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Slate
This summer, news headlines have trumpeted new data showing the rapid increase of students taking Advanced Placement computer science courses. During the 2016–2017 school year, more than 111,000 students took the class, up from more than 54,000 during the 2015–2016 school year. Even better, unprecedented numbers of young women and students of color are taking the end-of-year exams. And it's not just computer science — across the board, AP STEM course enrollment has been growing.
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NPR
The cubist revolution, now in its eighth year, is thriving. That's Minecraft cubes, of course. The game where you build virtual Lego-like worlds and populate them with people, animals and just about everything in between is one of the most popular games ever made; it's second only to Tetris as the best-selling video game of all time. There's gold in them thar cubes: More than 120 million copies have sold since Minecraft launched in 2009.* So what's behind the game's enduring appeal?
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Education World
The learning theory of constructionism asserts that people construct mental models to understand the world around them, and that this can be achieved through activities like building, tinkering, playing with components of machines and other systems, and watching how they interact. Seymore Papert introduced this theory in the early 1980's, and around that time, the first educational robotics program emerged, called LOGO, which he also developed. LOGO is actually a programming language he developed that was used to control robot "turtles" — to move them forward and backward a specified distance, turn right or left a specified degree, drop a pen and draw.
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Salt Lake Tribune
During a recent White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook remarked that "coding should be a requirement in every public school." He's right. But turning an aspiration into a reality — whether in the classroom or in the Apple store — takes time, money and concentrated effort. The economic argument for upgrading computer science education in the U.S. is strong. According to one estimate, there are as many as 500,000 open computing and data-science jobs in the U.S. but fewer than 50,000 college students graduating with the qualifications to fill them. Between 2014 and 2024, jobs in computer science and data research are projected to increase by 12 percent, faster than any other occupation.
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eSchool News
As computer science education grows across the nation, many states are making it a core subject and are counting it toward math and science requirements. But progress across states varies. Here's a look at how two different states, California and Maine, are faring in their computer science efforts. In California, some think the state's progress to make computer science a graduation requirement is too slow. An editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune says the state's is displaying "astounding lethargy" in its efforts to increase access to computer science.
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NPR
Steven Isaacs — @mr_isaacs on Twitter — is a full-time technology teacher in Baskingridge, N.J. He's also the co-founder of a new festival that set the Guinness World Record for largest gathering dedicated to a single video game. The game that cements both halves of his life together? Minecraft. (In case you haven't heard, Minecraft, originally developed by Markus Persson of Sweden, offers players the chance to build a 3-D world out of "blocks." Since its release in 2009, Minecraft has sold more than 121 million copies, making it the best-selling game of all time after another blocky favorite, Tetris.)
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CIO DIVE
It's not a big surprise — as technology becomes more essential to just about how everybody works and plays — computer science majors are in huge demand. For example, companies need data scientists to make sense of data and turn it into actionable information. Without them, data is just a bunch of numbers without a purpose. Not only are computer science majors in high demand, they are also well paid and relatively happy, according to an April job satisfaction survey from Crowdflower. The survey found 88% of data scientists report they are either "happy" or "very happy" in their job.
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eSchool News
A large majority of E-rate applicants (87 percent) said the federally funded program is vital to their internet connectivity goals, according to an annual survey that tracks program applicants' perspectives on the program. In the midst of leadership changes in the White House and the FCC, as well as education budget cuts, ed-tech stakeholders have raised questions regarding the promise of the E-rate program to deliver safe and proper broadband connections to students in the U.S.
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ACM, the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession. CSTA appreciates ACM's ongoing support!
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