Journal 9

Article: “Ready, Set, Code! Starting a Computer Team” by Justin Solomon
from: Learning and Leading with Technology

This article was about student computer teams that compete to write computer programs. Apparently, it’s not a big thing in this country, but about 150 competitors from the U.S. competed in the Computing Olympiad along with 1,000 international students. There is an American organization, The USA Computing Olympiad (USACO) at www.usaco.org that has information about competitions as well as resources for learning the skills necessary to compete.

Question 1: That sounds like it’s for kids with advanced computer skills that aren’t taught at my high school. Where do they learn them?
Over 14,000 students in the U.S. took the AP Computer Science A exam last year or an introductory computer science course, so some students either have the class offered on site at their school, or take the course in a virtual classroom (See Journal 8), or commute to a college for the classes. Information about the Advanced Placement test is at www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_compscia.html?compscia

Question 2: What kind of activities does the team do on a daily basis?
In a computer team the students can practice the skill of working as a team on a computer program, as well as skills like algorithm analysis, program design, and program testing. There are hands-on activities to illustrate how algorithms work and programming techniques available at the USACO web site above.