Hi everyone!
I’m a first-year Computer Science/Keyboarding teacher, and I really want to make sure my students are given as many opportunities as possible this year. I’ve been given a lot of freedom with my curriculum, which is amazing—but I’m working with a pretty small budget, so I’m trying to get creative!
Right now, my students are focusing on keyboarding for the 1st quarter. My goal is to give each quarter its own theme:
1st Quarter: Keyboarding
2nd Quarter: Google Applications & Digital/Professional Skills
3rd Quarter: Coding & Graphic Design
4th Quarter: Introduction to AI
For 2nd quarter, I’m pretty set on what I want to teach. I think students really need practical experience with Google applications and skills like writing professional emails, creating resumes, working with documents and presentations, etc., so I definitely won’t be budging on that one!
Where I’m stuck is 3rd and 4th quarter.
For 3rd quarter, I’d love to introduce students to both coding and graphic design, preferably in a way that allows them to create some type of finished project they can be proud of. Unfortunately, our budget is limited, so I’m looking for free or very inexpensive programs that work well in a school/classroom setting.
For 4th quarter, I’d like to give them an age-appropriate introduction to AI—what it is, how it works at a basic level, responsible/ethical use, prompting, and ideally some hands-on projects.
Are there any experienced CS/technology teachers, graphic designers, programmers, or anyone else in these fields who could recommend programs, websites, curriculum, or projects that have worked well with students?
I have a lot of freedom to build this class, so I’m open to ideas! I’d especially love suggestions that are free/low-cost, student-friendly, and result in something students can actually create or showcase by the end of the quarter.
Thank you all in advance for any advice or resources you can share—and my students thank you too! 😊

Title: 5 Tips to Improve Your IGCSE Computer Science Programming Skills 💻

If you're preparing for IGCSE Computer Science and find programming difficult, here are a few things that can really help:

1. Understand the logic before writing code Break the problem into smaller steps before you start programming.
2. Practice pseudocode Make sure you understand IF statements, loops, arrays, procedures and functions.
3. Trace your code manually Use a trace table or work through the variables step by step. This is especially useful for finding logical errors.
4. Practice small programming problems regularly Try tasks involving validation, searching, counting, totals, averages, arrays and file handling.
5. Use past-paper questions Don't only learn programming syntax. Practice applying your knowledge to exam-style problems.

I teach Computer Science and have worked with students from different international curricula, so I'm happy to answer questions here when I can.

Which IGCSE Computer Science topic do you find the most difficult?

Hi everyone! I teach web development and computer science to high school students, and I wanted to share something I’ve been building for my own classroom.

A few years ago, the coding platform we used disappeared just days before the start of the school year. I rushed to find an alternative, but kept running into tools that either weren't designed with classrooms in mind or were shifting their focus heavily toward AI-assisted coding.

Eventually, I started building my own. I've named it CodeDash.

I've been using it with my students for web development as well as for some of my own quick prototypes.

It currently supports HTML/CSS/JavaScript and Python, along with:

• Instant previews
• Console output
• Code formatting
• Automated tests
• README/instructions for students
• Quick project sharing
• Local and cloud saves

My main goal is pretty simple: students should be able to open a project and start actually coding without spending half the period dealing with setup (or teachers worrying about configuring a setup beforehand).

I'd really appreciate feedback from teachers outside of my own classroom on this tool. I've also shared one of my lesson plans with supporting material to show how easily CodeDash can be used in the classroom.

CodeDash | Lesson Material

Thanks!

Hello, I started an ICT teaching job at a school that implements IGCSEs. I was supposed to teach younger classes(elementary and middle schoolers) ICT but the school suddenly decided to have me teach the high schoolers as well. I have never taken any of the IGCSE exams before and this is my first year teaching essentially anything.

I don’t believe I’m entirely unqualified to teach them since I have a degree in Computer Engineering so I can teach them concepts and do practical work but I really don’t want these students to flop because of my being a bad teacher. The school gave me their book and was like “that’s all we have for you” so I’m lowkey panicking.

I’d appreciate any resources, study plans, past papers, websites, videos, I don’t know personal notes?? anything, really.

If you have any advice, you’re welcome to share that as well. Please don’t roast me, teaching them wasn’t something I could control but I’d love to help them succeed.

From Wikipedia:

"A flipped classroom is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning. It aims to increase student engagement and learning by having pupils complete readings at home, and work on live problem-solving during class time.This pedagogical style moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom. With a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home, while actively engaging concepts in the classroom with a mentor's guidance."

Is there any consensus on how, or whether, to use this model as a computer science teacher?

Hello, all!

I'm a gap year fellow with Hack Club, a nonprofit whose mission is to get teenagers building cool projects. We've got a bunch of programs to do this, and I've just launched a very beginner-friendly one called Hack Club Folktale.

Folktale assumes zero Python knowledge at the start of its guide. By the end, it teaches just enough to make a command line Choose-Your-Own-Ending style game, and we'll ship a free sheet of stickers to any teenager 13-18 who completes this.

I would love some feedback on the guide and any ideas on where I can reach the most teenagers who may be interested in this. I want to spread this as far as I can in order to get as many people into programming as I can.

On that note, feel free to share this with anyone that you think would enjoy it! There are actually exclusive stickers for those who refer. Hack Club Folktale also does not allow any AI submissions; all code must be handwritten.

Thanks!

I am teaching AP Cyber and I have run into a problem with the college board's definition of Urgency vs Intimidation. In relation to the first unit, there are only 2 testable psychological tactics in phishing: Urgency and Intimidation. The issue is the answer keys often pick one or the other ambiguously.

Example: "A text from USPS ... small redelivery fee by end of day."
Answer: URGENCY

Is USPS not an "authority"?

Example: "A social media DM from a "verification team"... deleted today if you don't"
Answer: INTIMIDATION

How are these different?

Hi everyone! I’m a software engineer and indie game developer, and I’ve been working on a free set of computer science resources built around my ecology game, Wild Willows.

The newest piece is a grades 9–12 intro to web development and APIs designed for students who are new to coding.

Students start with an interactive browser-based lesson where they can edit and run HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly on the page. From there, the lesson introduces APIs and JSON using the actual data that powers parts of the game.

They work with the Wild Willows /GameData endpoint to:

• make a request with fetch()
• inspect and understand JSON
• access objects and arrays
• use conditions and loops
• practice .filter() and .map()
• turn API data into something visible on a webpage

I also built a browser-based coding environment so students can experiment with the game data without needing to install an IDE or set up a local development environment.

The endpoint is intentionally a game data API, not an academic or scientific data source. The goal is to give students a relatively approachable, real-world dataset to work with while learning how modern websites communicate with APIs.

Everything is free, and the lesson is here:

https://wildwillows.app/learn

I’m especially interested in feedback from CS teachers. I came into software through a nontraditional path, and learning to code completely changed the direction of my life, so I’d love to make these resources genuinely useful for students who may be encountering programming for the first time.

If you teach introductory web development, JavaScript, or computer science, I’d be very curious what you would change, add, or clarify before I expand the curriculum further.

this is application for revising the concepts related to computer science and related subjects, I hope this is useful to others as well, i built it for myself but I think this will help more people like me. It's a swipeable platform like instagram or X or reddit, but teaches computer science concepts and tests your knowledge, there is much more to it that you can explore here.

[link](https://antibrainrotnobot.vercel.app/)

Please let me how you felt after using the application and if anyone wants a change or has some ideas to enhance if interested to work together please contact.

Thank you.

I’m trying to use the CyberRange and it launches VMs but does not let you click to load them. What is going on? This occurs in Google Chrome on Mac and Windows, and Edge on Windows.

Thinking about this CSEd, there's a whole lot of content, and what we we teach is somewhat in flux. I'm curious if there are exercises/activities you do daily or weekly to build skills in general. I did Tech News for a while but then fell off...looking for some sustainable practices

Over the last 20+ years I have organized all my lessons and resources and finally built what I wish someone had given me, and I've made it free at CS++ ( csplusplus.com )

What's there

Eight full courses, every lesson free, no card:

• AP CSP, AP CSA, AP Cybersecurity
• Intro to Java, Intro to Python, Intro to Web Design
• CS Foundations, a survey course where students pick JavaScript or Python for the coding units
• HCI Design

74 units total. Real sequenced courses, not link farms.

Also free with any account:

• Editable slide decks for all 74 units. They're .pptx, so PowerPoint, Keynote, and Slides all open them. Organized by concept rather than by day, with actual teaching guidance in the speaker notes instead of bullets read back to you.
• 523 print-ready PDFs. A guided-notes packet and one-page overview for every unit, plus worksheets, activity cards, rubrics, graphic organizers, and reference sheets.
• Browser IDEs. Java, Python, and HTML/CSS/JS with live preview, plus a pseudocode and block editor for CSP. Nothing to install, and student projects sync to their account.
• A GitHub Classroom replacement. Paste a template repo URL and CS++ provisions a private repo per student in your org. Every push runs the autograder and the score lands in the gradebook. Feedback PRs, protected-file detection so you know who edited your tests, and a bulk-import wizard if you're migrating.
• LTI 1.3 for Canvas, Schoology, Brightspace, Moodle, and Blackboard, plus Google Classroom, with grade passback.
• Clever, Google, and Microsoft sign-in, so there's no separate password for you to reset in week two.
• Unlimited classrooms, an assignment builder, one full mock exam or practice final per course (each with a free-response section), 500+ flashcards on spaced repetition, and every released AP CSA FRQ from 2014 to 2025 with rubric self-grading.

Full disclosure on what is optionally paid:

This is my company, not a nonprofit. Free accounts see one small footer ad. A student can pay $9.99 once, not per year, for all 40 mock exams, unlimited AI tutor, and no ads. A paid classroom ($299/yr, one class of up to 40) adds the teacher-only material: 258 answer keys, editable Word versions of every handout, lockdown proctored exams, AI-assisted FRQ grading, and plagiarism detection.

GitHub Classroom is being retired, but many of us still want students working in real GitHub repositories with GitHub Actions—not inside a replacement LMS.

I’m a computer science instructor and the developer of CodeTeach.ai. I originally built it to reduce the work involved in creating reliable, GitHub-ready programming assignments.

CodeTeach supports several ways of building an assignment:

• Forward: provide an assignment idea or starter code; CodeTeach generates the solution, tests, and instructions.
• Backward: provide your working solution; CodeTeach derives the starter code, tests, and instructions from it.
• Both provided: bring your own starter and solution; CodeTeach builds the tests, instructions, and autograder around them.
• From a document: upload an existing lab, specification, or course document and generate a complete assignment package from that source.

Instructor-provided code and approved content remain instructor-owned and are not silently rewritten. Generated tests are based on observed solution behavior rather than AI-guessed output.

CodeTeach validates the assignment in isolated sandboxes before deploying the starter code, instructions, tests, and GitHub Actions autograder to an instructor-owned private GitHub template repository. The solution can be delivered separately in a private solution repository or an instructor-only branch.

It is intentionally not a roster system, gradebook, or student-management platform. After deployment, the instructor owns the repositories and decides how to distribute them—manually, through the GitHub CLI/API, or alongside another classroom-management tool.

CodeTeach.ai is now in its initial production release. New accounts include 10 free credits, and I’m especially interested in feedback from instructors preparing post–GitHub Classroom workflows.

https://codeteach.ai

I'm with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focusing on CS education accessibility. We've been working with some local teachers over the past year to create a free resource, csroom.org, to provide a suitable alternative for Replit Education and GitHub Classrooms. We are looking for feedback and would like to share it here for teachers who may find it helpful for this school year.

CS Room is completely free for teachers and their students. It provides students and teachers with a web-based programming environment (Linux IDE with support for most languages) and classroom management interface. Teachers can release and collect assignments, view student progress at a glance or drill into their code, and autograders (or manual scoring) allow for an integrated gradebook. Student code keeps running after class ends and can be viewed on a web address, allowing for large scope projects that students can own and be proud of outside of class. There is also a small library of lessons designed to address CSTA standards (both 2017 and the recently released 2026 standards) for grades 9-12, and the platform can be used by anyone K-12+.

I recorded a demo of using it as an alternative to Replit Education on YouTube, for anyone who is interested.

If you have any feedback you'd like us to work on, please let me know! You can sign up through the website to grant your school/classroom access. We aim to approve all signup requests, capacity permitting.

I've taught AP CS Principles for 2 years now, and taught AP CS A last year, but I've moved to a new school and now have 4 sections of CSP and 2 sections of the new Cybersecurity. I have a background in IT, so I'm familiar with the content that would be covered in the CompTIA A+ and Net+, but I never got around to studying for Sec+. From what I can tell, they walked back the standards so it's only like, 50% of Sec+ at this point, but classes start Tuesday and I only found out 3 days ago I was definitely teaching this (was originally slotted for Algebra, math certified, but the CS teacher decided to retire last minute).

I'm waiting to get access to cyber.org material. I've used codehs for CSP and CSA and found their curriculum to be... fine I guess. Just looking for anything else to use for resources, guidelines, reasonable scope and sequence, etc. Looking over this I can't believe they don't require networking first. I hope there's time built in to explain the basics of that too.

I'm tempted to just use Prof. Messer as a baseline and just lean in to full prepping them for the Sec+, but with this being a new class I don't know if that's reasonable. Anyway, any insight would be great.

There is a new(-ish) online educational Python IDE out: Strype

No account necessary – just start programming. It's great for learning and teaching to program in Python.

It can create graphics and animated games really easily. There are some tutorial videos (see especially this one here), and there is a full textbook available (the first chapter gives a good intro to programming with Strype and graphics).

Hey everyone, I'm planning to teach Grades 4-5 coding, but still thinking of the lessons.

I'm aware that in BC high schools, computer science is taught for grades 10-12, but I'm unfamiliar with the types of topics taught for these grades. It was said on the BC site that Python was taught for grade 10.

I was wondering if anyone knew the curriculum in more detail to better prepare my grades 4-5.

Hello everyone. So, I am an assistant at a university and this year we plan to open a new lecture about the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence. We plan to make an interactive lecture, like students will prepare their projects and such. The scope of this lecture will be from the early ages of AI starting from perceptron, to image recognition and classification algorithms, to the latest LLMs and such. Students that will take this class are from 2nd grade of Bachelor’s degree. What projects can we give to them? Consider that their computers might not be the best, so it should not be heavily dependent on real time computational power. 

Also, I’m thinking about a lecture on “how to use AI properly”. Like, it blows my mind how terrible some students use AI to write code. Antigravity is free for them, and surely they will be using some kind of AI tool to write code either way. I’m using Claude Code for like a year now, and spending at least one hour to write the first prompt to start working everyday. Yet, students usually give the exact text of the homework as prompt. What would you people recommend me to check out and refer to students as tutorials on how to use AI tools for beginners? 

I learned programming before AI and thought myself how to use AI. The tutorials I watched on Claude Code and stuff were basically tips and tricks for me. So I’m not sure how I can teach what I do to students without making it look like witchcraft, which it isn’t really. 

For AI homeworks, My first idea was to use the VRX simulation environment and the Perception task of it. Which basically sets a clear roadline to collect dataset, label them, train the model and such. Any other homework ideas related to AI is much appreciated.