The lesson plans and other materials, which can be downloaded from the CSTA Web page or from IBM's Academic Initiative Program, offer courses in object-oriented design using the video game Pong and Java programming concepts; Web page design and development, including how to identify the target population for a Web site and use storyboarding as a tool for building sites; and a project-based learning module intended for use as a professional development resource for teachers.

Cheryl Davis, a computer programming and business teacher at Winona High School in Winona, Minn., participated in the pilot project and said she is pleased with the additional resources the initiative is providing to high schools. "They have strong emphasis on storyboarding" a Web site, she said. "It's a fun thing for the kids to do ... so the kids get very involved. The kids see it as, 'This isn't just math and science stuff, this isn't just coding stuff.'

"The problem in the U.S. ... is that the numbers of students in high schools going into computer science -- or even math or science -- [is] dropping dramatically, particularly [for] girls," Davis said. "If I can get hold of them, they get really excited about computer programming."

The other schools involved in last fall's pilots were Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va.; Sumner Academy of Science in Kansas City, Kansas; and Westlake High School in Waldorf, Md. The two universities that did teacher testing of the courses were the University of Windsor in Ontario and California State University at Chico.

The CSTA is a division of the Association for Computing Machinery, which is an educational and scientific society for computing educators, researchers and professionals around the globe.