped to offer at least one computer science course starting this fall. All 95 of the city's public high schools are expected to offer computer science by 2017.
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The Tech News
The CEO of Apple Tim Cook strictly believes in the fact that primary school-going children must be taught computer coding as per a secondary language students are bound to learn. And unable to make them learn coding at a tender age is termed as "disservice" by him. Tim Cook stated that, "Coding should be a requirement at schools. We are doing our kids a disservice if we are not introducing them to coding."
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New York Daily News
City schools boss Carmen Fariña unveiled plans for new computer science programs in 207 city schools on a Wednesday morning visit to the Brooklyn Arbor School in Williamsburg, where fourth graders already learn the basics of coding in a computer science class. The new classes will kick off in September and are part of Mayor de Blasio's Computer Science for All initiative announced in September 2015, Fariña said.
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The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Microsoft has agreed to donate $10,000 to the Marietta Center for Advanced Academics to create a Minecraft Lab at the school, the first lab of its kind sponsored by Microsoft. Through the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce Partners in Education Program, the space will be used by teachers and students to engage in engineering design challenges. Students will work in Minecraft's virtual reality spaces while teachers will receive ongoing professional development.
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Education Week
The drag-and-drop coding apps and tutorials that many K-12 schools use to teach students the beginnings of code may be entertaining, but they don't mimic the work that real computer scientists do, argues Idit Harel, the CEO of ed-tech company Globaloria, in a recent Quartz piece. Harel specifically points to "Code.org and its library of movie-branded coding apps" as examples of a "light and fluffy version of computer science" that doesn't deepen students' understanding.
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The Wall Street Journal
When parents these days hear the old saying "The jobs of tomorrow haven't been invented yet," they tend to add, "so my child had better learn to code." As software has redefined a range of industries and professions, many parents are rushing to make sure their children learn the building blocks of computer programming. Toy and game developers have responded. One recent entry — and, for young children, one of the best — is Osmo Coding, by Tangible Play Inc. Using plastic bricks that represent computer commands, children arrange "scripts" that the iPad's camera interprets as instructions for a cute on-screen character to act upon.
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Education Week
Michigan is the latest state to consider allowing students to replace required foreign language classes with computer coding courses. The state's House of Representatives voted earlier this week to approve a bill that would allow students to take three credits of computer science, arts, or career tech training instead of a foreign language in order to graduate. Proponents argued the bill, which has not yet passed the state's Senate, would give students more flexibility in choosing their courses.
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