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Newsletters for Computer Science Teachers

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Maybe you are the sort who likes their news to come on paper. Or perhaps you just like your news in regularly scheduled chunks. Perhaps you like someone to do gathering and editing for you. Or perhaps you are looking for an online news and sharing source for computer science education news and information. What ever your preferred method of getting news is there is likely a source for you. But you may not know about it yet. I have a couple of sources that I like to follow and thought I would share them with you.

The first one I’d like to highlight is the CSTA Voice. This newsletter comes out about every two months (it used to be quarterly) in both hard copy and softcopy. This is the “Voice of the K-12 Computer Science Education and its Educators” from the Computer Science Teachers Association. It comes to all members and membership is currently free. Join the CSTA here. The most recent issue of the Voice as I write this is Volume 6 issue 1: International CS Education

SIGCT which is the computer teachers special interest group of ISTE has a monthly newsletter that is delivered electronically via email. You can also read back issues of the SIGCT newsletter on the SIGCT wiki. These newsletters are loaded with links to professional development opportunities, helpful resources and updates about the Journal for Computing Teachers. The JCT is “a K-12 oriented online periodical where the emphasis is teaching about computing. ” The JCT is published by SIGCT on a quarterly basis. More information about SIGCT may be found at the ISTE SIGCT website.

There is also a very popular discussion mailing list sponsored by the College Board for Advanced Placement Computer Science teachers. The AP CS mailing list (College Board calls it an Electronic Discussion Group) has hundreds of members who ask and answer questions about teaching the APCS curriculum as well and many other topics of interest to teachers of computer science. If you are teaching java I think it is a must read. Even if you are not teaching APCS or even Java you can learn a lot from the discussions on that list though. You can subscribe to AP Electronic Discussion Groups (EDGs) at AP Central - the AP web site.

Now there are also blogs. I highly recommend that you look into some form of RSS reader to follow blogs. Going to specific web pages on a irregular or even regular basis means a good chance of missing something or finding too many things at a time to read them all. It is also wasteful of time if the site hasn’t been updated. RSS readers make following blogs (like this one) a lot easier. I use RSS Bandit but there are many more out there. You can find out a lot about RSS readers at Wikipedia where there is also a comparison of feed aggregators. I hope you will subscribe to this blog of course. There are other blogs listed in the side of this blog on it’s home page. The CSTA recently posted a list of recommended blogs for computer science teachers as well. They’re all good ones.

What are your favorite sources for news and information for computer science education? Please leave any I’ve missed in the comments. Thanks!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2010
    Google. Those days when you had to remember website links or keem them bookmarked have almost gone. In the coming years, people will bombard each other with so much information that it will eventually get just boring and worthless, I think.

  • Anonymous
    March 05, 2010
    Thanks for the "plug" on the Journal for Computing Teachers (JCT). We're always looking for authors who have something to say about teaching CS. Anyone needing more information or having a question, can contact me at thompsjt@buffalostate.edu. (I'm the editor.)