ACM Inroads » Activism https://blog.inroads.acm.org Paving the Way Toward Excellence in Computing Education Sun, 18 Oct 2015 12:13:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.34 CS Education Act introduced June 27, 2013 https://blog.inroads.acm.org/2013/06/cs-education-act-introduced-june-27-2013/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cs-education-act-introduced-june-27-2013 https://blog.inroads.acm.org/2013/06/cs-education-act-introduced-june-27-2013/#comments Sat, 29 Jun 2013 21:33:14 +0000 http://inroads.acm.org/blog/?p=221 Continue reading →]]> On June 27, 2013, the Computer Science Education Act was introduced into the US House by a group of bipartisan legislators. Please consider contacting your local House Rep urging him/her to support this bill.  This is DEFINITELY worth your time and efforts.  Among other things, this legislation would help K-12 teachers pay for summer workshops and allow those in collegiate institutions to offer them.  Great on both sides!

More information is on the CS Ed Week site: http://www.csedweek.org/m/kt1g4rn2/html
including a press release and an overview of the legislation.

If you haven’t already subscribed to the CS Ed Week page (if you received information about this piece of legislation, then you are subscribed), you should do so by scrolling down the page noted above and click on Subscribe.  As you’ll see you’re subscribing to Computing In The Core.  CSEdWeek is an activity of the Computing in the Core coalition.

Please support this legislation and encourage others to do likewise.

]]> https://blog.inroads.acm.org/2013/06/cs-education-act-introduced-june-27-2013/feed/ 0 Politicians and educational reform https://blog.inroads.acm.org/2013/02/politicians-and-educational-reform/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=politicians-and-educational-reform https://blog.inroads.acm.org/2013/02/politicians-and-educational-reform/#comments Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:36:15 +0000 http://inroads.acm.org/blog/?p=126 Continue reading →]]> The president of the United States just started his second term, and Mr. Obama has spent a lot of time recently making his agenda for that term clear.  In an interesting twist for computing educators, part of what he’s mentioned is relevant to us.  He’s put forth the idea that computer science should be required in high school, with the goal of making students producers and not just consumers of digital media, games, etc.  The ACM recently circulated a shortened clip of his remarks available, but a longer video is also available.  People who have worked on getting more computer science into the K-12 curriculum are naturally excited by this development and not without reason.  The curriculum in the UK was recently revamped with the support of the education secretary to focus more on computer science, and computing educators in the U.S. would no doubt like to see politicians there help in reforming K-12 curricula in a similar fashion.  Politicians can also make computing professionals lives more difficult with poorly thought-out legislation, such as The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act that was recently re-introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.  An article discussing that bill is highly critical of it.

Given that politicians can have such an influence on policy that impacts computing educators, it seems important that we try to influence their actions.  The ACM recognizes this and has several sub-organizations that work on public policy.  But as an individual computing educator, it’s interesting to think about what we can do to influence policy makers.  The answer to that question will likely differ by country, but it seems like it’s worth the time and effort.

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