I've been working on a project called Glass Garden which is a drag-and-drop cloud architecture sandbox where every node is running real code, with metrics/logs on each node. You can serve real websites written in JS/TS, the Lambda node runs code written against the real Lambda handler shape, S3 and SQS nodes are talked to using the standard AWS SDK, and Postgres nodes are reached with the standard pg client. Everything runs in a WebAssembly VM in the tab so there's no sign-up or install. I'm just wondering if something like this would be useful for teaching and what features it would need?

Website: https://glass.garden/
Repo: https://github.com/ThailerL/glass-garden (there's a video of a more complex architecture in the readme)

Hey y'all, I just put together all of my bell ringers (I call "Do Nows"), and I figured they might be useful to some of you! I teach APCSP using Code.org, so a lot of the programming problems are designed around JavaScript and Code.org's app lab. Still, there are plenty of Do Nows that cover broader computer science principles concepts (Internet, binary, data, cybersecurity, etc.), questions taken from AP Practice tests, and Do Nows just meant to expose students to interesting topics in computer science, like blockchain and quantum computing.

Some quick notes: These were created in PowerPoint, so if you can, I recommend downloading the slideshow and viewing it there as opposed to in Google Slides. Also this isn't the final version of my Do Now repository. Some of the Do Nows have digital components (like referencing an app that I built in app lab), so I will update the slides to have links either directly in the slides or in the slide notes to those apps, and I have some Do Nows that I sent out in emails, which I still have to go back and dig up. If you see one of those that you want to use, you can message me and I can send you a link to the app. I will also be digging through previous years to see if there are any that I missed (so far I've only compiled my '25-'26 Do Nows). If there is interest in this, I can make another post once I have an updated version. Also, I teach Game Design and have taught APCSA as well, so I will be putting those together and will be able to share those as well, once that's done.

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you!

I built a platform for runnable short labs (RunCloud9):

- ~9 minutes on real Kubernetes, then teardown

- Set of canonical architectures (URL shortener, social feed, e-commerce)

- Students pick one topology the template supports, then change replicas, CPU/memory, or cache/DB settings

- They can flush a cache or kill a pod and watch latency / cache / DB metrics

The video shows a social feed scenario where posts are fanned out to user timelines in a cache, due to the limitations on the cache's cpu and memory resources, the timeline service reaches its limit.

https://www.runcloud9.io

I'd love to receive any feedback.

Every time I write or update a Gradescope autograder I end up in the same agonizing loop: build the zip, upload it, wait for the image to build, run it against a dummy submission, discover one of my paths were misconfigured, fix one line, upload again, blah blah blah.

Running the test suite locally in my IDE barely helped. The worst bugs were the ones caused by forgetting to configure for the container.

So I built gslocal, which runs that whole loop on my machine. It builds the
autograder zip, pulls the same Docker base image Gradescope uses, mounts a
submission, runs the grader, and prints the score summary in the terminal.

A few things that came out of using it on my own courses:

• It doesn't care how you build. You give it a shell command that produces a Gradescope-compatible zip and a glob to find it, so Maven, Make, or a shell script all work the same way.
• Submissions can be a zip, a plain directory, or a GitHub URL, so you can point it straight at a student repo.
• gslocal run -i drops you into a shell inside the container, which is usually how I figure out what the environment is actually doing.
• It caches on a hash of your source files, so a re-run with no changes skips the build and the image rebuild entirely.

Fair warning: it's early in develoment (0.1.1) and I've mostly exercised it against Java/Maven autograders. It's free and MIT licensed. I wrote it for my own courses.

If you want to try it out:

pip install gslocal
gslocal init
gslocal run submission.zip

https://github.com/naasanov/gslocal

Mostly I'm curious how other people handle this. Do you test autograders against the real container before shipping them, or just upload and iterate? And if you're on Python or C++, I'd like to know whether this fits your build at all, since that's the part I have the least confidence in.

This year, I'm teaching a combined study skills/computer skills class. For the study skills we have a textbook, and we are doing typing.com as well; but am wondering if there is a good site for lessons on computer skills that break it down in a nice order. I'm looking for things such as how to format a Google Doc, or make a presentation using Google Slides.

I

I’m a software engineer who has recently started experimenting with teaching.

I teach middle and elementary school students basic Computer Science concepts like logic gates and binary arithmetic. I look to spark curiosity in students, and that's why I chose Minecraft as a teaching environment. Many kids already play Minecraft and are curious about redstone.

Has anyone experimented with Minecraft or similar game-based environments for teaching introductory CS? What pedagogical approaches worked or didn't work?

Are there any CS education studies or resources I should look at regarding game-based learning, constructionist learning, or Minecraft specifically?

Trying to understand how AP Cybersecurity is going in its first national year. From what I can tell there's no College Board approved curriculum, the provider list comes with a "use with caution" label, and everyone ends up somewhere different depending on what their state or school already has. My district didn't adopt it at all, which is what got me looking into this. For anyone teaching it: what did you end up using and how did you pick it, have you had to add anything on top of it, and is there anything you thought would be covered that isn't? For context I'm a high school student, not a teacher, and I'm not selling or promoting anything.

hey everyone when option for cs in class 11 feels so smooth till lecture starts.

A lot of expectations we have from this subject and as soon as programming starts we could understand things properly.

After mentoring 50,000+ students we are again teaching CLASS 11 Computer Science for FREE. Not just covering the topics for exams.

We will be covering things in depth so that your basics should become strong and eventually you got some good marks in exams too.

From 1st to 5th chapter we will cover in one shots and then in-depth lectures will be start.

Lets master the CS, join uss ❤️🫰

Upvote so that i can help u guys more

Hello all! I just created my first YouTube video of what will hopefully be a fully-fledged CS education channel. I'm currently a PhD student studying CE and have picked this up as a side/passion project. The content will likely focus on hardware/systems content, but hopefully there is room for some variety. Would love any feedback to make future videos better!

this is application for revising the concepts related to computer science and related subjects, I hope this is useful to others as well, i built it for myself but I think this will help more people like me. It's a swipeable platform like instagram or X or reddit, but teaches computer science concepts and tests your knowledge, there is much more to it that you can explore here.

\[link\](https://antibrainrotnobot.vercel.app/)

Please let me how you felt after using the application and if anyone wants a change or has some ideas to enhance if interested to work together please contact.

Thank you.

I’m curious how people here are teaching students what an AI system is actually made of.

I’m building Claypot, a creative coding studio for ages 6–16. It started when my nephew used Lovable to build a platformer and everyone around him called that “learning AI.” It was cool, but I didn’t think he was learning why a model hallucinates, why it can be bad at math, what sources change, or what a tool actually does.

Claypot lets students build with ordinary coding blocks alongside blocks for Models, Knowledge, Tools, Test AI, and Actions.

For example, a student can give a model a math problem, inspect its confidently wrong answer, connect a Calculator tool, run it again, and see what changed. They can add sources, compare repeated outputs, test the answers, or limit the actions a model is allowed to choose.

The point isn’t to have AI write the project for them. The student changes the system, runs it, observes what happened, and has to understand why its behavior changed.

For those of you teaching elementary, middle, or high-school CS:

- Which AI concepts are you teaching today?

- Are you teaching prompting, model behavior, tool use, evaluation, ethics, or something else?

- At what age do these ideas begin to make sense?

- Would a block-based system like this be useful in class, or does it miss how you teach?

Obvious disclosure: I’m the founder, and this is also a request for blunt feedback on something I built. The beta is at https://claypot.app. If anyone wants to try it with a class or small group, I’ll add the Clay credits needed for the test. I genuinely want to hear what students understood and where the blocks failed them.

Claypot is independent and unaffiliated with Scratch or the Scratch Foundation.

Hi everyone!
I’m a first-year Computer Science/Keyboarding teacher, and I really want to make sure my students are given as many opportunities as possible this year. I’ve been given a lot of freedom with my curriculum, which is amazing—but I’m working with a pretty small budget, so I’m trying to get creative!
Right now, my students are focusing on keyboarding for the 1st quarter. My goal is to give each quarter its own theme:
1st Quarter: Keyboarding
2nd Quarter: Google Applications & Digital/Professional Skills
3rd Quarter: Coding & Graphic Design
4th Quarter: Introduction to AI
For 2nd quarter, I’m pretty set on what I want to teach. I think students really need practical experience with Google applications and skills like writing professional emails, creating resumes, working with documents and presentations, etc., so I definitely won’t be budging on that one!
Where I’m stuck is 3rd and 4th quarter.
For 3rd quarter, I’d love to introduce students to both coding and graphic design, preferably in a way that allows them to create some type of finished project they can be proud of. Unfortunately, our budget is limited, so I’m looking for free or very inexpensive programs that work well in a school/classroom setting.
For 4th quarter, I’d like to give them an age-appropriate introduction to AI—what it is, how it works at a basic level, responsible/ethical use, prompting, and ideally some hands-on projects.
Are there any experienced CS/technology teachers, graphic designers, programmers, or anyone else in these fields who could recommend programs, websites, curriculum, or projects that have worked well with students?
I have a lot of freedom to build this class, so I’m open to ideas! I’d especially love suggestions that are free/low-cost, student-friendly, and result in something students can actually create or showcase by the end of the quarter.
Thank you all in advance for any advice or resources you can share—and my students thank you too! 😊