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Many people want to learn computer science, but not many can afford to do so at the best institutions.  Fortunately many of the best institutions in the world are opening up their courses so you can take a course from Stanford, MIT or Harvard simply by going online and learning at your own pace.  Here are 8 ways you can take advantage of this.

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This may get me in an a$$load of trouble but I think it needs to be said. Following the announced restructuring of the University of Florida CS program and this classic quote about how Yale shouldn’t be in the business of teaching “trade skills” (meaning, applied software engineering), I’m going to argue that more (not all, but more) academic computer science programs should be shut down or reorganized. Here’s my rationale:

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Many professors of computer science say college graduates in every major should understand software fundamentals. They don’t argue that everyone needs to be a skilled programmer. Rather, they seek to teach “computational thinking” — the general concepts programming languages employ.

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One of the difficulties students have in introductory computer science courses is understanding the dynamic complexities of several computer science basics. One reason that students have difficulty grasping these fundamental concepts is that these basics are processes, which textbooks and lectures cannot always adequately demonstrate.

In this series of modules...

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Goals
The goals of Exploring Computer Science are to develop the computer science skills of algorithm development, problem solving and programming. Students will also be introduced to topics such as interface design, limits of computers and societal and ethical issues of software engineering.
This curriculum has been developed for a culturally, linguistically, and socially diverse group of students in Los Angeles Unified School District. District-wide, student ethnicities include .3% American Indian, 3.7% Asian, .4% Pacific Islander, 2.3% Filipino, 73.0% Latino, 10.9% African American, 8.8% White, and .6% Other or multiple responses. Over 38% of students are English-language learners, with most English language learners students speaking Spanish as their primary language. Furthermore, 74% of students qualify for free or reduced lunches.
Standards
The standards used for the Exploring Computer Science curriculum are based on the topics and goals outlined in A Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science developed by the ACM K-12 task force curriculum committee. Most of the objectives in the course align with the Level III course, Computer Science as Analysis and Design, while some objectives are necessarily aligned with the Level II course, Computer Science in the Modern World, in order to provide appropriate background knowledge for the more advanced topics.

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