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. This keynote resonated as I've recently been thinking a lot about the drops I've either contributed or failed to contribute to the CS Education cause.

"Drop by drop a river is made" was the lead quote. It's a translation of an Afghan proverb. Plane's plea was for us all to find our drops to contribute and when dealing with CS Educations major issues - diversity, equity, and inclusion - it's going to take all of us adding our drops and while any one action might seem insignificant, they add up over time.

The talk started with Plane's journey. How she had the opportunity to and then actually built the first Masters in CS program in Africa and then later did built similar programs in Afghanistan. She also spoke of the drops she added at Maryland and now in Wisconsin. One might say that not everyone will have those opportunities but the truth is, most people, if they did have them, probably wouldn't have taken them nor accomplished as much. Regardless, even more mundane sounding drops can big time contribute to the river.

In the first keynote, Todd Zakrajsek told of how he almost dropped out of college but the right words at the right time from one single professor changed the course of his life. Without those words, none of his drops would have been added.

In the micro-teaching session, one instructor mimed an interaction he had with a student. Before "class" he asked what the student planned to do after college. She said, she wasn't sure. The instructor encouraged her to come to office hours to discuss. The "student" was at my table and said afterwards that the interaction was real and ultimately it what led to her becoming a CS educator. That's a lot more drops.

The other day I noticed a comment on LinkedIn by my friend Leigh Ann DeLyser. Leigh Ann commented about the number of "multipliers" at SIGCSE. Made me think of the fact that teachers in general are tremendous multipliers. One word can send a child in one direction or another and the drops we add can turn into streams or more. As a high school teacher, I was charged with 150 or so students each semester. If even a small number, say, become teachers themselves, or go into tech and as a result of my classes pay more attention to DEI, well, that's one drop that's turned into a steady flow. We might not all be creating new programs in other countries but every teacher has an opportunity to be a tremendous influencer. We just don't get credit on the internet.

The other keynote I attended was given by Rachel Rose of ILM. The talk started as a journey talk - from early interests through college and ultimately to ILM. One point was when Rose emphasized that she collaborated more in her CS classes than in her other classes. This was interesting. It makes sense - particularly in project based courses but flies in the face of the stereotypes. It's also interesting in light of the ongoing tensions in schools between collaboration, individual assessment, and academic honesty.

The second part of the talk was a showcase and inside look into the technologies Rose's team developed at ILM for use in productions like "The Mandalorean", "Solo," and others.

Next up was a talk about the Academy Software Foundation. How the movie industry banded together to form a foundation and how each major studio contributed open source platforms. Now the industry can use standards and tools like materialx, opencolorio, and openfx. You can check out ASFW here. Looks really cool and having all the major players rally around the virtues of open source is really cool. My only issue with them is that their logo has an open comment with no close comment and that just bothers me.

The final theme, which appeared throughout the talk was the industry's work to increase diversity. A major point Rose made was that youngsters have no idea as to what they can do within the movie industry. Neither do they understand the educational path from school to Hollywood be it in tech, the arts, or some hybrid of both.

All three keynotes were strong. All conveyed worthwhile messages and all were delivered in an entertaining way.

Good job SIGCSE2024!!!!

Still to come - BOFS, Panels, and Paper sessions.