Started out today in a session titled "Keep Calm and AI on." The panel was made up of CSTA Equity Fellows. It turned out that the session wasn't what I was looking for. According to the description the panel was supposed to cover "the promise and the challenges of various artificial intelligence tools, especially generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Bard." Instead it was a general panel and discussion of the use of AI. To be frank, the session wasn't really focused on CS educators at all and could just as easily been plopped down int a PD session for any subject or grade level. Now, that's not necessarily bad but it just wasn't what I was hoping for.

The panel consisted of a number of questions where each panelist had their say and then the moderator, also a panelist solicited thoughts from the audience. The questions they asked were:

1. What ethical concerns do you have?
2. In your setting, how is AI used?
3. What's one piece of advice you'd share?
4. What work have you seen being done for AI in education?
5. What is your call to action?

The moderator ran the panel well and we got to share many points of view. Personally, I was hoping for a discussion of some specifics with using CS specific tools like copilot or issues or possibilities with applying ore general tools like ChatGPT in a CS classroom or lesson but I suspect that the panel as it went own was probably pretty valuable to a lot of people in the audience

My second session was "The Power of Words in CS Education" - another panel. As per the description, "this panel discussion aims to explore the intricacies of intercommunication and confront uncomfortable conversations" with the key word being DEI.

The questions were:

1. What comes to mind when you hear the term DEI?
2. Who can talk about DEI?
3. What issues have you had speaking your truth in this space?
4. Do we need DEI offices and spaces?
5. Who owns this space?

Due to time constraints, the panel never got to the last two quesitons (other than a quick mention of question 4 where the consensus answer in the room was "yes").

The panel was run much like the AI session I described with the panelists sharing their thoughts and then the moderator (again, also a panelist) solicited audience input and again the session was run smoothly and effectively.

I want to highlight some thoughts that came out on question 2 - who can talk about DEI as well some thoughts I had based on something one of the panelists said.

One panelist commented that anyone can talk about DEI but talk is cheap, we have to look at actions. My take is that you've got to walk the walk and thought about all the companies who crow about their DEI programs but really just pay lip service. Companies who claim they're pushing say black SWE hires but really only fight with with the other top companies to monopolize the candidates from say Stanford. They talk the talk but aren't really doing anything to improve the situation but rather they're just trying to gobble up the low hanging fruit.

Another panelist mentioned that we need white people involved but they need to know when to step back. This is a tricky one. I get it - I can't understand the life experiences, situation, or needs of say a black person in the USA and I certainly shouldn't be telling one what they should feel or what they need but on the other hand I might actually have some background where I should be stepping in in a complementary way or might be raising a relevant issue.

I'll share two personal situations where I was frozen out of a community for not "stepping back." One was a conversation with some people about the LGBTQ+ pride parade in NYC. My position was that while I'm all for the parade, I had a problem with what I saw at the parade a number of years ago - near naked people on floats essentially performing simulated sex. Apparently I wasn't stepping back. Now to me, I wasn't telling anyone in this young subset of the LGBTQ+ community how to celebrate or behave and I wasn't telling the members of this set of LBGTQ+ community members how to live their lives. I was conveying my opinion that as a parent I really didn't want to have to start explaining people having simulated sex mid day on a float to my young kids. Please note, my objection wasn't specific to this parade, I've had the same complaint to other non LGBTQ+ parades that cut through family areas during the day. Was I out of line?

The other time was in a discussion of the SHSAT - the exam you take for admission to Stuy/Science/Tech etc.. There's long been a problem with the low number of black students being admitted to these schools and Stuy in particular. A number of ideas have been floated including one particularly bad one - admit the valedictorian of each middle school. I asserted why this was a horribly bad idea. I as accused of being a racist and frozen out. To them, I wasn't standing back. To me, I was pointing out the reality that this solution didn't get to the root cause of the problem and also wouldn't end well. I obviously can't walk in the footsteps of a black middle school student or their parents but I had much greater knowledge of the test and test process, what Stuy was like and how it operated and think I had and have a much better understanding of what the outcome would be from this plan.

Was I out of line and should have stepped back or was I appropriately contributing to the discussion. It can get complicated, particularly if recognize that many of these situations are pretty nuanced.

A final comment I'll make is that one of the panelists mentioned that they don't want allies, they want co-conspirators. The difference being that a co-conspirator will step in front of a car for them. I get this and agree but it also irritated me. Not about the speaker or the panel but something I've noticed going on with some subsets of DEI supporting communities. I'm hoping that these subsets are small but vocal minorities but it's hard to believe that given what I've seen in the media.

I'm a white male Jew. Back in the day Jews were recognized as co-conspirators with the black community and the LGBTQ+ community. We would not only figuratively step in front of a car for those communities but at times literally do so. Recently I've noticed the rise of antisemitic voices coming from some of those communities. This forces me to examine my relationship with these communities and makes me sad.

I really enjoyed this session but think it's important to note that this was another session that really had no focus on CS.

I still want to write about one more session I attended as well as the Thursday keynote and the exhibit halls (including a bit on Kira Learning) not to mention tomorrow but I think this is long enough for today's post. I'll cover the rest in the next few days.