Hello and Welcome to the Computer Science Educators.SE website/chatroom! :)

cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/1

Congrats @vk2015t! Your proposal made it into private beta now let's see if it will make it out! :)

Congrats @Aurora0001 on being the first MOD to enter the room! :)

Proposal Computer Science Educators Complete.

@Aurora0001 So how is the site?

I do this on every newly lauched beta site chat.

@kenorb See^

nice

LOL

@kenorb Are you in?

Yep, randomly

Like a ghost

Hello World!

Seeing that this site made private beta made my day, I'm so glad that I'm a part of this and I hope the site goes all the way to being full site!

Yes

@thesecretmaster So how are things as a teacher?

@HenryWHHackv2.0 Well, being called a teacher makes me feel like an imposter because I'm technically a student but I actually teach web development and Java. Things are good, my year is winding down, only a few weeks left before summer break. How are you?

Oh ok

@thesecretmaster Good

@thesecretmaster since you're so enthusiastic about the site, could you explain to me why there needs to be a separate site about teaching computer science, and another site about computer science (including the teaching thereof)?

I think he is asking why do we need this site if we already have:

@Gilles Well, I think that teaching comp sci and doing comp sci are different skills. I'm not on the regular comp sci site, but I'd presume that it's focused on doing comp sci rather than teaching it. "How can I teach VCS" is very different from "Explain VCS to me", which is why we need a dedicated site for teaching.

@Gilles So are you interested in the site or are you against it?

@thesecretmaster I don't understand why that requires a dedicated site

It's true that there are few questions about teaching on Computer Science. But that's a chicken and egg problem.

Questions about teaching are not rejected in any way, it's just that there aren't many of them.

Now you are pointing at something that may justify this site: Computer Science doesn't like questions about programming and about general computer usage.

And VCS is not computer science.

If this site creates much more and higher quality Q&A about teaching than the regular comp sci site, then it seems like this is a good thing. If this site doesn't pan out, then it'll get shut down or won't make it out of beta.

It seems from the questions I'm seeing here that this site isn't just about computer science educators but about teaching computers and computing

So you'd phrase it "Computer Educators"?

@thesecretmaster No, there's another suboptimal outcome: creating a needlessly fragmented set of communities.

With each viable on their own, but not benefiting from any synergies.

I don't understand why there's a site for teaching math, now a site for teaching computers/computing/computer science, tomorrow a site for teaching physics or music or what have you

Why not a general site about teaching?

@Gilles Ah good think.

It isn't a fight I want to get involved in, because I'm not a teacher, I haven't done any teaching for years and I'm unlikely to do teaching in the foreseeable future. But I just don't understand why each discipline wants its own teaching site and refuses to talk to other people.

@Gilles Because there are techniques that are specific to each field, and the techniques are specialized to the extant that a master site doesn't make sense. Also, it's just the way SE has evolved. The sites grow with the need for them.

@thesecretmaster That's what tags are for.

The right site for a Stack Exchange site is typically that of an academic department.

So: math, computer science, teaching...

not teaching of math, teaching of computer science, etc.

But from the point that we are at now, what do you suggest? Merge all teaching sites? I wouldn't mind that, but that would be a long complicated process, no?

However...

Teaching of programming doesn't work well on Stack Overflow. There is a moderation problem on Stack Overflow.

And so this site fills the gap, no?

So I do see why there would be a need for a site for questions about teaching programming, that would be a bit technical for a general teaching site.

I'd prefer if SO got its act on, but realistically I doubt it can happen.

It could be tried on Software Engineering, with the caveat that the site is full of professionals who couldn't teach their grandmother to suck eggs.

Exactly! Teaching and doing are very different things.

@thesecretmaster I disagree about this.

In a way, as an engineer (I've been a professional programmer for a while), I do a lot of teaching.

I have to do a lot of explaining things, getting the right amount of detail to neither lose my audience nor leave them more ignorant than they should be.

Yeah, but teaching 1 or 2 people is different from teaching in a classroom with a curriculum.

@thesecretmaster Yes. Absolutely.

But the differences between teaching programming to one person and teaching programming to a class of 30, are pretty much the same as if you were teaching anything else.

Sure, there'll be a few specifics about how you use computers and so on... but it isn't a fundamentally different discipline.

I see what you're saying, but when class size grows, you have to be much more presice and specific with what you're saying and you have to be very careful about when you introduce concepts and ideas to avoid messing up your students. An english teacher couldn't give advise on how to teach a class what OO is. A comp sci teacher couldn't advise on how to teach shakespeare.

Then why aren't vim and emacs and iot and retrocomputing parts of SO?

@thesecretmaster most questions on Vi and Vim and on Emacs are user questions, not programmer questions. So the question is why they aren't parts of Super User

One answer is that the SO-type questions do constitute a significant minority, so Vi and Emacs questions have tended to be spread over many sites

Either way. IDE questions are welcome on SO, why not vim and emacs? But that's a different argument.

Another is that SU is too broad.

I'm not a fan of Emacs as a separate site, for all I heavily participate there.

But it does give us a huge advantage: no moderation headaches.

Seriously, Emacs is one of the calmest sites. Nothing like SO and SU!

I do (sort of) agree with you about a general teaching site, but site like this emerge because there is a perceived need for them. There are people who want to write answers. If you want a teaching site, go and propose it! I'll support it. But until then, subject specific teaching sites are simply the reality. Unless you suggest a way of merging, that's what we have.

@thesecretmaster I would if I was personally involved in teaching.

Actual teaching, I mean, not on-the-sidelines one-on-one teaching

Merging existing sites is hard

Communities never want to talk with those guys who are ever so slightly different from us :(

The thing is, I'm not the most qualified to really talk about the differences between teaching different subjects because I've been teaching for about a year. I've had 1 class, about once a month with 10 kids.

Everything you're saying makes sense, but I don't get where you're get that this site shouldn't exist.

How about taking it to meta?

That what we always do on SE take it to meta.

done.

Ok not yet but

No maybe it doesn't make sense to take it to meta.

@thesecretmaster Should it be taken the meta?

@kenorb^

I'd like to hear someone more experienced weigh in here before we do that.