Apparently This Matters

October 28th, 2013

Today Google’s doodle honors the 116th birthday of Edith Head. I wonder how many people under 30 even know who she was? I enjoy Google’s doodles as much as the next person but it seems to me they play it awfully safe. National days and days of independence are honored. Semi-obscure geeks are honored. It’s all fun.

But religious holidays are studiously avoided. “Happy holidays” for days around Christmas is as close as you see. And you don’t see politically related days honored either.  There is no September 11 tribute (at least as far as the years I checked).

I guess I can understand the logic behind it. Still given Google’s perception as a brave company willing to try new things it feels wrong. But it’s probably just me.

Are you a bad parent for sending your kids to public school?

September 23rd, 2013

When linking to this post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-cowie-king/i-am-sending-my-kids-to-private-school-i-am-not-a-bad-person_b_3886989.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Education) the Huffington Post Twitter asked if sending your kid to a private school made you a bad parent.  Aggravating.

I suggested they ask   "does wanting the best possible education for your child make you a bad person?" Now of course I have some bias. I teach in a private school and sent my son to one for all but one year of his education.

Now I am not completely anti-public school.  After all my wife, son and daughter in law work in public schools. I’m pro-choice on education though. I believe that parents have an obligation to get the best possible education for their children. I think they owe that to their children AND to society as a whole.  If that means a public school – great. If that means public school – why not?

I attended two public schools myself. One ok and one incredibly good. The private schools I attended were more consistently good though and I would never had made it into or through the public HS I attended if not for the private school I attended for middle school.

A democratic society needs a well educated population. We have public schools because many people are unable or unwilling to spend money for their children’s education. They open doors for many children who would go without an education if not for taxpayer funded schools. We, everyone, should want those schools to be great. We should want them to be good enough for everyone. The facts are though that no one school can possibly meet the needs of every child. Even a super expensive private school can be wrong for many children. That is reality.

Public schools in most areas do not offer enough choice, enough options, enough different environments to meet the needs of every child. If a school charging $30,000 a year can’t be the right school for everyone how can a school spending a third or less per student be right for every child? It’s not possible.

So some parents who can and are willing to afford it will send their children to private schools that better meet their child’s need. Does that make them bad? On the contrary. That makes them good. It makes them good citizens as well. They are saving the taxpayers money and providing better educated adults. How is that bad?

Is it unfair that other children do not get that opportunity? Of course it is. Life is unfair. But the answer is not to restrict the opportunity of the child with motivated parents who has money but to increase the opportunity for students who parents don’t have the money. It is the people who oppose vouchers and other means of expanding choice who are acting contrary to the public good.

If education is important than keeping the best education from students and holding everyone to a lower standard is contrary to good public policy. And yet that is what people seem to be asking for when they attack people who send their kids to private schools.

My Microsoft CEO Wishlist

August 23rd, 2013

Steve Ballmer has announced that he will be retiring once the board finds a replacement CEO for Microsoft. This is, I believe, wonderful news for Microsoft, its employees, its customers and its shareholders. Microsoft needs a change at the top. I have my own ideas about what they need and since this is 2013 and I have a blog I’m going to share them.

The first thing I want is someone who lives the values Microsoft says they believe in. What are they? From the Microsoft website

As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect. We are committed to our customers and partners and have a passion for technology. We take on big challenges, and pride ourselves on seeing them through. We hold ourselves accountable to our customers, shareholders, partners, and employees by honoring our commitments, providing results, and striving for the highest quality.

Steve Ballmer had a “values coach.” While he didn’t go into detail at the meeting I heard this at my impression was that he needed help understanding when things he did violated those values. That scared me. The CEO of a company should be the living embodiment of the company values. Ken Olsen was that at Digital back in the day. People would say “if Ken knew about that he would fix it because it is unethical.” I never heard anyone say that at Microsoft. Illegal or against policy were clear no-nos of course. But “merely” unethical? Not so much. Now I am not saying that a lot of unethical stuff happens but rather that Ballmer was never held up as an example of a super ethical person. The company values should be a description of the CEO. No one looks at that list of values and says “hey that is Steve Ballmer!”

The second thing I want is someone who is open to small ideas. Ballmer pretty much rejected any idea that couldn’t clearly and obviously be a billion dollar business in a few years. The problem with this is that a lot of small ideas do turn out to be huge ideas even though they start very small. Who would have thought that a college facebook app would become what Facebook is today?

The third thing I want is someone who can inspire creative people to come up with things that are totally new. Things that are revolutionary rather than just evolutionary. Evolutionary is the way you keep a cash cow alive not how you create brand new cash cows. See also the second thing I asked for.

I’d rather have someone who came up though a technical track rather than a financial or marketing track.  I want someone who starts with problems and solutions rather than cost benefit or “what can we sell.” I want someone who thinks about creating stuff. Marketing people think about selling stuff. Financial people are all about the numbers. Creating solutions is the first task and that is where engineers start.

The question with a company like Microsoft is often – hire from within or from the outside? Outsiders in senior management do not have an outstanding track record at Microsoft. I wonder how much of that is the company culture and how much the fault of the senior long term managers. I don’t know for sure. I do believe that an outsider can do a good job if they find the right person. Ray Ozzie could have been great except that his personality was not the right type to overcome the Ballmer types who were already in power. Engineers liked him. I met him once in a meeting with Bill Gates and frankly was more impressed with Ray than Bill. Ray’s ears worked.

I think the right outsider could work as long as they are not from outside the software industry. Bringing in someone from outside the software industry is a long walk off a short pier.

Last thing (for now) is that I want to see someone who can think about the device as personal.  The consumer is where Microsoft started but that part of its business is a mess right now. All the thinking is about the enterprise. Robert Scoble thinks that the company needs to be split into two or more pieces.  See A letter to Microsoft’s board. I’m not sure it does but Robert is right about the consumer side needing to be fixed.

Microsoft probably needs a gadget nut for that. Someone who always needs to try and use the latest technology. Someone who thinks about the personal problems people have and thinks about how they can be solved. I believe that in the long term winning back the hearts and minds of the consumer is the best interests of Microsoft’s enterprise business. That is how Google is making its wins in the enterprise. I see that especially in education. Teachers fall in love with Google apps and so the school goes with Google’s enterprise for schools program. I suspect that will happen in more businesses over time as well. It doesn’t matter which is “better” what matters is which is easier and grabs the attention best.

I hope they find someone great and that they find him/her soon. There are too many really smart, creative and all round nice people at Microsoft to see it die.

We’re Stuck Here

August 17th, 2013

I have come to the conclusion that man is never going to leave the solar system. A few one way trips by unmanned vehicles perhaps but never man. I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of permanent stations on the moon in my lifetime or even my son’s. While that makes me sad what really bothers me is that most people aren’t bothered by this.

Without technology beyond what we have today it just takes far too long to travel outside the solar system. Even Mars is a multi year trip. We don’t have the technology for a round trip to Mars either. Theoretically possible? Probably but I don’t see much chance of it happening in the near future.

In the 60s we landed men on the moon and brought them home. It was an exciting time. I really thought that we’d keep going and that a manned station was only a matter of time. Today we haven’t been back in almost 41 years. There seems to be little interest in sending men back and even less in a moon base. Well except for science fiction fans like myself.

Science fiction is full of stores with faster than light flight or at least ways around the limitation of that speed with wormholes or such nonsense. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that any of this is even possible though. So no way we’re getting out of this solar system reasonably.

BTW this means that there are not space aliens visiting up either.  That doesn’t bother me. I don’t believe there is life out there anyway.

But boy would I like to see us explore new worlds.

CS Educator Interviews: The Index

July 6th, 2013

In June of 2013 I started collecting interviews with computer science educators. The plan was to highlight people doing interesting things at a wide range of schools. It’s been an educational experience for me. And a lot of fun as well. This post will serve as a regularly updated index to the interviews as they are posted.

Some Thoughts On Blogging

May 21st, 2013

It’s been a bit over eight months since I left Microsoft and moved my Computer Science Education blog to a new location. The move went surprisingly well all told. I didn’t migrate my old posts from the old location but didn’t start completely from scratch. The blog had been around for a while and I had occasionally cross posted so there were some posts there. Also I used Feedburner so by changing that link I kept most of my RSS subscribers.  Other traffic tool longer to build up. But Blogger claims I’ve had a bit over 130,000 page views since then. That’s not bad.  Recent page view counts have been similar to what I was seeing at the old location.

Otherwise I have noticed some changes. Especially lately I am blogging a bit less frequently. Sometimes only twice a week. Other times three times. I used to always post at least five times a week. A couple of reasons for this.

One is time. Or rather how I prioritize my time. At Microsoft part of how I was measured at salary review time was on traffic to my blog. That was a serious incentive to work on quantity as much if not more than quality. These days I don’t have that incentive. In the long run that is good I think.

I also used to have an email inbox that regularly filled with requests from others at Microsoft to promote their products or events. Occasionally driving action to those events or products was also rewarded. These days I don’t have many Microsoft people asking me to promote their stuff. I still do promote some things for friends especially when I think it has real value to my audience. Mostly I do it on my own though. I do miss getting some updates on products directly though. I’ve hardly heard about the Imagine Cup for example. I used to blog about that a lot. I still think it is a great event but my time priority is not to track down the news on it.

Thirdly I am not going to cool events like I used to. I’m not complaining as I am really enjoying being back in the classroom but those events were both a nice change of pace and something good to write about.

On the other hand I am writing about more non-Microsoft things. Not that I didn’t do so before as I often wrote about things like Alice and Scratch. I don’t hesitate to write about Google or Apple these days. I used to occasionally write about them before but always very carefully. A Microsoft employee could get into real trouble commenting too much on competitive products. Not as much from inside the company as outside though. Being publically critical of the competition was not encouraged at Microsoft. In fact they’d rather people said nothing at all than be hyper critical. Promoting competition was also not going to win you any friends but was actually easier for me than being critical. It’s all easier now though.

I’m not sure what the blogging is going to look like over the summer. My blog is evolving and I’m not sure in what directions it will really go. All I know is that I still have a need to share ideas, tools, events and other information. So the blog continues.

Easter, Bing Images and Google Doodle

March 31st, 2013

Today Bing has a picture of Easter eggs. Google has a picture of Cesar Chavez.  Mixed feelings about this. I didn’t expect an Easter theme from Google. I have very low expectations about them. They ignore a lot of important holidays and events for more obscure or geeky ones.

Easter is the single most important day of the year for Christians though. Christmas pales by comparison so even though I am not surprised I am still disappointed in Google. The Bing one is at least Easter related in the secular sense. I guess they are trying to avoid offending non Christian people while still making a notice of the day for Christians. Not sure what I would have chosen but Easter eggs is probably not it.

Things Have Changed

March 27th, 2013

I’m reading an old book. Well actually its an old story and I’m reading it on my Kindle but you know what I mean. The book is Allan Quartermain by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard and it was written in the late 1880s.  Let me tell you things were different back then.

I don’t mean just the obvious technology that wasn’t there back then either. One expects that in a book that takes place in an earlier time. The striking differences are cultural. Books written today that take place in a previous era tend to view those times though the lens of today’s mores and standards. This is not the case with a book that was written during that time. There the reader sees the mores and standards of that time. That is what is the big difference.

I’ve read a number of books from a hundred or more years ago. I’ve got a nice collection of the original Tom Swift books for example. I see some different attitudes towards technology in those books. But the thing that always gets to me is the attitude of the rich, entitled white male primary characters towards women and minorities. These books are written by and for those white males and that is obvious from the language and the actions of the characters.

Women are portrayed as second class. Not as strong emotionally, physically or mentally as men. Blacks are not portrayed as well as women. Words that are no longer accepted in polite society were regularly used without apology as casually as we would use a term like “African-American.”  It’s all quite striking to me as a reader.

I can imagine that books like these had an influence on the young men who read them a century ago. I suspect that the people who bought the books and who wrote them thought about the spirit of adventure, the notions of self-reliance, and in the case of the Tom Swift books an acceptance of science and technology and viewed those as good things. In many ways they probably were (and are). But the social aspects were something that were probably not obvious to the authors or readers. That was just the way real life was.

I wonder if there were books for African Americans in those days? I suspect not that many. In the 1980s for example few African Americans could read and fewer still had the time or money for leisure reading. There were probably books for young (white) women but I haven’t run into any yet. I’m open to suggestions to some I should read though. I wonder what sort of lessons those books taught – intentionally or otherwise.

For now I am enjoying a look into the past but happy that we have progressed since then in so many ways.

School Makes Me

March 6th, 2013

I saw a blog post by SCOTT MCLEOD at http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2013/03/school-makes-me.html where he showed the results of typing “school makes me” into Google to see what suggestions it made to complete the query. I decided to try the same thing with Bing.

SchoolMakesMe

The list that came up there may be even scarier than what Scott’s list showed. I’m not completely sure what they options are based on but there isn’t a single positive statement in the list above. What does it say about our schools and how can we fix it?

I decided to try some other options. For example “school is” and I got a mix here.

SchoolIs

Back to BG

January 31st, 2013

A couple of weeks I agreed to return to Bishop Guertin high school to fill a sudden vacancy in the computer science department. I’d been away for 9.5 years working in industry. I was a little nervous about the prospects though. Organizations change over time. People change over time and I know that I have changed in the intervening years. So what would happen when a changed me returned to a changed school? I’ve had both good and bad experiences returning to some place or organization I had been away from for a while.

Four days of classes later I’m getting relaxed. Sure there are changes but in many ways it feels almost as though I had never left. There are a whole new batch of students of course. And some new faculty members and administrators. But there are a good many familiar faces among the faculty and staff. The physical plant is pretty much the same as well. That all helps.

Day one was pretty stressful. Normally a teacher has a week in school for meetings, learning the changes and generally planning for the new school year. I didn’t have that. The teacher I am replacing was really helpful and gave me a lot of resources to use. Unfortunately I was also trying to catch up with a contract project I was working on AND had some car trouble to take care of. I could have used a little more prep time. With help from the other computer teacher (an old friend) I was able to get though the day just fine. Mostly I ran into process issues like learning the attendance system and some hardware issues like an unfamiliar projector.

Still I didn’t feel like I had a minute of calm. Every second was doing something to prep for a class coming up what seemed like instantly.

Day two was better. I was still working on planning out my lessons but I was focused on several days rather than just the next group of kids to come into the room.

Day three better still. I even felt like I could take a short walk around the school during a prep period. The confidence was returning and I was starting to relax.

Today was day four and I felt almost like I was back in the swing of things. I have gotten in the groove of the rotating schedule, getting students to and from lunch break, taking attendance, and most everything else.

I’m still tired of course. My body is adjusting to a new reality. A reality that includes being on my feet a lot more than I am used to. A reality that means my work day starts much earlier in the day than I am used to. And not time to take a nap in the middle of the day either. I suspect that adrenaline is keeping me going much of the day.

Today in the second to last block of the day (a prep period) I started to drag. One more class to teach and I wasn’t sure how I’d be. As the students flowed into the room I felt my energy level rise again. The tired feeling was no where to be found as I taught the class. Kids will energize one if you really enjoy teaching.

I’ve still got some planning to do. I don’t have the schedule for the semester as solid as I’d like it to be. I’ve seen a lot of outstanding teachers over the last few years and I worry that I can’t reach those standards. Making things flow right takes planning and I haven’t had the planning time I’d have liked. I’m hoping to get some of that planning done this weekend though. At this point I have a much better feel for where the students are at, where I am at and where I need to get them.

The good thing is that I know the material cold. I don’t have to spend a lot of time learning the concepts and tools I am teaching. I’ve done it all before. It’s mostly a matter of getting back into the rhythm of things. That and the fact that I great students. Cooperative, engaged, and interested. I’ve really missed the students.