South Carolina is poised to be a national leader in computing education. South Carolina already has a CS requirement for all high school students.  Their students take more AP CS than many comparably-sized states.  They have a significant industry buy-in to improve computing, through the creation of IT-oLogy – a private-sector organization with a goal of improving IT education in South Carolina.

On November 8 and 9, we will hold a summit to consider the national landscape for computing education, and how South Carolina can provide all its students with opportunities for careers and entrepreneurship in computing technologies. Teachers and policy makers will join together to learn effective strategies that can help students prepare for the projected increase in jobs requiring knowledge of computing. 

Friday, November 8 will focus on public policy for computing education in South Carolina, where guest speakers will present the efforts to reform computing at the national level and in specific states (such as Georgia, Massachusetts, and Maryland). We will then ask, "What can we do in South Carolina to be a national leader in computing education?" On Saturday, November 9, discussions will focus on the curriculum for computing education in South Carolina. Dale Reed from Chicago will tell us how they adopted "Exploring CS" to match Chicago's needs, and panels from South Carolina will consider what we need to do to implement new curricula here. This summit is sponsored by IT-oLogy, the University of South Carolina, and the National Science Foundation's Expanding Computing Education Pathways alliance. 

Find a recap of the Summit on this blog post: http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/169855-a-summit-on-computing-education-in-south-carolina/fulltext

Read the Op-Ed on the Summit and computing education in South Carolina, published by The State: http://www.thestate.com/2013/11/04/3072028/buell-emard-summit-can-help-make.html

An article covering this event, Should Everyone Learn Computer Programming? is available here: http://www.free-times.com/news/111313-should-everyone-learn-computer-programming

For more details on the Summit: http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=e5115920e8fdb8151eed36c68&id=aac7569bc9&e=