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Hey everybody, welcome back.
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This is Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations and we are here at Duke’s
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Corner and today’s conversation is with Josiah Davisson.
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Josiah is a really cool guy.
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He is a high school teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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And he teaches Java to high school kids,
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which is really cool because,
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I mean,
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I’ve had lots of conversations with professors over the years about computer science.
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I’ve spoken to hundreds of students about computer science.
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But I don’t think I’ve actually ever had a conversation with a high school teacher.
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So the challenges are unique here.
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They’re certainly worth listening to and how to generate really good content for
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kids that age,
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how to break them into teams and to keep them interested,
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what’s the best path forward to teaching Java in high school if you want to go to
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college versus directly into the software development industry,
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and the different tests that the kids are required to take,
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he’s got to prepare them for,
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etc.,
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And also, you’ll notice at the end of the conversation, he specifically has a call to action.
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He’s specifically reaching out to you guys out there.
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So if there’s anybody there with expertise in this subject, I put his email in the show notes.
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Feel free to give him a ping because he’s looking for advice and suggestions on the
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best track to teach at this level to get kids to succeed directly into industry.
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Good stuff.
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More coming soon.
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And cheers.
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josiah josiah davison welcome to duke’s corner thank you i’m glad to be here it’s
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good to meet you we’re raining here actually for the first time and i got your name
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from heather on on my team and she you come highly recommended which is really
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great i’m doing a little bit of a kind of a mini series here where i’m talking to
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educators talk about java and education and it’s kind of a pet project of mine i
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i’ve been doing a lot of community development over the years and
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Whenever I talk to developers,
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I always find a way to talk about education because I’m just very interested in it.
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And so I spoke to Heather and she was looking for teachers to talk to.
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And so, yeah, that’s how we’re coming together.
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And so I wanted to talk about your experiences.
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You teach high school.
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You teach computer science to high school kids.
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Back when I was in high school, struggling through high school, computer science wasn’t the thing.
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So tell me what it’s like just in general.
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What is it like teaching computer science to 17, 18-year-olds?
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Yeah, it wasn’t a thing when I was in high school either.
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And so it’s been really interesting learning how to make it effective in high school.
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And so what it’s like,
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I try to really bring teamwork into it,
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which is difficult because they have to take standardized tests on it,
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like the AP Computer Science A test.
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And so while that’s individual, there’s very much teamwork and development.
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We do projects and I have them do our free response questions in practice for the
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AP exam and they’ll team up together.
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And I try to mix it up so that they can learn from other students who understand it
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better than they can or they can teach it because best way to learn is really by teaching.
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And so by putting them into teams and switching up those teams and they get the
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experience from learning from others and teaching it,
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And that’s been really effective.
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But what’s most classes right now, there’s canned curriculums through CodeHS, Code.org.
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Amazon has partnered and funded a lot of things.
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And MIT has coding and a ton of different canned curriculums.
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And so those are primarily what’s being used.
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I myself am trying to find ways to take it beyond the canned curriculum and make it
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more into what they’re actually going to be doing when they get out of high school.
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Interesting.
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So is so did you always want to be a teacher?
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So how did you step into this profession?
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I studied business in college,
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and after I started traveling,
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I had a few experiences with teaching and realized that that’s where my passion lied.
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So then I decided I wanted to become a business teacher.
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That wasn’t available.
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And so I ended up teaching sixth grade computer science for a few years, and I was JavaScript.
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And I’d always been interested in computer science.
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And so getting to teach that, like I said, it wasn’t available to me in school.
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And so it ignited a passion that was always just there.
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And I realized,
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wow,
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this is really fun and interesting and seeing kids take their ideas and create them
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in the programming environments that we had.
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just ignited that passion.
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And so I continued with it for three years at that sixth grade level.
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And then I was able to move up into high school and start teaching Java.
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And now I’ve been doing that.
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I just finished my second year teaching Java in high school.
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Cool.
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So are you self-taught?
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Somewhat.
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I met another high school teacher who’s been teaching Java for, I think, 15 years or so.
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And so he taught a lot.
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It helped me a lot.
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And then I did a training on how to teach the class that I’m teaching.
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But yeah, I’ve never done any formal classes.
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And I’ve gotten a lot of the answers just through connecting with people who know a lot more than I do.
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Yeah, I’m always impressed with people who are self-taught.
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It’s amazing.
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So what is… I mean, I’m long removed from hanging out with 17 and 18-year-olds.
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So what is it like?
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What are the kids like in school in terms of their interest level of computer science?
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I mean, everyone’s hacking on something these days.
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But you’re not just…
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Playing around, it’s not just kind of hacking, it’s an actual class, right?
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So you’re teaching a curriculum in hopes of preparing them to go into college and
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then eventually after that.
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So what are the kids like?
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Are they really interested in this or is it just another class?
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It really depends on where they’re at and if they chose to take the class or not, right?
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In Nevada,
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we have a state requirement where every student has to take a half credit course
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that is an introduction to computer science.
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but then schools can have further computer science classes.
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And we’re getting two new classes for career and technical education,
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CTE,
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where it’s going to be advanced computer science one,
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advanced computer science two.
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I am lucky enough to be at a magnet school where students apply to attend,
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and then it’s a raffle and lottery system,
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whether they
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get in or not.
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But once they’re at my school, they get to choose what they want to study.
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So my students not only chose to attend my school,
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but then they chose to take my program of study,
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computer science,
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for the four years that they’re there.
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So I have a lot more buy-in from these students than I did.
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Like last year, I was at a comprehensive school, which is just a regular neighborhood school.
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And computer science was very much a dumping ground for
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as it is through a lot of schools that students don’t necessarily elect to go into.
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And so even there is much more disparity between the students who want to be there
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and learn it and the students who are just dumped in and have no interest in it.
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So it all very much depends.
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And I’m very lucky with where I’m at.
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Interesting.
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So motivation should be pretty high then.
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Yeah, in general.
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So,
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I mean,
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do the kids realize that when you’re teaching them these tools of software,
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do they realize that it’s a very liberating thing?
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I mean, it’s just not information.
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It’s something that they can do to create something else.
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It’s a tool of creation.
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Do they realize that distinction?
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So I think…
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What’s interesting, you’re talking about tools and creating software.
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A lot of the computer science education that’s happening right now isn’t necessarily that.
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You go into code.org is a huge provider and they have their own built-in IDE and
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their own libraries and students don’t leave code.org.
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So it becomes really challenging for them to make the connection between what
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they’re learning in Code.org versus how that’s going to apply to the real world.
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Same thing with any other of these, the canned curriculums that are really popular right now.
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And so…
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A lot of them don’t realize and make the connection that what they’re learning is a
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powerful way of making things happen.
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So that’s why I was saying earlier that I’m trying to find ways to actually make those connections.
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We started using IntelliJ.
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I taught them how to use Postman and we created a Spotify player.
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that could actually control my Spotify being open on another page and allowing them
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to navigate it from the software that they did develop themselves.
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And that really started opening them up to seeing,
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okay,
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I can use Postman and these APIs to start developing tools beyond the text-based
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input output that we had been developing and that is common in a lot of these
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canned curriculum and canned IDEs.
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Interesting.
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Oh, that’s really interesting.
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So they never leave the environment, so they don’t necessarily see the distinction.
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So then how does Java fit into this?
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Because Java is,
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you mentioned JavaScript,
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and obviously there’s,
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you know,
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I’m sure at that age you’re doing a lot of web development kind of thing.
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And well,
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Java is a different animal in terms of it’s a very,
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very sophisticated piece of software,
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tools,
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and platform,
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obviously.
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And how does Java fit into your mix when you’re teaching?
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Yeah.
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So Java is actually a required language because we go into AP Computer Science A
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from the college board so students can get college credit.
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And so initially they’re most,
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so JavaScript is not a required one and it’s open to any language for the AP
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Computer Science Principles course.
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and the half credit course that I mentioned.
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But we find it’s better to use Java in more than just the one year of AP Computer
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Science A because then students get more familiar with it.
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They have a easier time to pass the exam when they take it.
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But then,
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like you said,
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it’s number one or number two largest language and most used language in the world
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and has such a huge community that it’s imperative that they know Java
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if they want to go into development and continue in this career.
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So my passion for and enthusiasm to teach Java really stems from all the
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opportunities that it can provide them and the amazing community that I’ve experienced.
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So what are the prerequisites to get into some of the courses?
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What do they require to have previously taken in order to study computer science at that level?
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It depends on the school.
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Some schools will have a requirement that they took higher level math.
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Math, okay.
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Yeah, just the higher level math to get into it.
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Meanwhile, other schools will not have any requirements.
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And as I mentioned, just use it as somewhat of a dumping ground.
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Generally,
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it goes the half credit,
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then AP computer science principles,
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and then they could continue into AP computer science A and potentially advanced
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studies if a school offers all of those.
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But it very much depends on the school and the teachers.
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Right.
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The reason I ask is just because Java is not, depends on how you teach it, obviously.
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I mean, it could be considered hard, but everyone’s telling me nowadays it’s easy, easier.
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But one of the reasons it’s easier is the language has evolved substantially and
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the tools have evolved substantially as well over the years.
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And so things 15 years ago that people would have struggled over aren’t necessarily the case now.
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Okay, so you mentioned a little bit about the community.
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Obviously,
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Java has a big global community,
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and we were talking earlier,
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which I want to talk about as well,
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is that you were at Java 1 last year in Vegas in 2022.
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Do the students realize the value of that community,
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that it’s an open-source community,
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the code is out there,
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there are millions of developers all over the world?
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that they can connect to.
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And I’m just wondering,
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are they participating or are they attempting or even thinking about participating
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in the community even at that early stage?
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I think that’s one of the challenges that I’ve been trying to get them to recognize.
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I was very fortunate to not only be able to attend Java 1,
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but also get a couple of tickets to provide to a couple of my students.
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Oh, okay.
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They loved it and were incredibly grateful for the opportunity as their first conference experience.
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And after that point,
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they talked about how welcoming the community was and how friendly and kind
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everyone was.
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But beyond that, there definitely is lacking in students’ understanding and recognition of that.
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And I’m trying to share that with them.
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But I get a lot of questions on, well, why not Python or why not this other language, right?
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And so trying to share with them how valuable the Java community is in Java.
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um everything you said getting the room to recognize it is a bit of a challenge but
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it’s definitely one of my goals i i would imagine so because i mean i have to even
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just keep reminding myself even in this conversation we’re talking about 17 years
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old and 18 years old even even at the college level i remember way back at sun who
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would do hiring and
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This is a while ago, but we were oftentimes asked, these are kids who graduated from college.
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Tell us about projects you did on the weekend.
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Tell us about projects that you were hacking around with your friends that you published as open source.
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Tell us about the communities that you contributed to.
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And there were a few, certainly there were a few, but this is a while ago.
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But I was surprised that there really weren’t that many.
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And I would oftentimes explain to them that you have such an opportunity here since
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all this code is out there under open licenses that you can connect to these
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communities and build your portfolio as a developer slowly in school.
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it’s the same thing for high school.
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It’s just a little bit earlier.
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And it’s hard for me to relate to a 17 year old at this point, which is why I want to talk to you.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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So how, how do you solve that?
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What kind of, what’s the conversation like when you’re talking about this, like in class?
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For, can you restate, rephrase the question or restate it?
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Like what’s it,
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what’s it like,
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but this is a sophisticated concept that you’re trying to get across to a young kid who,
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that contributing to a global community is something that you know will help you
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right how do you have conversations that are so big like java it’s so big it’s so
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massive the community contributing to open source these are big and sophisticated
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things how do you that you distill it down to the level of someone that age um who
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can handle it basically and and i
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guess that’s the skill of a teacher i can’t teach anything so i mean i guess that’s
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the question how do you have these these really sophisticated conversations with
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young people yeah um i’m very lucky like i said that i’m teaching juniors and
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seniors so they can have those more conversations but i think for any age the idea
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of just teamwork and collaboration it’s it’s
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universal.
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And so by explaining to them that we’re helping them see big problem,
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there are huge problems in the world that would be impossible for any one or two
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people to solve.
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They can start recognizing the value of the teamwork.
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And as I mentioned, I try to put my students in teams as well to solve the problems.
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So they start seeing the value in the teamwork and learning from each other and
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building on each other’s ideas.
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And I think right there is the gateway to getting them to understand and recognize the value.
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It might not be to the extent in getting them to recognize fully how big it is and
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how valuable it is,
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but it definitely opens the door to that understanding and recognition.
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I hadn’t mentioned it previously,
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but there’s in education,
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there’s also another push to create simulated workplaces.
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And so I try to, I’m trying to build my classroom as a simulated workplace as well.
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So students start developing projects that they could be
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To build a portfolio and like they would in real world developing projects.
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And so when you mentioned the open source,
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that actually ignited a big interest in my head and like,
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oh,
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that could be a great way for me,
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not like a tool to use in teaching Java while also helping them build a portfolio.
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portfolio and get real world experience,
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if we could find some open source projects that they could explore and potentially
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contribute to,
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then that would be another incredible tool to get them to start recognizing that
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while building a portfolio,
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while preparing for the exams,
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while preparing to go on to further education.
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Absolutely.
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I mean, GitHub is there, right?
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I mean, years ago it wasn’t.
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And so I can only imagine it would be a fantastic teaching tool.
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But also,
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once somebody sees the result,
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and that’s why I’m so interested in software,
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is that it’s a tool,
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you know,
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it’s sort of in general.
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It’s not just knowledge.
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I mean, I used to be in the construction business.
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I know the value of tools.
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You can’t do anything without a shovel, right?
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You need a tool.
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Yeah.
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And it just is self-empowering, okay?
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You’re able to use this knowledge to create something else, an income, jobs, careers, right?
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Food, and also to change the world.
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These technologies are…
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are evolving so, so rapidly.
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But one of the things I remember,
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and this is older,
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older people,
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but I remember the open Solaris community at Sun.
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I remember very,
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but they were young developers at the time,
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but they were out of school and they wanted to create a distribution of open Solaris.
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This is in India.
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And I said, well, I already know a group of guys in China who created a distribution.
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And so I’m going to connect you guys.
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And there’s some guys in Germany who they’re working on their own distribution of
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open Solaris as well,
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because the code is open and people want to create their own basically distribution.
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cd you know i could like it you know cd with it you stick it in your computer and
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it just runs right that was so long time ago so um and what the point is connecting
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these groups so they’re trying to figure out how to do this how to solve this
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problem and since everything is open they can talk to each other through open
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communication channels and the code was open they can
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share.
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And they did.
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They actually did.
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And they developed relationships.
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So I can only imagine.
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I see these conversations.
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Oh, really?
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I can do that?
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Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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Here’s his email.
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You know enough English.
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He knows enough English.
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It’s broken on both sides, but you can muddle through.
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But the point is, their eyes lit up like Christmas trees.
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They were really excited about that concept of collaborating with somebody who’s already done it.
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and or is or is in the process of doing it and this is oh he’s just you know one
(00:20:21):
guy says oh i don’t know what to ask and he says i’ll ask the question okay i’ll
(00:20:25):
introduce you i’ll ask the question and you can just you know your engineers you
(00:20:29):
can you can you know take it from there and they and it was great you know so i can
(00:20:33):
only imagine that a student would also have a similar experience online and it’s
(00:20:40):
out there the code is out there it’s open source you know and it’d be for everyone
(00:20:44):
to see
(00:20:45):
Yeah, for sure.
(00:20:46):
I mentioned it depends on the student, depends on their interest level.
(00:20:50):
But for those students who see the potential,
(00:20:54):
see their future in it and that this is what they want to do,
(00:20:57):
then it definitely opens up the doors.
(00:20:59):
And I’ve seen the spark in my students’ eyes just on the little pretty basic things
(00:21:06):
that I’ve been able to get them doing so far with IntelliJ and APIs.
(00:21:11):
I’m just connecting them to those tools that help them take it to the next level.
(00:21:17):
They have that spark and it’s incredible.
(00:21:20):
Tell me a little bit about Java.
(00:21:22):
You mentioned that JavaScript earlier and people asking about Python and all these different languages.
(00:21:28):
I mean,
(00:21:28):
there’s lots of languages,
(00:21:29):
there’s lots of tools,
(00:21:31):
there’s lots of,
(00:21:31):
you mentioned,
(00:21:33):
basically platforms out there.
(00:21:35):
that allow for the teaching of programming in one way or another.
(00:21:39):
Why specifically Java?
(00:21:40):
What’s so interesting about it from a teaching perspective that it solves problems
(00:21:47):
for you as a teacher or the school district?
(00:21:49):
In other words, why are they teaching Java?
(00:21:51):
Yeah, I think for the school district, it goes back to this is what college boards set for the AP exam.
(00:22:01):
And that goes back into the 90s where when they
(00:22:04):
created the CSA exam.
(00:22:05):
And they had at one point CSA B,
(00:22:08):
which was even more in depth than CSA and aligned to a second college course.
(00:22:14):
But what’s really ignited my passion,
(00:22:17):
like you said,
(00:22:18):
when you did it,
(00:22:19):
then you’ve always thought of it as really complicated and almost difficult to learn.
(00:22:24):
And that was always my experience or my
(00:22:27):
thought of computer science when I was in school and why I didn’t go and try to
(00:22:32):
teach myself when I was in high school.
(00:22:34):
But just getting to experience it in the, like, here I am, I have to teach this, so I have to learn it.
(00:22:42):
Then, and I have someone who I can ask questions to.
(00:22:46):
It was very, it was pretty accessible to myself.
(00:22:50):
And
(00:22:51):
only only a step up from what i had already been doing and i’ve just been able to
(00:22:56):
see how the object-oriented programming and how how many tools there are in these
(00:23:03):
java standard library how that just opens it up pretty easily to solve a lot of
(00:23:09):
problems and solve a lot of challenges it’s been yeah it’s just been a lot of fun
(00:23:15):
and hasn’t been too difficult so that it’s been
(00:23:19):
Yeah, generally pretty accessible to both myself and students.
(00:23:23):
So how much of Java can you possibly teach at that level?
(00:23:30):
So that’s where I’m trying to explore.
(00:23:34):
A couple of my students this past year gave me some feedback.
(00:23:41):
It seemed a lot of your lessons were experimental.
(00:23:45):
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
(00:23:47):
I’m experimenting and trying to see my computer science education here starting so early.
(00:23:54):
Students are getting introduced to the concepts in elementary school.
(00:23:57):
Really?
(00:23:59):
Yeah.
(00:23:59):
And JavaScript, am I coding games in sixth grade?
(00:24:04):
And that’s a high school level course.
(00:24:06):
And so my view is there should be no reason that a student starts computer science
(00:24:13):
in elementary school,
(00:24:14):
but still has to go through college to get the same degree,
(00:24:18):
to get the same job that someone who had never touched computer science or Java or
(00:24:23):
anything before entering college would.
(00:24:26):
Like,
(00:24:26):
why would,
(00:24:27):
why are they going through elementary school or high school if the value just comes
(00:24:31):
in that college education?
(00:24:33):
And so if we have them from elementary school through high school,
(00:24:37):
I’ve seen a lot of boot camps where people are promising come for these couple of
(00:24:42):
months and we’ll get you a job in development.
(00:24:45):
If they can get someone a job in development after just those couple of months,
(00:24:50):
we should be able to get them to that point and beyond in all these years that we have them.
(00:24:56):
So I’m really trying to find where do we,
(00:24:59):
like,
(00:25:00):
what is it that we need to be teaching to take them to that next level?
(00:25:03):
Because yeah, it’s great if they can pass the APCSA exam.
(00:25:07):
And I had
(00:25:08):
People at Java 1 tell me that if a student can pass that exam,
(00:25:12):
then they would hire them just based off of that.
(00:25:16):
But we can take them so much further because a lot of these students are so interested and motivated.
(00:25:23):
In Las Vegas, I mean, throughout the world, but in Las Vegas, we have a really…
(00:25:30):
interesting community where there could be really wealthy people across the street
(00:25:37):
from people living in just extreme poverty.
(00:25:40):
And we’re such a tourist destination that students see the allure of going to the
(00:25:45):
casinos where they don’t need an education and they can get a decent job,
(00:25:49):
but there’s no job security there.
(00:25:52):
And when COVID hit our community, just like it crashed.
(00:25:56):
As did so many.
(00:25:58):
And so there’s a big push to diversify our economy.
(00:26:03):
And that’s going to come through providing these students with the education they need to get these jobs.
(00:26:09):
But because of the low socioeconomic positions that so many of these students and their families are in,
(00:26:14):
They can’t wait to finish college before entering the workforce.
(00:26:19):
So I need to give them the skills they need to get a job straight out of high school,
(00:26:24):
and then they can continue working while getting their education to go deeper and
(00:26:29):
get those higher level skills that they need to really become full developers and
(00:26:35):
as you said, go into physics and things like that as they’re needed.
(00:26:39):
Yeah, I guess it makes sense.
(00:26:41):
I mean,
(00:26:41):
the question I asked originally,
(00:26:43):
I’m kind of groping my way through this as I understand the issue.
(00:26:48):
And I mean, we teach language for years and years and years and years.
(00:26:52):
We teach biology for years and years and years.
(00:26:55):
I mean, starting through high school, junior high, obviously even earlier and then on up through college.
(00:27:03):
There’s no reason why computer science can’t be broken apart and taught
(00:27:08):
sequentially at these different levels.
(00:27:11):
It’s just something relatively new compared to language or history or something like that.
(00:27:16):
You mentioned something that interested me a couple of times here, programming versus computer science.
(00:27:22):
There seems to be a little bit of a tension,
(00:27:26):
not that it’s negative,
(00:27:27):
but a little bit of,
(00:27:28):
you know,
(00:27:29):
there’s this need to,
(00:27:30):
at some point,
(00:27:31):
relatively quickly,
(00:27:32):
depending on your situation,
(00:27:33):
earn a living,
(00:27:34):
right?
(00:27:34):
Using your skills to earn a living versus taking more advanced academic classes to
(00:27:41):
get more of a computer science degree.
(00:27:43):
There’s a lot more math, a lot more physics, a lot more.
(00:27:46):
There’s just a lot of everything more in a CS degree versus just programming, right?
(00:27:51):
But that’s a college.
(00:27:52):
We’re talking about some of these terms even in high school.
(00:27:55):
What is the distinction that you see in terms of programming?
(00:27:59):
How do you explain to a student,
(00:28:00):
explain it to me because I don’t know the difference at that level,
(00:28:03):
the distinction?
(00:28:04):
What do you mean by computer science versus programming?
(00:28:07):
So there’s a tension even here in education right now where the idea of computer
(00:28:14):
science is the concepts of problem solving and troubleshooting,
(00:28:21):
debugging,
(00:28:22):
things like that,
(00:28:22):
that are universal among any language.
(00:28:26):
and language agnostic.
(00:28:28):
And so one of our tests, like the computer science principles test, it is only language agnostics.
(00:28:35):
And it just tests students on whether they can follow the logic of the loop.
(00:28:41):
They can follow the logic of conditional condition statements, things like that.
(00:28:47):
Versus programming is actually writing the code with using a language,
(00:28:52):
using the tools provided and building a program.
(00:28:56):
Is one dependent on the other?
(00:28:57):
In other words, do they start off by programming and then get into computer science?
(00:29:02):
Or are some interested more in computer science and not necessarily so much in
(00:29:09):
doing a lot of keying in things,
(00:29:11):
programming,
(00:29:12):
writing the actual code?
(00:29:13):
Yeah, they’re definitely starting off with the computer science and the concepts.
(00:29:19):
I’m a first, right?
(00:29:21):
I’m a student in elementary school.
(00:29:24):
can understand the concept of yes or no.
(00:29:29):
If I want, hey, do I want to do this?
(00:29:31):
Yes or no?
(00:29:32):
Okay, then do this.
(00:29:34):
And so then they go into different coding IDEs,
(00:29:39):
but they’re not coding as much as they’re just blocks that say,
(00:29:43):
if this,
(00:29:44):
then do this.
(00:29:46):
And they’ll have blocks that say jump or they’ll have blocks that say run or things
(00:29:53):
like that,
(00:29:54):
turn left,
(00:29:54):
turn right.
(00:29:55):
And so that’s how computer science is being introduced.
(00:29:59):
And they’re getting familiar with the concepts and starting to learn those.
(00:30:03):
And then once they get into,
(00:30:05):
depending on what school they’re at,
(00:30:07):
sixth grade,
(00:30:08):
eighth grade,
(00:30:09):
ninth grade,
(00:30:10):
there are the classes that introduce them to an actual programming language,
(00:30:14):
JavaScript,
(00:30:15):
Python,
(00:30:16):
Java.
(00:30:17):
are the primary ones that they are introduced to.
(00:30:20):
Interesting.
(00:30:21):
Okay.
(00:30:22):
All right.
(00:30:22):
So where do we go from here?
(00:30:24):
I mean, what are some of the challenges you see right now in your job?
(00:30:29):
Because your job is to prepare these kids primarily for college.
(00:30:33):
Or actually, I should ask the question, what is your primary goal in terms of your situation?
(00:30:39):
Is it college or is it to get a job right out of high school?
(00:30:42):
So my position is a career in technical education position.
(00:30:47):
And the goal is definitely to get them a job right out of high school.
(00:30:53):
The goal that I pitch to students and that I hope becomes reality is you get a job
(00:30:58):
out of high school into a starting position as a programmer or whatever it is that
(00:31:03):
they need.
(00:31:04):
And then hopefully the employer is incentivized to
(00:31:09):
help those students pay for college or even pay for their tuition to further those skills in college.
(00:31:15):
That way they don’t need to take on all this debt that so many people are receiving.
(00:31:19):
That way they don’t need those burdens on their families and they can support their
(00:31:23):
family and themselves as they go through it.
(00:31:25):
Yeah, no, the debt is a real serious issue for sure.
(00:31:29):
And so…
(00:31:31):
Yeah,
(00:31:31):
so based on everything that you’ve said so far and the types of questions that I’m asking,
(00:31:36):
are you hopeful?
(00:31:38):
You sound very passionate.
(00:31:39):
You certainly seem very interested in the technology and in the students.
(00:31:43):
Are you hopeful for the direction of computer science at the high school level
(00:31:50):
nationally and also locally?
(00:31:52):
Yeah, I am hopeful for it.
(00:31:53):
I know it’s definitely needed to be a focus of the state.
(00:32:00):
to make it happen.
(00:32:02):
So I can’t speak for nationally,
(00:32:04):
but it’s definitely a focus here in Nevada and throughout a good amount of states.
(00:32:10):
A lot of teachers who have talked to in Nevada in our state leadership, they’ve
(00:32:16):
Talked about how they’ve gone to different computer science and programming
(00:32:20):
education conferences around the country.
(00:32:23):
And Nevada is definitely one of, if not the leading state for computer science education right now.
(00:32:32):
And so it’s really interesting and a cool place to be.
(00:32:36):
You asked previously, where do we go from here and what challenges do I face with it?
(00:32:43):
The biggest challenge,
(00:32:43):
I think,
(00:32:44):
is just knowing and learning and keeping up with what is it that students need to
(00:32:50):
be learning.
(00:32:51):
I have got this set curriculums for them to pass the AP CSA exam, as I’ve mentioned.
(00:32:57):
But beyond that, where I’m trying and I’m piecing together, where do I need to take the students?
(00:33:05):
But I didn’t come from a development background.
(00:33:10):
And most of the teachers teaching computer science, they also didn’t.
(00:33:14):
And we have such a huge shortage of teachers.
(00:33:17):
It’s really difficult to fill computer science positions.
(00:33:20):
And so we need to be able to have curriculums and trainings for these teachers who
(00:33:26):
don’t have backgrounds in computer science so that they can teach it,
(00:33:29):
but without taking away what is actually going to get the students to where they
(00:33:33):
need to go.
(00:33:34):
It needs to be something that the teachers can teach and learn and guide the
(00:33:39):
students on,
(00:33:40):
but not the basic just only coding code.org or whichever IDE it is.
(00:33:47):
They need to take it beyond.
(00:33:49):
So my challenge is learning where,
(00:33:52):
what exactly they need to be learning to be career ready once they’ve graduated
(00:33:57):
high school.
(00:33:58):
And Java one was really helpful making connections to start finding out where they need to go.
(00:34:04):
But it’s been really unclear also what the pipeline looks like across industry,
(00:34:08):
what the best pipeline for development would be for the students to be learning.
(00:34:13):
And so.
(00:34:14):
If any listeners out there want to help out and get connected,
(00:34:17):
then I’d love to have industry advisors to help guide us and help us figure out
(00:34:23):
what exactly they need to be learning to best support the school.
(00:34:28):
So by pipeline,
(00:34:29):
you mean what you’re teaching in high school to get them either a job right away or
(00:34:34):
into college?
(00:34:36):
That and just,
(00:34:38):
okay,
(00:34:40):
they know how to write code in IntelliJ and write a program,
(00:34:44):
but they know how to use JavaFX and Scene Builder to build something there.
(00:34:49):
But what is the pipeline there?
(00:34:51):
look like an industry to make sure that the code is safe and secure and how do they
(00:34:57):
start like incorporating databases or am i getting it to be production ready
(00:35:03):
something that they could even an android studio put in the app store and
(00:35:08):
that go to potential employers say, here’s what I created.
(00:35:12):
And my fear is that I might be guiding them in some way that they put it out there
(00:35:18):
and it’s completely unsafe or secure because I don’t have all the current best practices.
(00:35:25):
And that’s my challenge right now.
(00:35:27):
Interesting.
(00:35:27):
And you’re highly motivated.
(00:35:29):
What about the, you said there’s a shortage of teachers.
(00:35:33):
So there’s a shortage and presumably there’s some teachers who aren’t as motivated as you are.
(00:35:39):
And so, you know, there’s a shortage.
(00:35:41):
So that means sometimes you’re going to have to be a teacher who’s going to be
(00:35:44):
teaching a class that might not be as skilled as you are in terms of
(00:35:48):
self-motivation to learn.
(00:35:50):
Right.
(00:35:50):
Yeah,
(00:35:51):
so that’s definitely like and along with the teacher aspect,
(00:35:55):
there’s the gap in student motivation with the students who choose to take it and
(00:36:01):
the students who are just there.
(00:36:02):
And my way of working to solve that is one,
(00:36:08):
figuring out what the best route is and the best practices with my students who do
(00:36:12):
want to do it.
(00:36:14):
But once we figured that out in my setting,
(00:36:17):
how can I then make it so easy for other teachers to follow and give students the
(00:36:24):
freedom to do what interests them with it that they become invested in it?
(00:36:29):
If I tell the students, OK, you everyone has to build this project.
(00:36:34):
then there’s going to be some students who are like,
(00:36:36):
oh,
(00:36:36):
I really like this,
(00:36:37):
but other students who are completely not interested at all.
(00:36:41):
But if we say,
(00:36:42):
all right,
(00:36:42):
here’s how you use this tool,
(00:36:44):
or here’s how you do this thing,
(00:36:46):
then say,
(00:36:47):
all right,
(00:36:47):
now figure out what is going to interest you and allow them to build projects that
(00:36:53):
they are interested in.
(00:36:54):
Then that starts bridging that gap and bringing the students who weren’t interested
(00:36:59):
in bringing them in and building that interest.
(00:37:01):
That’s really interesting.
(00:37:03):
And you’re focusing these projects on group work?
(00:37:06):
Yeah.
(00:37:07):
Or some level of it has to be working on a team?
(00:37:10):
Yeah.
(00:37:12):
So some of the projects we did this past year, we built a reservation system.
(00:37:18):
And I let students decide whether it was for a restaurant, a movie theater, a hotel, things like that.
(00:37:23):
We then learned how to use persistent data to store the reservations and
(00:37:28):
And we learned how to use JavaFX and Scene Builder to build the GUI for the
(00:37:33):
customers to create their reservations.
(00:37:38):
And I had every student had to build their own,
(00:37:41):
but I allowed the students to collaborate and help each other on how to solve the
(00:37:47):
problems that they came across.
(00:37:50):
And so not all students have the same problems,
(00:37:52):
but most of the students were able to then collaborate and problem solve together.
(00:37:58):
One of the other programs that we did was
(00:38:02):
As we were learning the persistent data,
(00:38:04):
then we learned how to create a calculator that would have the persistent data and
(00:38:09):
could reload and show the history as well.
(00:38:11):
And on that one,
(00:38:12):
I allowed students to work together in teams of two or three,
(00:38:16):
and that way they could learn from each other and support each other.
(00:38:20):
That’s really good to hear,
(00:38:21):
because I remember when I was learning C,
(00:38:24):
it was just me,
(00:38:28):
an empty screen,
(00:38:29):
and a book in front of me,
(00:38:30):
and that was it.
(00:38:33):
That’s a rough way to learn.
(00:38:35):
Oh, my goodness.
(00:38:36):
Yeah.
(00:38:37):
Long time ago.
(00:38:38):
All right, Josiah.
(00:38:39):
It was really great talking to you.
(00:38:41):
Any last words?
(00:38:42):
Did I forget to ask you anything really important?
(00:38:44):
Probably anything that we should be talking about, but we haven’t.
(00:38:49):
I think we touched on the points that I thought of prior to coming.
(00:38:56):
And you had some great questions as well.
(00:38:58):
So thank you for having me and thank you to all your listeners.
(00:39:03):
Yeah, I think we’re good.
(00:39:04):
Cool.
(00:39:05):
Excellent.
(00:39:05):
All right.
(00:39:05):
Well, I hope to meet you at a conference.
(00:39:07):
You were at Java 1 in Las Vegas because that’s where you live.
(00:39:11):
I was there too.
(00:39:12):
I didn’t know you then, but…
(00:39:15):
Maybe we’ll meet again.
(00:39:17):
I loved Vegas.
(00:39:18):
It was my first time to Vegas, by the way.
(00:39:21):
I thought it was surreal.
(00:39:23):
No, actually, it was the second time.
(00:39:24):
But the first time was 30 years ago.
(00:39:25):
I was at 3Com.
(00:39:27):
But it was a really, really quick in and out.
(00:39:30):
And it was 30 years ago.
(00:39:32):
But yeah, I thought it was really cool.
(00:39:34):
It was a really cool place.
(00:39:35):
And so I will hope to meet you at a conference somewhere.
(00:39:40):
And we can talk more about this.
(00:39:42):
That’d be great.
(00:39:43):
I look forward to it.
(00:39:44):
Thank you, Jim.
(00:39:45):
Talk to you soon.