Ask Slashdot: Good Homeschool Curriculum For CS??

dingo_kinznerhook writes "I grew up in a homeschooling family, and was homeschooled through high school. ( I went on to get a B.S. and M.S. in computer science; my mom has programming experience and holds bachelor's degrees in physics and math — she's pretty qualified to teach.) Mom is still homeschooling my younger brother and sister and is looking for a good computer science curriculum that covers word processing, spreadsheets, databases, intro to programming, intro to operating systems, etc. Does the Slashdot readership know of a high school computer science curriculum suitable for homeschooling that covers these topics?"

Troll?

[Spazmania]

Kids home-schooled into the high school level that don't already have competence with word processors and spreadsheets? A guy with a MS in CS who talks about word processing in the same sentence as computer science? If he wanted to push more buttons he'd have explained that his mom thought Linux was for commies. Seriously, don't feed the troll.

Don't do it

[Kittenman]

Tell your mum to teach the kids how to write a paper (as in, essay) and how to think things through (maths - logic, thinking skills). CS, such as it is, is not as important as those subjects. Certainly not at high school level.

I can't tell you the number of times I've seen badly written, unclear, badly formatted reports, papers, recommendations, audits from graduates who may have excellent CS skills but can't string sentences together to put over an idea.

So I'm a grammar Nazi. We're in an exact business. Be exact in putting out ideas. And please don't reply to this with "your welcome"...

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[obarthelemy]

give him a break: he's being home schooled. Which probably explains word processing being CS...

Re:Homeschool?

[Tiger4]

Those kids will grow up to be out of touch with reality, thinking they're the center of their tiny universe while being hopeless at everything other than their field of speciality.

... much like un-informed, self-righteous, snarky, cranio-rectal Slashdot writers. Get out of the basement much do ya?

Because of course you know, it is possible for a home-schooled child to become socialized with OTHER home schooled children. Or with other people in the community around them as they go about their daily lives in their neighborhood, or at the market, or gas station, or workplace, or parks, or beaches, or if they are religious, at Church. Because you know, people who go to all of those places actually speak to each other, and thus learn social skills. Unlike public school children who learn their social skills... in much the same way, actually. With the added pleasure of school imposed artificial hierarchical dominance games into the mix.

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[notKevinJohn]

Come on Slashdot, be reasonable. Maybe these topics don't represent what would be found in a traditional CS curriculum for college, but they sound like the very subjects that a pre-CS course at the high school level would be wise to teach.

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[EconomyGuy]

This is a silly response and demonstrates a limited understanding of the scope of your discipline and where it fits into the continuum of education. Sure, these topics are not appropriate for a college level CS course, but that doesn't mean they aren't related to computer science. To give a concrete example, consider the something as simple as basic mathematics. If OP had shown up asking for "a good mathematics curriculum covering addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division" would you have responded saying that's not "mathematics" because those topics aren't covered in college level math courses? There's no hard and fast rule that says CS topics start at college... it's all part of the the continuum of education.

Re:Dietel & Dietel

[bosef1]

The only thing to watch out for is that, given the rapid pace of computer technology development, many older edition training course may have been rendered obsolete by the passage of time. I would be cautious about material older than 10 years (circa 2000), and material older than 15 years (circa 1995) is probably too old to use. Observe the changes to Java, C++, Ruby, and streaming media in those time frames

Of course, many of the fundamentals of computer science (algorithms and algorithm analysis) and software development (structured programming, abstraction) haven't changed, but then it comes down to whether you are doing a more "technical" introduction to computer programming, or a more "abstract" introduction to computer science.

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[Samantha Wright]

I agree with the tone of your post, but your analogy is off-base and troubles me. Arithmetic is a direct underpinning of mathematics. The equivalent computer science task would probably be learning how to break instructions down into discrete and logical steps. Computer science as a discipline is fundamentally about procedures and algorithms, just as mathematics is about numbers and equations, and set theory is about relationships and groups.

Consequentially, using Office is less of a computer science curriculum element and more like a general life skill that involves computers. It's true that working with computers as a user is an important preface to learning how to program and think in the exact terms of a computer, but by no means does it fit the same position as arithmetic does for mathematics.

A better post might be "c'mon, guys, he's got a Masters degree. Stop being dicks about semantics and realise that he knows what he means better than most of you do."

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[SETIGuy]

If you've got a computer at home, and your kid can't use a word processor by high school, then something is wrong. Even more so, I think something is very wrong when we need courses to teach people to word process or use a spreadsheet. If you need a course to teach something, you must not want to do it very much.

Re:Dietel & Dietel

[jdpars]

Abreu was being overly cruel, yes, but you should look at the survey statistics for the number of parents who pull their kids out of school for "religious reasons" or (self-described) "radical unschooling." The benefit homeschoolers get compared to the rest of children in some sort of education system is that their parents are involved in their schooling.

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[camperdave]

Nonsense. The person may not know the software well enough themselves to teach it properly. Having a curriculum means they'll cover areas that would otherwise not even be on the radar.

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you need a course to teach something, you must not want to do it very much.

You mean like a Mom apparently teaching an entire high school curriculum? I had a handful of excellent teachers in high school but I can't think of any of them who could have taught all the subjects.

Re:You don't understand what CS is

[RobDude]

As someone with a BS in Computer Science and an in-progress Masters; I think it's safe to say anyone who is offended by this question is a d-bag.

Unless you are certain it's being used as a backhanded insult, all this means is someone doesn't fully understand what 'Computer Science' is. That's really not a reason to be offended. I don't really understand Physics, or Chemical Engineering, I'd hate to be afraid of asking a harmless question because I'm likely to offend some overly sensitive guy waiting to jump over a n0ob who only wants to learn.

Besides, what qualifies as 'Computer Science' is pretty subjective anyway. I took a 300-level 'Computer Science' class that was called 'Unix'. It covered basics of the operating system....things as simple as creating directories were covered. And it was very much apart of the Computer Science curriculum at a moderately respected 4-year University.