@kooler said in Stanford Removes Java in Favor of JavaScript in Intro to Computer Science Course:

@mlnews said in Stanford Removes Java in Favor of JavaScript in Intro to Computer Science Course:

In a bit of a surprise move in the educational space, computer science bulwark Stanford University has chosen to remove Java and replace it with JavaScript in their Intro to Computer Science class. Java has been the language of this somewhat famous class since 2002, a run of fifteen years. They say that Java is showing its age, although to be fair JavaScript is nearly as old. Java itself is 22 years old this year. Since being purchased by Oracle, interest in Java has slowly fallen from its lofty peak during stewardship under Sun.

Anybody who's starting with anything except assembly language is WRONG!!! If somebody doesn't know how CPU works he can't make a decent software engineer: he'll use bloatware, write things in interpreted languages and bring file systems to kernel from user-land.

As a matter of purity or getting down to basics when introducing concepts, I agree. But, when you're talking about trying to introduce CS concepts to people new to the field assembly is a nightmare. I had some simple assembly as part of intro CS when in college, but it almost soured me completely on programming. Of course, what really killed my nascent interest in programming (in college) was having to learn Cobol... Perhaps it's safe to say that the closer you get to the kernel the more you need assembly?

@jaredbusch said in Stanford Removes Java in Favor of JavaScript in Intro to Computer Science Course:

Python needs to die in nuclear fire along with Fax machines and most politicians.

It might be a nice language but because it is whitespace delimited for code blocks it can go to hell.

You've crystalized my number one problem with Python as "whitespace delimited", but I don't agree with the "holocaust hell" aspect.

@scottalanmiller Yeah, I put the scare quotes around deep knowledge for a good reason I think. If I had to characterize myself at any rate I would say foundational knowledge is more descriptive for what I bring, personally.

@worden2 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@scottalanmiller said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

I was studying taxonomic classification in 2003, it was a major topic at the time because folksonomy of the web was really the hot thing of the era and that's where a lot of research and thought in IT was going. Long before these kinds of communities were arising. Taxonomy and folksonomy would be good topics for an IT curriculum.

Interesting. I'll look into it. For instance, I'm teaching an intro class in Informatics this semester, and I can see where this would be a good topic.

One other thought on this, slightly off-topic; do you think that AI might change tagging requirements in the future? In other words, even if we still teach taxonomic classification, would that only be as background for what AI starts doing "automagically"? I know that keyword analysis is getting a lot of attention in "meta-research" and topic survey papers.

@scottalanmiller said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@dashrender said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@jaredbusch said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@worden2 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@jaredbusch said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

Also, mods add tags.

Sorry about that.

Meh, it is not the most obvious thing in the world.

You can add tags by editing your initial post if you want, or a mod will get to it.

LOL - while not IT related - the use of tags in general seems to be a pretty new thing. I know they have been around just about forever, but their actual use is pretty light. A good thing to toss into an intro class somewhere.

I was studying taxonomic classification in 2003, it was a major topic at the time because folksonomy of the web was really the hot thing of the era and that's where a lot of research and thought in IT was going. Long before these kinds of communities were arising. Taxonomy and folksonomy would be good topics for an IT curriculum.

Interesting. I'll look into it. For instance, I'm teaching an intro class in Informatics this semester, and I can see where this would be a good topic.

@dustinb3403 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@scottalanmiller said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@dustinb3403 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@scottalanmiller said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@dustinb3403 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

IT education has to be dated, by some amount. If education was bleeding edge, the person teaching the course would be learning the material with the class.

You have to do that to be an IT pro. If the professor isn't learning with the class, you've got a big problem.

Um.. . . read that again. The profession at least needs to know what is going on. Learning is good, but they should be learning the material before the rest of the class.

It's why they are the professor.

Not really, if you need the class to hold back for you to catch up, you are the opposite of a professor.

This is a scott-ism. The point of being in the class is because you want to learn from an expert on the course material. Not because you want to learn with the professor.

It's weird. I agree with you both! For instance, we require our faculty to be certified in classes that lead to a cert, so if you teach the class that corresponds to the first MCSA cert (70-410 right now) you have to have that, but you don't have to have had the 411 and 412 passed to teach it. Should that change? I'm not sure. Also, we used to build the cert into the course, but we now have the "didactic" 3 credit hour classes that lead to a 1 credit hour "workforce preparation" class, so should we only have the cert requirement on the 1 credit hour classes so we're not short of qualified faculty to teach it? This is one of the reasons I'm on these boards now. I see SAM talk about LANless futures and what the "true" definition of IT is and I realize that at the very least I'll see a side I might be insulated from with your perspectives. Thank you for that!

@scottalanmiller said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@dustinb3403 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@scottalanmiller said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

@dustinb3403 said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

IT education has to be dated, by some amount. If education was bleeding edge, the person teaching the course would be learning the material with the class.

You have to do that to be an IT pro. If the professor isn't learning with the class, you've got a big problem.

Um.. . . read that again. The profession at least needs to know what is going on. Learning is good, but they should be learning the material before the rest of the class.

It's why they are the professor.

Not really, if you need the class to hold back for you to catch up, you are the opposite of a professor.

To put my 2 cents in on it. There are times you bring "deep knowledge" to a new class you're teaching, and other times necessity puts you in the position of staying a week ahead of the students, so to speak. One of my mentors once said "if you ever want to really learn something, teach it". For instance, I have multiple degrees and industry certs, but I really think of myself as a professional educator because that's what I've actually been doing as a day-to-day job for a decade and a half.

@scottalanmiller Agreed.

@scottalanmiller I want to get stuck in the weeds! The irony is that one of our staff IT managers was doing a tour of the campuses to see our setups (we maintain a separate network and MDF on all our "cyber center" campuses), and when I mentioned the push to allow for online (synchronous webcast, not asynchronous) classes in Server Admin - and the pushback from my peers - he was quick to point out that he had a team of six IT admins that NEVER touch the racks.
My peers on the curriculum committee are adamant that we have to be a "hands-on" program, and I agree to a point. But that's only to the point that you can remote in and work on your server! After that, all I care about is that students have real-time interactions with their professors during set class times instead of randomly checking in to their online classes.
You'd be surprised how hard it is to change the name of a program, even though over the 15 years I've been here we've gone from the Computer Information Systems program under the Business School, to the CIS/Computer Information Technology program, to our own School as "Computing and Informatics" to now just the School of IT. But, when I propose we go from Server Administration to Systems Administration, it goes over like a fart in church... sigh...

@thanksajdotcom - So, shouldn't it be "thanksadotjdotcom"? Perhaps "thanksadotjdotdotcom"?

@nerdydad
I concur. Powershell is insanely important to any Windows experience. I was speaking to the idea of a SINGLE language for an intro CS course. I suggested it since Python is platform independent to a large degree and IMHO superior to JavaScript for filling that role. Personally, I agree that we should just get back to C. C is the core language for so many things, and even if you extend IT down into the Internet of Things and microcontrollers etc. it is still extremely relevant.

I think Python is showing a lot of strength as a intro language as well, and it may come from a scripting background so to speak, but seems full featured enough to be easy to introduce (Scratch is based on it) and used in more sophisticated settings.

World of Warships. Totally addicting for me as a naval history buff. I haven't played World of Tanks or WoAirplanes yet, because life.

@ndc said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

This is always a fun topic around here. There are a few previous discussions you can take a look at under the IT Education tag that might be worth your time to review.

I will, and I should've done my research before posting (duh). Thank you.

@jaredbusch said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

Also, mods add tags.

Sorry about that.

@dashrender said in Thoughts on IT education - the good, bad, and the ugly:

Teaching research is probably one of the most important skills for IT. Learning how to dig through logs, how to find solutions to your problems, not just ask sales people what to buy.

This is the biggest thing I've learned from being part of SW and ML.

This is a HUGE issue, and you've hit on something one of my students said to me, almost verbatim. I also try to let my students know, "at some point I'm just trying to make sure you're an educated consumer"
Forgive my ignorance on SW and ML, and you elaborate?

@dashrender :
We're a 2 year school, with an emphasis on getting students done in 4 semesters. Having said that we're working on getting things to be more flexible. We have an "ASAP" program that takes students from high school to a 2 year degree in 11 months, but right now that only has an informatics component from our School involved.
I like your point on taking the class from a subject matter expert and not a subject leader, but I would hope that if someone has been teaching a while that you can have some continuity. For instance, in one area I went from teaching "Data Communication" to "Intro. to Networking (Network+)" to "Cisco I (CCENT part 1)". Those classes are not the same, but they're not dissimilar either! You can see from that how "the meat of the class" is there.
I also like to use the talking point with software development that if you're a programmer a new language can be easier to learn than for someone just starting out that needs to understand the logical underpinnings of coding in general.

As an IT educator, I'm constantly aware of how I have to be "up" on/in my field while giving my profession the respect it is due. This means not simply taking the latest trend as a need to disrupt the consistency of the academic process, while making certain we are not becoming outdated by the overall progress in the field.
Some examples:
I chair a program known as Server Administration (SVAD) that primarily teaches Microsoft to the MCSA level and Linux to the LPIC2 level. Some issues I've had to work with my curriculum committee on are; whether or not to allow synchronous online classes (face-to-face only right now), whether or not to change the name of the program to Systems Administration (not too many "Server Admin" positions listed), how to incorporate Azure, AWS, or even Docker into the program.
At some point I'm being disruptive to the status quo, which adds to my peers' workload and diminishes the necessary academic consistency. On the other hand there are technologies like Lambda and Docker that will significantly change my program, I think. We have to stay relevant.
So, with that background, how do all of you feel about the "state of IT education" and what can be done, if anything, to make it better?

@quixoticjeremy said in If you are new drop in say hello and introduce yourself please!:

@worden2 said in If you are new drop in say hello and introduce yourself please!:

Hello: I'm an educator in an IT school in Indiana and am looking to connect and learn from in-the-field professionals so that I'm staying current and engaged in my field outside of the "Ivory Tower". I've watched Scott Alan Miller's presentations on our LANless future and the definition of IT and based on those two videos feel this is a community I'd like to be part of.

Kudos to you for doing this! The amount of teachers that I ran into when I went through college that were great teachers and people but were far behind in terms of what they were teaching was almost every teacher I had. It is difficult to stay current when you aren't working in the field regularly. Welcome to the community @worden2 I hope you enjoy it here!

I'll be the first to admit that academic institutions turn like oil tankers in a sea of icebergs, but given that we're in IT as it is our School is definitely aware of the need to stay current (no pun intended with the tanker comment btw). It's a catch-22 though since it is really hard to find "time away" from my job. Teaching is a full time job, without question, so with the IT component adding that much more it can be tough. Just trying to keep up with industry certs for instance... whew.

Hello: I'm an educator in an IT school in Indiana and am looking to connect and learn from in-the-field professionals so that I'm staying current and engaged in my field outside of the "Ivory Tower". I've watched Scott Alan Miller's presentations on our LANless future and the definition of IT and based on those two videos feel this is a community I'd like to be part of.