I’m so excited to meet you all! This topic is a place to connect that will persist after our zoom meeting ends. Post projects you created and questions here. You can also use it to connect with new colleagues, and find inspiration from each other’s work and experience. Additionally, we’ll be posting documents like lesson plans and CS project exemplars here, so you’ll be able to access them easily after the PD.
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Hi, Leandra. I received an email suggesting I respond here with a short intro of myself, so here it is. I’m Robert. I’m a longtime teacher of multiple subjects (inc ELA, Math, Science, ESL and more) to students in every year K-12 as well as college classes, teacher training, etc. I have often and for decades taught in computer classrooms, but have never taught CS as such. At the moment, the only teaching I am doing is one-on-one with my son who has just finished 5th grade and who will not be attending school (at least not in person) this coming school year. It remains to be seen if we will be doing school curriculum by distance, our own “homeschooling”, or some combination of the two, as we have been since March. So far, we’ve done Hour of Code, various stuff at Khan Academy, etc., but not all that much really. I look forward to any new ideas and to learning from everyone!
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Hi! I have been teaching for over 20 years. I started out teaching 7th and 8th grade language arts, but transitioned to teaching technology to 5th - 8th graders and have done this the past 17 years. My classes used to focus on multimedia design, but now the focus has shifted to CS and applications. I started out using Scratch many years ago with my students. I now mainly use the Code.org Fundamentals and the Computer Science Discoveries curriculum mixed with a little Khan Academy. I am excited to see what Vidcode is all about!
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Hello. My name is Robin Morris. I have been teaching for 4 years and this will be my 5th year. I teach Early Childhood I and II, Child Development, and Family Dynamics at Leland Technical Center. I am excited to learn about CS. It will be my first time. I hope I can learn as much as possible to help me advance.
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Hi, I’m Robert as well. I’ll go with RobertB. I’ve been teaching PLTW for a few years and am currently starting a new CTE program at my school. In 2008, the school district I’m at, shut down CTE courses for a completely A thru G program. I have students from 7th through 12th Grades. The program focus is on design for manufacturing/engineering CIM. I’m a machinist with experience in g and m coding, DNC and CNC operations.
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Hi Leandra,
I am Jackie Dell-Shearer. I taught 2nd, 3rd and 5th grade for 5 years and now work at York County Libraries in Youth Services. My new position will have me increasing our teen and tween programming in our county. I have a passion about math, coding and technology. I have taken several coding training, but I love what I am seeing on the Vidcode site. I can’t wait to meet the others and get started to with Vidcode.
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Hello all! My name is Karen L. I have been teaching for 9 years as a special education Math teacher. For the 2019-2020 school year I taught grades 6 & 8 ICT math and a bridge self-contained math class. During the summer of 2019 I took part in a summer workshop series on Creative Computing using Scratch. Prior to remote learning I taught computer science using Scratch once a week to my 8th grade math class. However, when we transition to remote learning we switch our focus to teaching only math. I hope to strengthen my knowledge in CS and gain useful materials from this workshop that I can take to my classroom.
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Hi. My name is Eric. I have been teaching 25 years. I am now venturing into the CS world in addition to teaching science. I am working with a Microsoft TEALS grant to bring AP computer science to my school. I am looking forward to learning more tomorrow.
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Hi. I am Diane, and this will be my 25th year teaching. I am currently teaching 7th and 8th grade English Language Arts. I spent 5 years teaching computer science to students in grades kindergarten through 8th grade. I would like to find ways to incorporate some coding components with projects in my ELA classroom to hopefully increase student engagement as well as give my students a taste of coding helping them explore potential opportunities. I utilized Hour of Code and Scratch when I was teaching computer science. I have encouraged students to check out Khan Academy as well.
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Hi! My name is Kristi and I have been teaching high school math for over 30 years. I will be teaching coding this year for the first time ever and am looking forward to learning a lot tomorrow!
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Hello I am Yvonne, I have been working with Prekindergarten and Kindergarten for over 15 year. I am a Para Professional. I am looking forward to learning new ideas to help my students to succeed this school year.
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Hi, I’m Tatjana. I’m new as a CS teacher, I have started to teach only on September of 2019. I teach 7-12 year kids programming with different kind of applications and also I work on the project where we teach primary school teachers programming skills to involve technology to everyday teaching. The name of the project is “Teachers Lead Tech”.
I want to learn new things and get the new skills. Greetings from Lithuania.
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Good morning Leandra and those attending the PD session today!
My name is Jillian and I’m a science educator at the Discovery Centre in Halifax. the Discovery Centre is a science centre with a mission to make STEAM education accessible to youth throughout the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. For the past three summers, I have been lead camp counselor for our Digital Discovery summer camp co-hosted by the Discovery Centre and Digital Nova Scotia. As an anatomist/biologist this was a big shift in thinking for me but I have had a blast learning new things alongside the kiddos! In past camps we have focused on 3D printing, laser cutting, and basic block code with the Sphero Edu ap and Makecode for Micro:bit. I am hoping to attend this session to learn more about offerings from Vidcode that could be fun and engaging for our summer campers and to learn a new coding language! Our 12-14 year old campers often want to move beyond the simple block based coding to text based languages, so I am hoping to be able to introduce them to JavaScript after today’s session.
Looking forward to hearing how you engage your students in computer science and welcome any ideas that are fun an interactive and could be adapted for summer camp.
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Hello! I am Amy W. I teach Science in grades 4-8 and Social Studies, grade 8. I have been teaching at my current school for 10 years, but taught for 5 years before that. I love to incorporate engineering and technology into my lessons. I am working with our Technology teacher to help our students learn, engage and become comfortable with applying various skills. I have only dabbled in coding and have a small bit of experience with Scratch and Code.org. I look forward to meeting you all and learning many new things. Thank you for this opportunity!
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I am excited to be in the training. I am the new Director of Maker Education at River Oaks Baptist School in Houston and have lots to learn. We are a PS - 8th grade private school.
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Good Morning,
I’m Deanna, a public librarian in the Youth and Family Service department in Liverpool, NY. Our library is hoping to offer a coding club this fall and Vidcode seems to have a lot to offer. I’m a bit of a novice with coding - some experience with Hour of Code and a class in my MLIS. Looking forward to learning lots. 
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Hello! I am Camille, and I am a Youth Services librarian in Wisconsin. I have run coding clubs for a number of years, and I am interested in learning about Vidcode and how we might use this platform with our young patrons. Looking forward to today!
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Hi Leandra! This is Sandy and this is my 17th year to teach business and technology courses. The courses range from keyboarding, Microsoft Office, graphic design, and audio/video production. Last year was my first year to teach coding and Vidcode “saved my bacon” to say the least. I never had taken or taught coding before so the teacher lesson plans helped me so much! The year went great and the students really enjoyed Vidcode.
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Hello! My name is Marie-Eve and I am a Geo-History Science and Tech teacher based in the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I’ve been teaching block-coding to my elementary students (grades 2-6) for 4 years now. Last year, some of my older students (grades 5-6) needed something passed block-coding, and so I signed them up to Vidcode. Not only did they love it, they learned to code quite quickly, surpassing my coding abilities! I can’t wait to be able to share ideas and gain further coding knowledge.
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Hi! My name is Kelcie and I currently am the Math and Science Coordinator for the TRIO Upward Bound Program at the University of Montevallo in Alabama. This is my first go around with teaching older students. Previously, I taught 4th grade (math, sci, ss, and stem). I used Vidcodes free trials with my 9-12th grade students participating in our programs summer component. I am looking forward to seeing what else can be done with Vidcode and seeing if it is a right fit for our program!
Thank you for having me!
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