Jeff Branson at Engadget Expand
At last weekend's Engadget Expand conference, our Educational Outreach Coordinator joined a panel about computer science in education.
Early this week, our Educational Outreach Coordinator Jeff Branson sat on a panel called "Rethinking Education" at the Engadget Expand event in New York City. The panelists - including One Laptop Per Child creator Rodrigo Arboleda - discussed the importance of integrating computer science and coding into childhood education, and the ways educators can encourage students to embrace an interest in engineering and computer sciences. Check out the panel below!
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Nice job Jeff! And if you're thinking, "The panel was awesome, but what I really need is more Jeff in my life":
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I definitely need more Jeff in my life. Oh, Jeffery...
Yeah, nobody's going to get that but Jeff, but whatever. Jeff rocks a lot of worlds, mine among them.
OOOOOOOOOOh, Pete. You silver-tongued devil.
Whatever, man. I need more Jeff in my life, too.
Thank you Dave, i need you to.
I love to see people like this getting together when people are trying to push Common Core in classrooms across the U.S. To my knowledge, Common Core has a very restrictive copy write structure and also doesn't prepare students to graduate high school with the math skills need in college. Let's get knowledge out for all to share!
I do not understand your point regarding copyrights. Even the GPL is copyrighted, and may not be changed except by the FSF. The point of the copyright in each case is to set a definition to prevent deceptive rhetoric, and to reserve the right to make changes--which is critical for something described as "Common". Just as individual developers are free to adopt the GPL or not, individual states are free to adopt Common Core standards or not, based on a judgement of benefits and costs.
As for the math standards, this is from William McCallum's testimony before a Wisconsin joint legislative committee on Common Core standards (http://tinyurl.com/l5x9fb7):
"The definition of college readiness in the [mathematics] standards is readiness for entry-level, credit-bearing courses in mathematics at four-year colleges as well as courses at two-year colleges that transfer for credit at four-year colleges.
The high school standards consist of easily three years of mathematics at the level of Algebra II. This certainly fits the definition of college readiness. But college readiness and STEM readiness are two different things. The mathematical demands that students face in college will vary dramatically depending on whether they are pursuing a STEM major or not. Students who intend to pursue STEM majors in college should know what is required. That was true before the Common Core, and it remains true today. States still can and still should provide a pathway to calculus for all students who are prepared to succeed on that pathway—not only because it is at the heart of many STEM fields, but also because the calculus is one of the greatest intellectual developments in human history."
Common Core standards are fully described at http://www.corestandards.org/.