Last up we have paper sessions, which include experience reports and lightening talks. Probably won't write as much on this - I'm a little SIGCSE posted out. One interesting note was a semi-recurring theme of "the hidden curriculum." I say semi-recurring because while it appeared in three sessions I attended - two experience reports and one lightening talk, each time, the speakers were referring to a different "hidden curriculum."

I generally enjoy both panels and special sessions at SIGCSE over paper sessions. Don't get me wrong, paper sessions can be great but with those you can always read the paper and all to frequently there's not a lot of value added beyond the paper itself. Panels and special sessions can't just be read in the proceedings. For one panel session I had to choose between Enduring Lessons from ‘Computer Science for All’ for AI Education in Schools

I saw three keynotes, I also went to three Birds of a Feather sessions (BOFS). Three was possible as SIGCSE added a third "flock" this year. I didn't take notes since BOFS should be pretty interactive so I won't be able to give too much in terms of content summaries bu hopefully I'll be able to convey the gist of what went on. Two of the BOFS I attended were good, the third was, if I'm to be honest, pretty awful.

I wrote about the first keynote in my day 1 post. Today I'll talk about two more. There were two additional keynotes during luncheons but I didn't attend those. First up was Jane Plane titled "Find Your Drop and Add to the River." Strong keynote but it spoke to me in a very different way than the first keynote. The first keynote was maybe the first talk I've heard by someone thought of as an education expert who actually spoke the measured truth rather than eduspeak propaganda.

We stayed an extra day in Portland to do some site seeing. I'll write about the tourist side in my final SIGCSE2024 post. Right now, we're back in the hotel resting before dinner so I thought I'd start the next part of my SIGCSE2024 report. For Day one's first session, I attended Colleen Lewis's Microteaching session. I've wrote about this session last year and also about Colleen's recent appearance on the CSEd podcast where she discussed manipulatives.

Last time I was in Portland Oregon was March 2020. Came in for SIGCSE - the big CS Education conference. Got in a couple of days early, played tourist, and then morning of, everything was canceled. Flew back to NYC on a near empty jet and Covid became very, very real. March 2024 and I'm back in Portland and SIGCSE's giving it another go. This time I came out with my daughter Batya who's developed an interest in CS education and my wife Devorah who's been playing tourist while we've been conferencing.

Time to wrap up the SIGCSE 2023 posts. Overall a great conference. The exhibits room was felt a little sparse but from an attendee point of view, not a big deal. Lots of great sessions and got to spend a lot of time with some great people. My only semi-serious complaint would be that this year, sessions were an all or nothing - that is, there were time slots where I wanted to attend two or three sessions and then others where very little appealed to me.

The final session I wanted to talk about was Nifty Assignments. Nifty has gone from a session that went through the approval process each year until it's popularity ended up with it being a regularly scheduled part of the show. It used to be my favorite session but it's slipped behind "It seemed like a good idea at the time" and a couple of others this year - including "Microteaching.

Okay, back to SIGCSE. Next up, a session titled Microteaching run by Colleen Lewis. Here's the paper: link. Unfortunately, the paper doesn't do the session justice as the paper briefly describes a small amount of CS subject matter that each session presenter was going to "teach." By "teach," I mean, do a 7 minute mock version of the lesson for the attendees. That's all fine and good but the thrust wasn't really the actual CS content but how it was delivered.

Next up was a session called Pedagogical Innovations. Good stuff but not really pedagogy. Maybe curricular innovations would have been a better title. The third session was about virtual summer camps - I had to skip out for that but here's what went on in the first two sessions. The first session involved professors from Oregon State working with middle school teachers teaching CS through the use of classic physical games.