Mr. Higgins’ Blog

Web 2.0 and the inspiration on my daily life is tremendous, especially when I feel the urge to create something that would allow teachers from all over to really benefit from sharing ideas.  So, the idea of the AP Computer Science A / AB Wiki was born.  Here are my ideas for this wiki…

1. Teachers from all over could use it as a way to share assignments, projects, and homework ideas.  I understand there is an ap-compsci listserv group that share ideas, but I want teachers to see material that is published on the internet and that they can DIRECTLY comment on or use for their classrooms.
2. At the beginning, I’m concentrating on the programming aspect, but later on I would like to include discussion about what it means to teach AP Computer Science and the way the students interact with the material.
3. Professionals from the industry could hopefully chime in and provide some thoughtful insite to those of us, like myself, who have limited experience in the job market of computer science.  The business people could tell us exactly what skills the students are lacking and / or are solid.
4. I have provided the first project for the wiki titled “The Galton Board Project”.  This was a project that was very natural to me because I am a mathematics teacher by heart.
5. Signing up for an account is so easy that within a few minutes a teacher could already be starting a new page on the wiki and creating a link to it on one of the three current categories: Programs, Projects, or Homework.  For now, I want to approve all teachers until I feel more comfortable with the people using the wiki.
6. If even 20 Computer Science teachers took 30 minutes out of their week to add or edit something on the wiki, then within a year we could have a large scale resource on the internet for all teachers to browse and takes ideas away from during the school year.

If you are even remotely interested in AP Computer Science A / AB, please pass on the word of this wiki and provide some content yourself.