TEALS set to go

TEALS (Technology Education And Literacy in Schools), TechEd has been taken a long long time ago by a worldwide MS conference.

After a couple of informationals at Microsoft attended by around 60 people, we ultimately received 10 applications for four positions to teach at Issaquah High School.

The Advanced Math class did not get enough enrollment to warrant a class, but both AP CS and Web Design had overwhelming responses from the students. So much so that I realized that we might have to go to a college lab assistant model. That's how we ended up with four open positions. Each subject will have a teacher and a lab assistant.

The resume review process was hard to select who we wanted to interview and I felt pretty terrible for having to turn people away from teaching. This will only drive me more into expanding this program down the road. The interview took place on Monday and the four candidates we felt who were best fit for the positions all accepted.

For the next few weeks, I will be getting together with both teaching teams to start on getting text books selected, course laid out etc... I am very excited to work with these four amazing and enthusiastic people who share my passion in technology education.

TEALS on MSW!

My Technology education and literacy pilot at MS took a very positive step yesterday. We were on MSW, the Microsoft internal website (see pictures below). The turn out was great, and the room was packed. I think we'll get enough interest to start the pilot next year on the right foot. To be continued...

The State of Technology Education in the US

I just saw some interesting stats from the 2007 AP tests.  It is distressing how far computer science lags behind the other sciences.  In order of number of students who took the tests.  

1. Biology 145,000

2. Physics 100,000 (B, C Mech, C Ele& Mag)

3. Chemistry 97,000

4. Computer Science 20,000 (A & AB)

In comparison, US History had 311,000, and Calculus had 290,000.  

This is in a world where high schoolers are all about being on Facebook, XBox, and PodCasts.  Yet when I started teaching in 2002, the State of California, home to the high tech industry, did not offer a state certification for computer science teachers.  I would even argue that most of these AP CS test takers mostly came from private schools that have seen the need for such education for their students.

We have seen our IT industry leaders testifying before Congress asking for H1B Visas.  The long term request from the IT industry should really be making computer science a required science subject in American high schools.