Tuesday, July 4, 2017

What does CSed Community 2.0 look like?

One of the main goals in our code.org PD is to build a CS community.  I think that happens at TeacherCons and at week-long PD.

But, the big question is, what next?!


  1. How do we sustain this community?
  2. Where do we continue to build these connections?  Twitter?  A forum?
  3. What does the community need to be successful?
  4. What are the goals of our community?

... alright, this is reminding me of KSTF's systems frame work...

(after a bit of Google Drive Digging)


I love the quote I got from a KSTF meeting a year back that "each system is uniquely designed to get the exact result it is getting".  I certainly need to unpack the system here for our CSed community on a national and local scale.  I'm writing that on my "blog-to-dos" now...

I still think the model of an inclusive ed community comes from MTBoS.  I really think the success of MTBoS has come from a few rock stars just rocking.  They blog and share their experiences really freely.  They take risks in their classrooms and share the results.

In talking with one of the participants at the Upperline Training, he mentioned that CSTA feels really inaccessible to many teachers.  It is expensive.  Even presenting at CSTA is cost-prohibitive for a lot of teachers which MAY result in having less strong sessions.

I look at MTBoS's solution to not having a space to celebrate their community in Twitter Math Camp.  It is wildly successful.  CS needs to get the right "whos" in place, but I think we could get there.

Right now, we are just trying to build capacity and get more CS teachers, but once we have CS teachers, how do we continue to support them?  It takes a bit of time, but how can we amplify voices of CS teachers and draw them into the community?

I would love to see CS have their own "CS" Twitter Camp as a place to build their national community.  I suppose the first place to start is local.  Right now, one other teacher and myself meet up monthly to talk about our classrooms. It is an awesome collaborative time.  I have learned a lot from him (and hopefully he has learned something from me).

My goal next year: To open this up wider.  Invite more teachers to grab a drink and talk about CS ed.  If I can do one in the fall and one in the spring, that would be awesome.  I think I want to focus on HS CS teachers at the moment, but I certainly want to grow it from there.


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