Just got back from CSTA 2025. Well, not directly. Last Monday Devorah and I got in the car and drove to Cleveland for the festivities. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay for the duration - I had to miss Friday so we could drive down to Lancaster to meet the kids for our annual corn maze weekend. Drove back to NY today.

That means it's time for my annual recap of the Computer Science Teachers Association's annual conference.

Last year was in Vegas, this year Cleveland - a much better destination as far as I'm concerned but I'll talk about the city in the last post in the series.

The TL;DR is that if you're a K12 CS teacher, you should really try to attend. The conference has just gotten better year after year and there's something for everyone - from CS newbie to industry pro turned teacher, from first year to 20+ year vet, from K all the way up to 12.

That said, to me, it's always been more of a people conference than a session conference. While I've always found some good sessions, it's been more about the people. Maybe that's because I probably don't fit the profile of the majority of attendees but that's fine, I still get and got value out of the sessions but get so much more out of the conversations and the connections (and the fact that an introverted, a-social, socially awkward computer geek like me can walk away from CSTA with new connections is a testament to how open and friendly to conference is).

For this post, I'll talk about the keynotes. Usually a highlight but to be honest, they just didn't do it for me this year. I think that was mostly due to the format. I also wasn't able to attend the closing keynote - probably the one I was looking forward to the most, so I can't comment on that one. I also want to emphasize that it was a great conference so even though I'm nitpicking on what I felt was the weakest part of the conference here, the whole show was a big win.

All the keynotes I attended followed the same basic format. The MC hyped the audience and thanked the sponsors, Various announcements were shared and we also got a flash talk given by CSTA Impact Fellows, formerly known as CSTA Equity Fellows. This was followed by the actual keynote address. The end result was that much of each sixty minute keynote block had elapsed before the keynote even started. Two of the three keynotes I attended were panels and the result was a super short keynote that, to be honest, felt lacking.

The first keynote started with representatives form CSForDetroit, Cleveland State, and CodeCrew talk about their accomplishments followed by a minipanel made up of educators who worked with each of these organizations. Given the short amount of time, we ended up with three short flash talks by the first group and a super mini panel. Overall, I felt it was something of a cheer leading talk but I neither felt inspired nor that I really learned anything. There also wasn't any time for audience questions.

Overall, it was fine, nice stories about three organizations working in CS Ed but for a keynote, I was hoping for more.

The day 2 keynote was also a panel, or rather three speakers, Maya Israel, Tia Madkins, and Deborah Fields each giving a flash talk followed by a mini panel. The title was "Theory and Practice: Innovative CS Teaching Strategies." Again, the talks were fine but I didn't leave with any teaching strategies. Maya Israel talked about barriers facing students, learner variability, accessibility and more but in a very course overview manner. Tia Madkins talked about Justice Oriented Teaching and Learning and Deborah Fields talked about bias.

All of this was fine but none had the time to really dive into their subjects. The mini-panel similarly felt short and rushed.

At the end, the MC said we could learn more by attending any of the three speakers sessions later in the conference.

Basically, the keynote was really an advertisement for the three speaker's full sessions. This left me cold. I'd much rather have heard from one of the three and actually walked away a deeper dive into the theory and maybe something concreted in terms of practice.

Thursday's keynote was a solo by Jaleesa Trapp: "Fostering a Generation of Creative and Ethical Thinkers in the Age of AI." Trapp talked about creativity and justice, and the fact the one size doesn't fit all for CS Education, though that's true for all education. She also described an environmental justice project that grew into a far greater environmental justice effort. There was a brief mention of facial recognition and the related bias but I didn't see any AI connection in the talk. Again, it was fine, but the same talk could have been given five years ago before the AI boom. Nothing wrong with the talk, it was engaging but I didn't see any strong AI link. It also felt, somewhat like a teaser for another later session.

As I said, I had to leave before the last keynote.

So all were fine but nothing particularly inspiring. I think CSTA would be better served giving more of the keynote block to the actual keynote. If they want to highlight the Impact Fellows, either extend the block length or do those together in a block of their own.

So, that's my take on the keynotes. Fine but not the highlights of the conference. We'll get to those in the next few posts.