On March 7, 2014, after a long day at SIGCSE, the members of the Georgia and Alabama chapters of the CSTA got together for some collaboration and conversation.
CSTA-Georgia Vice-President, Deepa Muralidhar, thought it would be a great idea for the neighboring chapters to get to know each other. With the financial support of Jeff Gray and the University of Alabama, as well as Barb Ericson and Georgia Tech, Deepa was able to plan an evening reception with light refreshments. Several people were kind enough to help Deepa with the planning and implementation of the reception including: CSTA Director of Development Lissa Clayborn, Jeff Baker and Carol Yarbrough of the CSTA-Alabama chapter, and Crystal Furman CSTA-Georgia.
Approximately 30 members of the Georgia and Alabama chapters of the CSTA met and mingled with each other and members of the CSTA Board of Directors. Chris Stephenson, Executive Director, CSTA said a few words to get the reception started. As always, her words were inspirational and well received by the crowd. Chris’ remarks were followed by a game of “Sort and Mingle”, devised to help members get to know a little bit about each other. After that, it was time to enjoy great food and conversations with fellow CSTA members.
A great time was had by all. It was a great opportunity for the Georgia and Alabama teachers to get to know each other and socialize. This was especially true for the members of the newly established CSTA-Alabama chapter. The Alabama chapter is just getting started and beginning to plan activities and future meetings. The reception was a great way for the Alabama teachers to learn what the Georgia teachers and CSTA National Board members are doing and get ideas for chapter activities.
We hope to continue to find opportunities for the neighboring chapters to get together and collaborate. We encourage other closely located chapters to do the same. The evening proved true to the theme: Collaboration opens new avenues.
Carol Yarbrough
Vice-President, CSTA-Alabama

Last month Patrice Gans had a great post Creating a Professional Learning Network here on the CSTA blog about creating a professional learning network using Twitter. I thought it might be worthwhile to add some suggestions of my own.
You may wonder how this works in practice and I ran into a great example recently. Mike Zamansky, a CS teacher and CSTA member from New York City (on Twitter @zamansky), tweeted a link to a blog post he wrote about a lesson in sorting he had taught. Carolyn Petite, a CS teacher from Ohio (on Twitter @cfhsPetite) replied to his tweet with two resources that she used. A follow up reply from Mike included two more resources. So in a short period of time two teachers had shared five different teaching resources with their followers and each other. I eventually captured these resources and some others I knew about on my blog post Resources For Teaching Sorts.
As you can see this sharing occurs across multiple channels though. Tweeter is great for sharing resource links and short discussions. Blogs are great for longer discussions and more in-depth information. (I have a list of computer science educators who blog BTW.) But that is not all.
If blogging and Twitter are not your style there are also email lists and even Facebook. The CSTA has a Facebook group where some great discussions take place on a regular basis. CSTA also runs an email discussion list for members. You can join the conversation there at http://listserv.acm.org/scripts/wa-ACMLPX.exe?SUBED1=csta-members&A=1.
These are friendly venues for asking questions, answering questions, sharing news and ideas and building relationships with one’s peers. Everyone’s ideas have value and are worth sharing. Especially yours!
Jump in the water is fine!
Alfred Thompson
At-large Member, CSTA

That was the title I chose for a recent workshop that Vicky Sedgwick (@VisionsByVicky) and I presented at the local Computing Using Educators (CUE) Conference in California. I had meet Vicky a few months earlier at another local CUE Conference where she was presenting a session about programming with elementary and junior high students. We chatted after the session about other platforms that students at the elementary level could use. That was prior to Hour of Code.
We kept in touch over Twitter. I attended an Edcamp conference in another neighboring county which was held after the Hour of Code event. During Edcamps the participants suggest topics and other interested teachers attend either to learn more or to help inform the teachers. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were three sessions related to programming. The teachers were eager to get more information about teaching programming. I attended all three and was able to promote CSTA and help inform the teachers about teaching programming. I decided to apply to present at the local CUE conference about how coding could be used in other subject areas. Vicky had been considering the same topic. So we teamed up.
Our session was scheduled as the last session of the day. I was concerned, but 15 educators attended our session. They were eager to learn and we had information to provide. The session was well received and I once again promoted CSTA.
But that is not the only type of increase in interest that I have seen. In California, there has been legislation proposed to encourage computer science in elementary schools. I was able to consult with the Chief of Staff for the legislator that is authoring the legislation. Another piece of legislation that is making its way through the assembly is one that would allow districts to count computer science toward high school graduation. However, the computer science class must have the “C” designation for entrance to University of California/California State Universities. The computer science teachers will need to work as a team to get this new designation for their computer science classes.
Last year I attempted to have one of my local assemblypersons pass a resolution to recognize “Computer Science Education Week.” I was unsuccessful for 2013. However, I contacted local assembly people again and found one that was willing to propose the resolution. It is now making its way through the legislature for 2014.
Do I feel the exposure of Computer Science through Hour of Code has increased the interest in computer science? I do. I want to keep this momentum going! I noticed on the Code.org website that there are six states, California included, that have legislation pending to make computer science count as math or science credit. I encourage you to visit the website and if you live in one of the states, click on the link and tell your representative that you support the legislation
What changes have you noticed since Hour of Code?
What have you been doing since Hour of Code to promote computer science? We need to keep to keep the momentum moving.
What can you do?
Myra Deister
At-Large Representative

It is that time of year again. All across the country computer science faculty members are preparing to submit their grant proposals. This means that they are also sending requests to CSTA for involvement in their grants and for letters of support to accompany their grant proposals.
CSTA receives so many requests for grant project involvement and letters of support that we had to set up a protocol to deal with them all. The protocol defines three different kinds of CSTA engagement:

Each of these is defined and although each involves a different process for making the request, the CSTA Executive Committee uses the same criteria to evaluate every request. These are:

These may seem like a lot of requirements for a letter of support but this is the only way to make sure that CSTA recommends only those projects that are worthy of the support of our 16,000 members and that we use our resources, including our reputation, to support those institutions that, in turn, support CSTA and its members.
It is perhaps not surprising that the most important factor in CSTA’s involvement in national, regional, and local computer science education projects is the phenomenal success of the CSTA regional chapters program. Thanks especially to the work of CSTA Chapter Liaison, Fran Trees, there are now more than 53 CSTA chapters in the U.S. and Canada and more are added each month.
Many of these chapters are playing a direct role in several very large grants from the National Science Foundation’s CE21 grants program. They are serving not just as peer-to-peer professional learning communities, but as centers for innovation, professional development, and advocacy. The chapters are also hot-houses of CSTA’s blossoming leadership programs and exemplars of mutually-supportive relationships between K-12 educators and post-secondary faculty.
Over the years, it has become increasingly easier to understand why the chapters prove so attractive to faculty members looking for grant partners. The chapters provide a direct link to teachers and students. They are a place where the ingenuity of research can meet the realities of classroom practice. The CSTA chapters provide an invaluable meeting of the minds for computer science educators of all levels.
Since their inception, the chapters have also been perceived as providing an invaluable link between K-12 computer science educators and post-secondary mentors. But this weekend at SIGCSE, I learned that CSTA’s chapters are being viewed in a new and unexpected way. They are increasingly seen as an important resource for post-secondary faculty who are similarly in need of mentoring. As Dale Reed from the University of Illinois Chicago noted: “As computer science faculty in universities, we know a lot about computer science but many of us have had absolutely no training in teaching. Being part of a CSTA chapter gives us access to people who can help us learn to be better teachers”. As is true in the best cases, the mentoring goes in both directions.
If you would like to become more involved on a CSTA chapter, feel free to contact me at:
c.stephenson@csta-hq.org
and I will introduce you to a wonderful community of practice.
Chris Stephenson
CSTA Executive Director