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U.S. News & World Report
When it comes to landing a job in the tech industry, 15-year-old Enrique Avina may have an edge on the competition. He spent the summer participating in a program for high schoolers at Facebook. "You see all the tech companies on TV and on news stations, but it doesn't really become real until you see it in person and live it," he says. "That's kind of what happened in my experience." The Facebook program, a partnership with nonprofit Foundation for a College Education, welcomes a small group of high schoolers living near the company's Menlo Park, California, headquarters for six weeks and is geared toward students from underprivileged backgrounds.
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EdTech Magazine
Less than 10 percent of computer scientists are African-Americans and Hispanics, and only 18 percent of women major in computer science, the National Science Foundation reveals. With statistics like those, it seems likely that most new jobs in computing — the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates 1.4 million are expected to be created by 2020 — won't be filled by women or minorities. The College Board, the not-for-profit organization that administers the SAT exam and Advanced Placement program, wants to change that. Its new AP Computer Science Principles course will examine computing as a creative activity and help students to understand fundamental principles through collaboration.
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NBC News
In 2012, one woman had the idea to create a program that would get girls active and more interested in computer sciences. It started with 20 girls in a conference room in New York City learning to code. Today, more than 1500 girls will be taught this summer alone, all thanks to Girls Who Code. The national nonprofit started with one mission — to close the gender gap and get more girls involved in computer science and technology field. Through after-school clubs and summer immersion programs, specifically targeting young women from the sixth to the 12th grade, the organization hopes to drastically increase the number of women in the field.
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THE Journal
The familiar garbage in/garbage out axiom has long been a mantra of computer programmers, and nowhere is the cause-and-effect principle more apparent than when working with robots. Faced with the three-dimensional movements (and sometimes audio vocalizations) of robots, students across the grade spectrum can see the direct results of their input.
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Slate
When in high school and preparing for a career in computer science, a few things come to mind that might be helpful. First, you need to make sure that you can get into the major. That is an increasingly nontrivial challenge. If you get into elite schools such as the Ivies, Stanford, Duke or MIT, you shouldn't have a problem choosing your own major. But at many public universities, it is increasingly hard to get into CS because of the sheer demand by incoming undergrads. You need to make sure that your application is strong enough to get into the CS major if the school separates admission by major.
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The Washington Post
One group created a website to help sexual assault survivors. Another launched an online forum to engage teenagers in politics. And then there was the educational game that spewed out facts about the environment as players progressed. The web coders behind the projects? All teenage girls. These ideas emerged from a seven-week Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program — a camp aimed at encouraging more women to enter technology fields and challenging the stereotype that computer programming is just for men.
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THE Journal
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology now has the financial support it needs to continue three free STEM education programs for high school and middle school girls. The three STEM education programs "aim to diversify the computer science and engineering community by introducing students who are underrepresented and underserved in the field to computer science. These students include women, students who come from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and students who identify as African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, or Native American/Pacific Islander," according to MIT.
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EdSurge (commentary)
Sheena Vaidyanathan, a contributor for EdSurge, writes: "In my last EdSurge article, 'Computer Science Goes Beyond Coding,' I wrote about the difference between coding and computer science, to help us understand what we mean by phrases like 'Teach kids to code' and 'Computer science for all.' In that article and in many other articles, there is another term that appears often: 'Computational thinking.' Well, what is Computational Thinking, and how does it differ from Coding and Computer Science — especially when it comes to classroom practice and instruction?"
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Chalkbeat New York
In the center of the room, teachers circled around sheets of yellow paper laid out to form a grid. One volunteered to be the "controller," another the "walker." One by one, the controller put blue arrows on the ground. With each new arrow, the walker moved one square that direction. And when the last arrow was placed, the walker flipped over the yellow square she stood on to find a smiley face telling her the pair had reached their goal.
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