In August of 2007, TJ student Greg Gates approached our principal, Karen Kenna, with an unique idea- computer science classes for her students. Initially the idea was received with open arms and a little skepticism. After all, who else in Fairfax County (VA) was doing anything like what we were about to undertake? Fred Allard, the school technology specialist, was introduced to Greg Gates and a wonderful mentorship began.

The first research question proposed by Greg Gates was, "how young is too young to start teaching children how to program?" Through the Senior Research initiative at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Greg was challenged with learning how students learn and how to teach. Greg's initial research pointed in the direction of Logo and Squeak, two impressive programming domains. Scratch was introduced as a happy medium~ one with a child-like interface. Mr. Allard's objective broadened once the true power of Scratch was revealed. Randy Latimer, Systems Lab Director, assisted with lesson design according to the ACM K-12 Computer Science Model Curricula.

In the second year, three students following in Greg's footsteps continued to explore the pedagogy of instructional design and distance learning models. The number of students doubled and all grade levels were well represented. Mr. Allard's focus upon research-based project design led to an interesting discovery: game design theory through structured activities. Not only were students engaged in learning...they wanted to come to class to learn organizational skills with EDraw MindMap 4 [freeware]. TJ students Crystal Noel and Jessica Gorman explored student learning in grades 1 and 2. TJ student Paul Im contributions included Tandberg videoconferencing and self-created Scratch tutorials. Distance learning models centered around a second elementary school, Forestdale, and their technology teacher, Liz Caligiuri. ooVoo provided a free web conferencing software between our two schools that excited our students based upon error-free transmissions. In response to questions posed on our FCPS 24/7 Blackboard Scratch site, our students collaborated on group projects and solved complex programming problems. Lesson design is structured upon FCPS Program of Studies and Virginia's Standards of Learning for Science, Math, and Language Arts.

In our third year, seniors Amanga Gilbert and Nick Grippin will explore Scratch in the K-3 classrooms and Alice in the 4-6 classrooms. Alice is a tranistion program for later introduction to Python in the Spring of 2010. The program emphasis this year will be upon exploring new strategies for reaching struggling writers~with Alice, that is.