Author: Ben Wilkoff

Tolerance is not enough: When I was in high school, we had a “diversity day” every year. During this day, we had many different speakers come and talk about their different viewpoints. The effort was to ensure that we did not get stuck in our little bubble (which was formidable …

Debugging is about more than just programming and algorithms: I really love your approach to teaching kids algorithms and getting them to stick with their plans long enough to see their first implementations before changing them. I think the skill of understanding WHY something didn’t work is the most important …

When is Substitution the right choice for teachers (in the SAMR model): I struggle with this idea and I go back and forth on the merits of substitution. You have made the case for it, and I think it holds. And yet, the point of looking beyond substitution is so …

When is Substitution the right choice for teachers (in the SAMR model): I struggle with this idea and I go back and forth on the merits of substitution. You have made the case for it, and I think it holds. And yet, the point of looking beyond substitution is so …

A wonderful story of leadership and advocating for teachers: This paragraph is an amazing example of how the classroom can change in subtle ways and have a transformational impact upon students: “When I walk into a classroom and the teacher has a ‘mystery bag” on the counter and is using …

Sometimes we can simply look outside our windows and be inspired to take part in a collaborative learning experience. I really like the way in which you have woven in the connectedness of hashtags and online communities into the connectedness of being a part of the same climate. Your imagery …

Because these comments were left on Medium (a platform that lets you comment by paragraph rather than whole post), the context for them may be a little hard to follow. However, this is an important article about the gender politics of programming. This “beginner” part is really tough. It is …