Resources for Programming Teachers

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There are a couple of very useful resources for high school computer science teachers that are not as well known as they should be. If you are a high school teacher I strongly recommend them to you. If you know a high school computer science teacher, please, pass these on.

  • MainFunction.com – MainFunction is a community web site for computer science teachers. It is loaded with resources. These include a set of online web forums for asking and answering questions, a curriculum center with several complete course curriculums, and a resource center with a large collection of helpful materials like projects, articles and references materials.
  • MSDN Academic Alliance – MSDN AA is a program to provide Visual Studio .NET for schools. The high school membership provides Visual Studio for every educational computer in the building and allows students to take it home to install. It’s all for $299 for everything.
  • Coding 4 Fun – Coding 4 Fun is primarily designed for the hobbyist programmer but it can also be a great resource for people looking to keep their advanced students occupied.  
  • J# Academic Resources – The J# team has assembled a bunch of resources for teachers who want to teach the Java language using Visual Studio .NET and J#. Among other things there is a Marine Biology case study project for use with the AP CS curriculum, educational code samples and a free book.
  • J# FAQ for AP CS Teachers – A little list I put together a while ago for teachers interested in J# for teaching AP CS.

I’ll blog about more resources from time to time but these are, I think, especially good. The MSDN AA program is really wonderful for acquiring software while the community at MainFunction is just loaded with helpful resources and information. Pass it on!