The conference ended this past Friday. After a couple of morning sessions I started to play tourist which included spending more time in the 100+ degree out doors. Fun stuff that I'll talk about later but left me too drained Friday and Saturday evening to continue my write ups.

First up was another AI session "Unlocking AI: Teaching Artificial Intelligence in K12." Slides and other materials can be found here. The speakers were Nora Burkhauser who gave the talk on "Machine Learning for Kids" and Nick Yates. The talk focused on two professional development opportunities they've developed to bring K12 teachers of all grade levels and all subjects up to speed on Artificial Intelligence. Well really one PD opportunity split into two part.

Part one, offered via remote sessions with interspersed assignments followed by in person PD covered the basics. Basic definitions, classic ML and AI, a typical AI pipeline. From where I sat, it looked like this course provided a good overview for any teacher new to AI. It didn't, in my opinion cover enough for a CS teacher in a HS class to do a full AI unit but given time constraints of a typical PD, it's a great start and looks like it provides plenty for the early grade teachers and the non CS teachers while at least getting the CS teachers on the road.

Part 2 goes over available AI curricula, touches on modern AI - generative AI, neural nets etc., and also goes over applying AI. In fact, they presented the same lesson, more or less, as was presented in the "Machine Learning for Kids" talk I attended on Thursday. This part 2 course certainly adds to the foundation for the early grade teacher on non CS teacher, but still wouldn't be enough, in my opinion for the HS teacher. I understand that the speakers can only do so much - they can't offer one or more college or graduate level courses in AI - they have to work within their state's professional development system but we have to become vocal about the fact that so long as our CS teachers are not coming in with strong content knowledge, add on professional development isn't a solution, it's just window dressing. Sure, right now it's frequently the best we can do but more people have to start banging the drum that we need our CS teachers to actually have a good amount of knowledge in, you know, CS.

Before moving on, I do want to say again that this was another strong session and the speakers are doing great work, they're just trying to do their best within the limitations of the system under which they work.

After this AI talk I attended some lightening talks. The first was given by a new teacher on her just barely staying ahead of her class. It was a nice talk but got me thinking that it might be useful for CSTA to specifically set up an affinity meeting that combined brand new CS teachers (particularly those with limited content knowledge) and match them with groups of slightly more experienced teachers - say those with 3 or 4 years experience. Teachers with enough mileage so that they can provide encouragement and guidance to the neophytes but not with so much experience that they've forgotten the struggle.

Another lightening talk was about creating a social media presence. I was interested in this because the speaker was going to talk about making short form videos and I've spent the past decade+ in the world of blogs. Unfortunately, the talk was really more about how to tweak your already existing video content to maximize viewers. Valuable if you've already got a video presence but not the info I was hoping for.

I didn't attend the last keynote so that was it for me but that's not it for my SIGCSE post. Next up, the exhibitors, Las Vegas and final thoughts on the conference.