Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
chapter
Regulations Governing the Review and Approval of Education Programs in Virginia [8 VAC 20 ‑ 542]
Action Comprehensive Revision of the Regulations Governing the Review and Approval of Education Programs in
Stage Proposed
Comment Period Ended on 10/31/2015
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10/31/15  11:09 am
Commenter: Dee A. B. Weikle

Computer Science Regulation changes 8VAC20-543-250
 

Overall the changes to the computer science guidelines are positive.

I especially like the addition of 3. Knowledge of the ethical, moral and legal issues associated withapplications in programming and computer science. Understanding the implications of our use of computers is especially important to bring to the K-12 environment where students are forming life-time habits around the use and possible misuse of computing applications of all kinds.

I am also pleased to see the update of item six to eliminate the dated terms of mainframe, minicomputer and microcomputer along with the removal of 7. an ability to use basic applications, as those specific applications of interest will be changing with the times. Another improvement is the removal of the word "structured" in the specification of which languages should be learned, as there are those that are useful today that may not be considered structured.

I do have some concern about the addition of design into the new item number 5. I think this gives the impression that students with a bachelor's degree who are going out to teach in K-12 need to know how to design a programming language and this is a topic more appropriate to a graduate program.

CommentID: 42506