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concerning ECS and CSP courses, how computer science differs from technology and information literacy courses, the costs of computing education, the resources needed (computers, software, curricula, and so forth), professional development requirements, and ways to partner with local industry to obtain support.

learning. Creating such a CoP is the means to the end of having an impact on practice. A vCoP can create opportunities for teachers to connect and to check in with others, and opportunities for teachers to lurk and observe. Teachers want a place that provides real benefit to them. Creating a vCoP can help CS instruction find its place in

ACM

Metrics to assess the programs and the vCoP. Validated instruments are needed to measure student learning. The College Board’s AP CS exam, and Elliott Tew’s validated instrument measuring student learning in CS13 help from the cognitive perspective. Moskal’s validated instrument, 4 and Weibe’s unvalidated instrument9 help from an affective perspective. But more work is needed to understand student learning of computing in K– 12. SRI’s assessments for ECS are a crucial first step, but assessments are needed for teacher professional development. It is necessary to show whether NSF-funded CS10K projects and other projects trying to meet similar goals work and how such projects compare to other projects. Varying project objectives, multiple evaluators, and multiple designs require common data collection and measurement of overall impact.

K– 12 education.

Transactions on

Scaling interventions and innovation nationally, and ultimately worldwide, is an enormous undertaking. It is one that will need to involve thousands of schools, and many different governmental entities at many different levels. It is our hope that a well-designed and well-constructed vCoP can begin to help address these challenges of scaling K– 12 computing education to a much wider audience than it is currently addressing.

Accessible
Computing

References

1. Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business Review Press, 2000.

2. Cuny, J. Finding 10,000 Teachers. CSTA Voice 5, 6

(Jan. 2010), 1–2.

3. Elliott Tew, A. and Guzdial, M. The FCS1: A language independent assessment of CS1 knowledge. In

Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ‘ 11). ACM,

2011, 111–116.

4. Hoegh, A. and Moskal, B. Examining science and engineering students’ attitudes toward computer science. In Proceeding of the Frontiers in Education Conference, San Antonio, TX, 2009.

5. Morrison, B., Ni, L. and Guzdial, M. Adapting the

Continue the conversation. Most CS10K efforts involve CS education researchers and faculty from partnering universities. This community of educators in higher education has been instrumental in getting the many efforts off the ground in high schools around the country, and is a key constituency helping high school teachers. Ongoing conversations and collaborations are needed. Workshops like the one at Stanford generate energy, ideas, and a sense of community that goes beyond the “mandala of good intentions.”c The CS10K vCoP will be successful only with the active involvement of K– 12 CS teachers themselves. A “ partner vCoP” of researchers and CSEd faculty might be necessary for growth of the CS10K community.

disciplinary commons model for high school teachers: Improving recruitment, creating community. In

Proceedings of the Ninth Annual International Conference on International Computing Education

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Research (ICER ‘ 12) 2012, 47–54.

6. Ni, L., Guzdial, M., Elliott Tew, A., Morrison, B. and Galanos, R. Building a community to support HS CS teachers: The disciplinary commons for computing educators. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ‘ 11), 2011, 553–558.

7. Tenenberg, J. and Fincher, S. Opening the door of the computer science classroom: The disciplinary commons. In Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

(SIGCSE ‘07), 2007, 514–518.

8. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Snyder, W. Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 2002.

9. Wiebe, E. N., Williams, L., Yang, K., and Miller, C.

Computer Science Attitude Survey. Report No.: NCSU CSC TR-2003-1. Dept. of Computer Science, NC State University, Raleigh, NC, 2003.

This quarterly publication is a quarterly journal that publishes refereed articles addressing issues of computing as it impacts the lives of people with disabilities. The journal will be of particular interest to SIGACCESS members and delegates to its affiliated conference (i.e., ASSETS), as well as other international accessibility conferences.

Steve Cooper ( [e-mail]) is an associate professor in the computer science department at Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Shuchi Grover ( [e-mail]) is a Ph. D. candidate in the Learning Sciences and Technology Design

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To change computer science education in K– 12 in a fundamental way requires creating a community of practice that brings people together around focused interests and with the need for

Program at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, Stanford, CA.

Beth Simon ( [e-mail]) is the senior associate director of Learning Sciences and Technology the Center for Teaching Development and tenured faculty in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego.

c Thanks to Roy Pea for that expression.

Copyright held by Author.