JCSE Online
April 2002
Good day.
Well, we have nearly made it through the first year of JCSE Online. Within the next month or two you should receive a hardcopy compendium of all the articles (but not the editor's messages or SIGCS business portions of the online versions). As always, we (the editorial folks and the SIGCS Executive Committee) are interested in your opinion of what we are doing.
Once again, I urge you to consider submitting scholarly articles, teaching experience pieces, curriculum suggestions, editorial comments, and so on. If you need or want your piece to be peer-reviewed let me know. I plan to spend the summer months preparing as much of next year's issues as possible. So, now is the time to be thinking about submitting something. Examine the submission guidelines to gain a bit more insight into how we'll be working. (We plan to post a publication schedule as soon as we get it worked out. Check back soon.) I am hoping to not have to work so hard on this during school time next year. You can help by submitting stuff soon. Oh, by the way, if any of you have or want to develop some editorial experience, please contact me.
While creating this document (my comments) for each issue, I feel like a salesperson. I cannot really say the issue is "okay." Each one has to "good" or "excellent" or "the best yet" and, of course, so do the articles in each issue. Clearly, that is not possible. I do sincerely believe, however, that each piece in each issue can offer something to nearly everyone and that some piece may well be particularly useful to each member. This issue certainly meets that standard (in my view). We have three refereed features and one programming assignment article. I didn't notice any particular common theme or topic, but I think they are all useful to those of us teaching computer science. Enjoy!
FEATURES
Gaining Algorithmic Insight through Simplifying Constraints
David Ginat
I found Ginat's article particularly interesting and intriguing. I like the idea of exploring programming problems to gain insight into possible solutions. In this article, we see three different ways to gain insight into problems by simplifying the constraints on the problems. Actually, I intend to use some of the ideas encountered here in my algorithms course. But, I also think the same material can be shared with high school students to encourage them to think more before they jump into coding. When we teach programming, we teach the language, but we also profess to be teaching problem solving. Analyzing problems in the ways Ginat suggests should enhance student thinking and problem-solving abilities. Eventually, practicing this kind of thinking will make students much better problem solvers of problems whose solutions are not relatively straightforward. I sincerely recommend this article to you. You might share it with your students and challenge them to read, understand, and use the techniques.
Read
A Review of Models for Teacher Preparation Programs for Precollege Computer Science Education
Fadi Deek and Howard Kimmel
I expect most of you recall other articles written or co-written by Fadi Deek, a strong advocate for computer science at the high school level. In this issue, Deek and his co-author, Howard Kimmel, suggest stronger and more consistent standards for both high school computer science curriculum and teacher preparation. They review recommendations for curriculum; examine as best they can what states expect their students to learn about computer science; report what they discovered about requirements for teacher preparation in computer science; and analyze the information from their own perspective in order to provide recommendations for stronger high school computer science in the United States. I hope this article proves to be thought provoking and/or provides you with support for your own efforts to improve high school computing.
Read
Pedagogical Issues in Object Orientation
Sridhar Nerur, Sam Ramanujan, Someswar Kesh
Nerur, Ramanujan, and Kesh are professors at Central Missouri State University. In this article, they share with us their experience and opinion about object oriented programming. They provide some background and history to show why the object orientation is useful though somewhat difficult to master, particularly for those of us with all our training and experience in procedural languages. As with earlier OO articles, I doubt this one will tell you everything you want to know. It may raise more questions than it answers. I firmly believe, however, that we can all gain something from it. Obviously, I hope you agree.
Read
ARTICLES
One of my Favorite Assignments: "Chomp"ing into Computer Science
Edward Siegfried
Siegfried has supplied a very nice discussion of a game-oriented end-of-semester project that really caught my interest. This project will motivate students, challenge them, exercise their programming skills, and encourage conceptual and abstract thinking. What else could you want in an assignment? Siegfried also does a nice job of discussing the project and how he uses it. I think you're going to like this piece, too.
Read
I hope whatever is left of your school year goes well and that you have a good summer. Make plans to renew and refresh yourself for next fall. (Don't forget to send me your items for publication, between your relaxation activities.)
Philip East
Interim Editor
east@cs.uni.edu
Note: All Web links in this issue were active as of the post date (April 15, 2002). However, the Web is volatile, and neither ISTE nor SIGCS have any control over external sites. Please contact the managing editor, Audrey Vanderford (avanderford@iste.org), if you have a fix for a broken link.
Copyright © 2002, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.
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