That anecdote is really helpful. It's good to know that kids already think that technology is going to benefit them in the social zoo of school! I am interested to know if anyone approaches CS from this more holistic point of view that I want to express. It's like English class where those few kids that are obsessed with it become writers or what not. These kids in my class would be the developers or what not, but at least everyone else would be interested enough to understand how tech affects their lives, much like how English class allows one to better understand pop culture. I want to capture the attention of that broader audience, but also show kids they can nerd out about the other parts of CS, like the math, design, science, or psych sides, not just coding.
The problem is that you couched this in teaching kids programming, but I what I really want to teach is computer science. It's really more about answering the "why" question for the kids and showing something that stimulates curiosity. Granted for some people this is programming, but for others it's about showing the effect of computer science and how to be a part of that effect.
Thanks for the pointers, but the language issue isn't really a concern for me or is getting involved kids who like to game. It's more of how to explain all the other wonderful things CS has to offer. College really helped me understand that there were so many interesting questions in designing fun interfaces and gamification techniques that delve closer to psychology. Graph theory was really fun because it seemed so exotic from lame calculus and geometry, and the fact that basics could be taught visually was intriguing. Learning that I could explore places like stack overflow and read APIs made it less intimidating to learn even more. Seeing that technology could better the lives of the less fortunate and that is was an important leveling force appealed to my pinko caring heart ;) These are the messages I'm concerned with sending.
Completely correct, but is there not something to breaking the typical stereotypes of the major and have an attractive narrative to being someone interested in CS? CS can only benefit from more people trying it out and seeing if it is to their liking, and they can hopefully bring in new perspectives that are not so traditional.
I mean people aren't going to take a cut in the standard of living, and has that been to social contract all this time? That sounds like some plebeian system. I thought it was trying to equalize tax "burden", not some creepy subsidization program.
Subsidizing the social networking bubble? Email was totally monetized by companies like RIM and now large hardware firms that sell the email server stuff. However social network is being monetized in the direction of at the very least advertising, putting real money behind the valuations of these companies like Facebook. Sure advertising is a fickle beast, but the majority of companies(i.e. everyone but Twitter) have more than vaporware making up their business models.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/ is the original report where the numbers were compiled. It seems like 2009 was the last report and that 2007-2008 academic year is the latest data available that the report used when dealing with degrees conferred.
So much for encouraging people to get college degrees. If they all end up getting the same degree and flooding the market, what was the point? I hoped that the growth would be spread out between many fields, but everyone just piling in and getting business degrees doesn't help.
I just moved out of the DC area, but it is probably one of the fastest growing areas for startups in the country.
There is a whole bunch of technical talent there working for the government and military, but a lot are getting bored with the work. However, I didn't know the community was this organized, and it's good to see them trying to collectively make their names heard.
An infrastructure investment like this one needs to be seen from the perspective of a one time capital expenditure. A savings of $50 billion isn't a one time boost, but a year over year contribution to the economic growth. In this light, it would pay itself off extremely quickly.
The article also mentions a 0.5% to 1.5% improvement in the efficiency of public-sector work. By just considering the federal government's budget, a 1% improvement would in itself be a $30 billion improvement.
Examples of productivity increases could easily be seen in the emergence of effective telecommuting. In the Washington DC area, so much time is lost to managing the traffic nightmare. If the broadband speeds existed for agencies to allow for employees to work from home, teleconference when needed, have uninterrupted access to their work data, the savings would be enormous.
Also, companies like Google are investing in high speed connections because many of them see it as a limiting factor towards new innovation. Meaning, that no one really knows what is to come out of connecting homes to gigabit+ lines, but it is one of the promising sectors for increased growth.
An interesting project at Case Western Reserve is hooking up some of the low income homes around the campus to see what types of possibilities can be gleaned by dropping this service on people. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870395490457510...
Finally, the point I wanted to highlight, but obviously missed doing so, was to ask why "green" tech advocates seem so much more adept at convincing the government that they provide stimulus than information technology advocates.
Suggesting that the cost of organizing, judging, critiquing, and hosting those papers is basically free is not supported. http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/the-economic-cas...
This nice article by ars does quick job of pulling together those costs. Also, just slapping a search engine on a whole bunch of articles exists in Google Scholar, but that hasn't revolutionized anything. It is nice that one can see where all the copies of an article exist, but it is still missing je ne sais quoi.
If these costs are forced over to the submitter, the stereotypical "money-ignoring" researcher, those costs will begin the weigh heavily on their shoulders. Without support from their hosting institutions, which means a change in how business is done, those articles might find themselves with small, yet significant price tags. Look at textbooks.