Professional Development
March 30, 2021 - All Chapter Meeting Announcement
Please join us at the CSTANJ All Chapters meeting on Tuesday, 3/30/2021 from 7 PM to 8:15 PM (hosted by CSTA-SW).
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81204222579
AGENDA
Welcome Remarks
Updates around the state
Status of New Chapter
Elections
This June, President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary will be elected.
Terms start July 1, 2021
Going forward, The President and Treasurer will be elected on odd years and the VP and treasurer will be held on even years.
To streamline communication, you will need to register as a CSTANJ member. They have a membership that is free. If you are already a member, you will automatically be added as an CSTANJ member.
CSTANJ Virtual Summit hosted by Rutgers University on Friday, May 14 (https://sites.google.com/view/njcssummit/
CS4NJ Announcements, https://cs4nj.org/
CSTA National Conference (7/14 - 7/16): https://www.csteachers.org/page/csta-2021
Microbit - Demonstration,
Bill Siever and Diane Horvath, Microbit Educators.
Birds of a Feather
BoF - Online Assessment (and Cheating) - Monday, 8/31/2020

BoF Discussion ~ APCSP - remote and changes - Wednesday 8/26 7:00
Fran Trees and Adam Swift will be facilitating the discussion, and sharing some of their knowledge about the changes to the APCSP test, but the purpose of the BoF is for open discussion, so please bring your questions and ideas.
BoF Discussion ~ APCSP - remote and changes video

The link to a previously recorded summary of the AP CSP changes made by Fran Trees

AP CSP changes Presentation Document

BoF Disscussion ~ Jamboard, Edpuzzle and Peardeck
Short Presentations on:
Jamboard (Suzanne S),
EDPuzzle (Rachel K) - Click for EDPuzzle tutorial
PearDeck (Ken K).

Panel Discussion on Distance Learning
Please checkout these resources from the national CSTA site.
Standards for CS Teachers includes a self-reflection tool and roadmap for professional learning: this looks like a great tool to assess our own professional development. There is also a PD guidance section for state and school leaders, School of Education at universities, and PD providers.
Quality PD Opportunities page includes a listing of PD providers that have been reviewed by a CSTA community using pre-established criteria and process explained on this page. You can drill down by grade band, format or cost.
Reports and publications contains resources such as the Guide to Inclusive CS Education which you might find useful.
There are many, many other resources on the national CSTA site available free of charge.
Helpful CS Info
Code.org - Guidance for modifying some of the teaching practices used in CS for alternative teaching environments (such as think-pair-share, pair programming, etc). The suggestions apply regardless of the curriculum in use: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g8loG0Lj1LLg3yAiKPIn82vXyaMTznRkIjQsIzt_LoM/edit
CodeHS has a free curriculum in Python, including an online Arduino course with Python. With the free version, you just can't get the teacher tools. This is what I plan to use for the first few weeks in my Advanced Topics class (cybersecurity, Arduino, Python, Java, Javascript,..).
Also, CMU CS Academy is a free Python Curriculum, but it might be a little too slow for an Advanced Topics course. I am using CMU for my first half of Intro to CS. We like it a lot, especially in remote learning.
If you are looking for more of a self paced tutorial, a number of my students used https://www.learnpython.org/ or CodeAcademy (parts are free) in Advanced Topics to teach themselves.