Author: Doug Bergman

DougBergman_copyDoug Bergman (@dougbergmanUSA) Charleston, South Carolina Doug is a Computer Science teacher at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina. He’s been teaching 20+ years, the majority of that in Computer Science. He has lived, traveled, worked, taught, and been a student in schools all over the world. Since his first day of teaching, Doug has led hands-on project-based classes simply because it made sense. The best way to describe his classes would be “structured, but slightly chaotic with a side order of energy.” He has but one simple goal- to get students interested in and excited about Computer Science. Ok, he actually has one more goal: to get the world to accept and understand why Computer Science should be part of the entire K-12 educational experience. Doug feels that we have to be preparing students to be creators of technology tools and digital solutions, not simply users of technology. The leaders of the digital world are those boys and girls, soon to be men and women, who are in command of technology. Doug believes in pushing the envelope in every way, both by the teacher as well as the students. That environment promotes students to be leaders of their own learning with the teacher as guide to help them reach their goals. He’s been recognized with awards from Microsoft, NCWIT, and NAIS. He’s a frequent presenter at conferences, as well as a passionate BLOGger (www.innovativeteacher.org‘).

Read all posts from Doug Bergman below.
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Doug Bergman: STEM- No Longer an All-Boys Club

Published by Doug Bergman

by Doug Bergman Expert Educator Columnist, USA Congratulations to hundreds of girls around the country who have just been recognized by NCWIT( National Council for Women in Technology) at the national and state level for their accomplishments and participation in Computer Science. In my state of South Carolina, 5 of the 12 awards were our Porter-Gaud girls! We are very proud! I am so honored to be part of a Computer Science program that values having females as integral members. In my first year teaching at Porter-Gaud there were exactly ZERO females in my advanced classes. I think one reason why females have not been attracted to Computer Science is because it is oftentimes seen as an all-boys club. What girl wants to be the only one on the class? I can see that. And traditionally, for whatever reason, the public face for Computer Science has been seen as predominantly male. Although if we dive deeper, we find that females have played a significant part in getting us to where we are today—they just don’t …

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Doug Bergman: Changing of the Nerd

Published by Doug Bergman

by Doug Bergman Expert Educator Columnist, USA Finally being a nerd is cool. Being a nerd is marketable, profitable, and even sexy. There was a time where access to electronic and digital tools was just not possible. There was a time where obtaining information was not something you or I could reasonably do; the cost of gadgets and digital equipment was so high that only elite scientists and large corporations could afford it. The world of science, research, and discovery was just not possible for the layman. But over the last few decades, our world had changed. You can send in a swab and get a DNA analysis in 2 weeks. Most people have more electronic gadgetry in their houses than the US Government had total in 1945. My phone can analyze my brainwaves while I sleep. Your wristwatch has more capacity than the computers that helped get us to the moon. We’ve gotten better at manufacturing, which means the quality and quantity of instruments, toys, tools, and gadgets are better, cheaper, and easier to …

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Doug Bergman: Hour of Code

Published by Doug Bergman

by Doug Bergman Expert Educator Columnist, USA What an exciting time to be alive and in Computer Science! Ahh yes….Computer Science…..but I bet many of you do not know what Computer Science really is? Surprisingly, most of the world does not have a real understanding of what Computer Science is. “….What?! Sure we do. Of course we do. We hear it all the time. We took typing classes in high school and  classes on spreadsheets and word processing and desktop publishing…We know what it is!…….” Uhm….no….. What I mean by that is if we hear the word ‘biology” we at least know what discipline deals with. We know  one of the tools of biology is the microscope and we know that we’ll study plants and animals. And we took a class or two related to it. When we hear the word “math”, we know some of the concepts of math are addition, algebra, geometry, and even calculus. We know some of the tools of math are formulas, algorithms, calculators, and rulers.  And we took a …

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Doug Bergman: The Value of and Need for Computer Science

Published by Doug Bergman

by Doug Bergman Expert Educator Columnist, USA How many times have you been using an app on your phone and it did not work quite like you wanted? How many times have you been with your friends and someone said, “They should make an app for that”? How many times have you complained about the location and functions of the buttons on your smartphone? How many times has the software program you are using not been able to do what you wanted—or worse –you just could not figure it out?  What options did you have? Stop using it. Try another program or buy another device. What you are experiencing is called being a consumer of technology.   It’s not a bad thing, in fact we need folks like that to use and buy the things that the “creators” make. That’s the difference: users vs creators. We need more creators.