CSTA: Computer Science Teachers Association
The Computer Science Teachers Association is a membership organization that supports and promotes the teaching of computer science and other computing disciplines. CSTA provides opportunities for K-12 teachers and students to better understand the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and learn.
The University of Regina is an institutional member of the CSTA because we realize the fundamental importance of teaching computer science ideas to children, especially in Grades 6 to 12.
Are you a middle school teacher, high school computing teacher, college/university computer science or education faculty, or a member of industry interested in supporting computer science education and teachers? Please consider an individual membership in the CSTA (free of charge).
At the December 2012 Professional Development workshop, the Canada Saskatchewan Chapter of the CSTA was formed.
Each year in the United States, the week containing Grace Hopper's birthday is proclaimed to be Computer Science Education Week (December 9-15, 2012).
Along with CIPS, we presented the 3rd annual CSEdWeek luncheon in Regina.
CACS/AIC (Canadian Association of Computer Science/Association d'Informatique Canadienne) has proclaimed February 22, 2013 to be
Canadian Computing Education Day. We will be hosting visitors on campus on that day (the Friday after Family Day).
2 days earlier, we will be hosting our second professional development workshop ("Putting Computing into Science").
The workshop, presented with support from Google's CS4HS program, is intended for Grade 6-12 teachers from across Saskatchewan. Highlights of the day include:
- sample courses: "Exploring Computer Science" (http://www.exploringcs.org/) and "The Beauty and Joy of Computing" (http://bjc.berkeley.edu/)
- resources and practical tools, including:
- CS Unplugged (http://csunplugged.org) - "Computer Science... without a Computer!"
- Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) and Build Your Own Blocks (http://byob.berkeley.edu) - programming languages that make it easy for students to create their own interactive stories, animations, games, and art
- Greenfoot (http://www.greenfoot.org) - a development environment suitable for novice programmers that supports the full Java language
- networking and support for computing science educators
To register for the workshop, please call (306) 585-4633 or e-mail csta@cs.uregina.ca