s e t y B CS
SPRING 2022
Hi There, Please take a look at the most recent installment of CS Bytes. In this issue, we look back at a few prior events and tell you about some exciting things occurring around the state. As always, thank you for your efforts in moving South Carolina CS forward.
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K-5 Statewide Family Code Night Calling all k-5 students in South Carolina. The South Carolina Department of Education is bringing Family Code Night to South Carolina. Students who study computer science can improve their critical thinking and problemsolving abilities, which are essential for today's and tomorrow's occupations. We invite all k-5 South Carolina students to join us on May 3 or May 10 to participate in the firstever statewide Family Code Night. This will be an engaging opportunity to bring young students and their families together to acquire computational thinking skills. In this event, parental engagement is simple but essential; it affects a child's computerscience learning trajectory, as well as the family's enjoyment and support for that learning. As a result, a vibrant community has arisen, as well as new energy and direction for computer science education in the future. Individual prizes, as well as prizes based on school/district participation, will be awarded. Please share within your networks. The link to register can be found (here) If anyone wishes to host an in-person site during the event, you can find the partner site requirements and instructions attached. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out. We hope to see you there.
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Barbershop Computing NCWIT's Counselors for Computing invites you to join Barbershop Computing: Leveraging the Social and Cultural Capital of Barbering to Support African American Boys’ and Young Men’s Interest in Computer Science on April 20th at 4 pm EST. Register here! This panel will detail the past, present, and future of an ongoing broadening participation in computing collaboration between the South Carolina Department of Education, the Barbering Department at the Fairfield Career and Technology Center, and the College of Education at Michigan State University. Titled Barbershop Computing, the collaboration aims to rethink uni-directional broadening participation strategies of only recruiting African American youth into computing classrooms by also designing and implementing computing education in settings where African American children are already spending time. Barbershop Computing centers on enrolling the communities, practices, and skills of barbers to make computing and technology education culturally and educationally meaningful. Indeed, Barbershop Computing builds on the long history of Black barbershops as not only sites for community building but also as conduits for community engagement with public health, mentorship, literacy, and pedagogy. Given the success of these areas, why not also broaden participation in computing? The goal is to expand the possibilities for what computing education can look and feel like by enrolling professional barbers in educators’ and researchers’ efforts to broaden participation. The presenters on this panel will discuss their own experiences with the Barbershop Computing program, offering insights about its design, development, and implementation from administrative, research, and classroom levels. Video (link) on Barbershop Computing at Fairfield Career & Tech. Center
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Listening Tours
Are there any professional development offerings that currently are not being offered that you would like to see? Would you or your school benefit from a loaner program? How about a technical assistance visit? We want to hear from you. Please share your thoughts on what we are doing well and how we can improve the stakeholder experience by participating in our virtual listening tours beginning in June.
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CSPD WEEK South Carolina’s third annual CSPDWeek is brought to you by CSTA, CSTA South Carolina, Code.org and their Regional Partner, The Citadel STEM Center, and the SCDE CTE Office. We are looking forward to hosting hundreds of South Carolina K-12 teachers to join us for this free, virtual computer science professional development the week of July 25-29, 2022 from 9:00am to 4:00pm each day via Zoom. South Carolina K-12 public teachers will be able to choose one, week-long, PD workshop and participate in a great deal of networking and fun throughout the week! Register (here)
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Here we grow again!!
Last year the South Carolina Department Of Education brought on Mr. Dominick Sanders to lead our K-12 Computer Science Initiative. This year he will be adding regional computer science specialists to his team. The regional computer science specialists will work to support educators with the Computer Science Initiative statewide per assigned region for K-12. Some of the job duties will include: Collaboratively work with statewide partners to best prepare opportunities in K-12 for engagement with and preparation for experiences and jobs in computer science. Develop online training and build teaching resources through collaborative efforts with other team members across the state. It is his goal that all of the specialists be on board and trained by the start of the 2022-2023 school year.
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Learning Blade Offers New Computer Science Resources Learning Blade announces the release of new "Introduction to Coding" course. This 20-hour course is designed to provide students with a basic introduction to text-based computer programming. "Intro to Coding" is geared towards 7th-8th grade students but can be used with other grades as well. Components of it can be accessed separately. Teachers are provided with robust online lessons and offline lesson plans to engage students in various coding topics including: • The role of computers in society • Major components of computer hardware • Concepts of basic algorithms • Text-based code elements including statements • Variables and comments • Conditional statements (if/then) • Iterations (for/while) • Security issues of online accounts • Social media • Common hacking methods and means for combatting them • Computer science careers • And more! This course is in addition to Learning Blade's Hack Attack, Flu Outbreak, and Rescue Robot missions and other Learning Blade missions containing over 100 online computer science-related mini-lessons (10-15 minutes), as well as group activities to collaborate around CS-themed issues. All of these resources include an emphasis on high-demand CS careers. After completing Learning Blade's CS lessons, students have shown a 55% increase in their interest in Computer Science careers. If you have not already, please sign up for your free South Carolina Learning Blade account by going to www.LearningBlade.com/SC Contact Info@LearningBlade.com with any questions.
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Amazon Future Engineer Launches New Coding Competition Pharrell Williams, Amazon Future Engineer, and Georgia Tech invite you to engage your students with Your Voice Is Power, a modular learning experience and competition that provides real-world exploration of the ways music, computer science, and entrepreneurship can be tools to advance equity. Using Georgia Tech’s EarSketch code to music platform, students will create remixes to Pharrell’s song Entrepreneur. This year, students can also use beats from Alicia Keys’ song Underdog and Khalid’s New Normal as part of their original compositions. Curriculum materials are provided to instructors at no cost, including all lesson plans and access to Teacher Training sessions. Check out more details on their website https://www.amazonfutureengineer.com/YourVoiceIsPower Sign up South Carolina Educator Professional Development on EarSketch and Your Voice is Power: https://b.gatech.edu/3EbBGlP
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Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a well-known term that you've most likely heard or read about. When you think about AI, you might think of articles about robots, technology, and the digital era. But what exactly is it, and how does it work? Artificial intelligence (AI) is a type of technology that uses programming to solve problems. Machine learning, deep learning, and big data are frequently mentioned in combination with artificial intelligence. SC DOE is working with Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) to conduct a focused study and support the development of South Carolina’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Curriculum for secondary students. Proposed Project Time - Jan-2022- August 2026
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Tell Us Something Good
Are you a teacher or district doing phenomenal work in CS? We want to highlight you in upcoming newsletters. Please be sure to let us know using the link below or scanning the qr code.
bit.ly/csscshareout
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Helpful Resources
Required Credentials Computer Science Standards (K-8 and 9-12) Activity Coding System for the Student Information System 2021-2022 CTE Completer Programs Computer Science Is changing everything
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List Serv If you haven't already, please sign up for our computer science listerv. This will keep you abreast of computer science information throughout the state.
Bit.ly/cs4sclist
Or use the QR Code Below
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For more information about the South Carolina Computer Science Initiative, please contact
Computer Science State SupervisorDominick Sanders, dsanders@ed.sc.gov 9-12 Information Technology Educational AssociateAndrew Cook, acook@ed.sc.gov
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