Anna Alfano

High School Teacher 

St Ignatius of Loyola Sec School,Oakville, Ontario 

 

Why do you want to serve on the CSTA Board and what do you hope to accomplish as a member of the Board? How does this align with current CSTA activities?

 

I have been teaching high school computer science and math for 28 years in Ontario, Canada. It’s been a pleasure being able to teach computer science to high school students and watch them find a new interest or skill they didn’t know they had. My goal has always been “computer science for all” encouraging all students to take at least one computer science course before they leave high school. I have particularly been focused on increasing the number of females taking computer science. I have also been actively engaging non-CS teachers to bring CS concepts to their classroom. A position with a national organization like CSTA would allow me to gain experience in a leadership position, meet other passionate CS educators and share my extensive experience as a CS educator in Canada.

 

What leadership experiences and skills can you contribute to CSTA and its Board?

 

Outside of the classroom I visit grade 9 and grade 10 classrooms to encourage them to take a computer science course. I also visit our grade 7 and grade 8 feeder school classes to talk about computer science. I speak to grade 8 parents about the importance of taking at least one computer science course before their child graduates high school. I started the first coding competition as part of the Halton Skills Competition. I ran our school board’s annual computer programming competition. I have been an associate teacher twice for pre-service teacher candidates pursuing their Bachelor of Education degree. I participated in a meeting with ACSE (Association for Computer Science Educators) last year to discuss what changes we would like to see in the Ontario computer science curriculum.

 

What previous experience do you have with CSTA? 

 

I joined CSTA as a basic member in 2016. I participated in the first CSTA virtual conference in July 2020. In January of 2021 I participated in the CSTA Future of CS Summit where I learned about the importance of incorporating Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity topics in our CS courses in high school. I attended the CSTA Formative Assessment Series in May 2021. In the Fall Professional Learning Series 2021, I participated in the Accommodating CS Students with Disabilities. I also attended the Winter Professional Learning Series – Celebrating Black Excellence in CS in January 2022. These last two PD sessions taught me how to accommodate students with different learning abilities and encourage diversity in CS.

 

What experiences and perspectives do you bring to supporting equitable participation in computing education?

 

I teach open, college-bound and university-bound level CS courses. I convinced my principal to offer the college-bound courses a number of years ago. I have increased the number of students taking computer science in my school to the point where we had to hire another computer science teacher a few years ago. To increase our female enrollment in computer science we started an annual all-girls hackathon called Go Girl Hackathon back in 2017 and we just completed our 2022 hackathon in February. We encouraged diverse participation as we had girls who were English language learners, visible minorities and girls with different learning abilities. We even had a student join us virtually who could not be physically present. We didn’t want to have any barriers in accessing this event.

Adrian Arenas Angeles

9-12 Teacher

Philippine Science High School Main Campus, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

 

Why do you want to serve on the CSTA Board and what do you hope to accomplish as a member of the Board? How does this align with current CSTA activities?

 

I wish to serve on the CSTA Board as an international teacher representative to allow for greater representation and understanding of the contexts of computing teachers notably from the Global South. This aligns with CSTA’s move towards equity in teaching and diversity in representation. I want to be able to get more countries express their needs to the organization and realize how CSTA will be beneficial as a partnership across borders. Different countries require different interventions and I want to be able to bridge those gaps with the strengths of the organization.

 

What leadership experiences and skills can you contribute to CSTA and its Board?

 

I will be bringing in a mix of working in the tertiary, secondary, and primary levels as well as some industry experience as a project manager. I have also been instrumental along with another founding member in establishing the first CSTA international chapter after making a connection at the 2018 CSTA conference in Omaha, Nebraska. Since 2018, we had made steps towards getting recognized as a chapter and to keep it alive. We did have hiccups along the way, but we were able to resolve them. We are working with the national government to get a voice in computational curriculum in the Philippines which is currently sorely absent in the national recommendation for the lower grades. Furthermore, I have been leading a department of teachers that network across 16 campuses nationwide.

 

What previous experience do you have with CSTA? 

 

I have been the president of the first international CSTA chapter since even before being recognized as an official chapter. For the past year, I have been in two committees in the organization: the chapter leaders committee and the conference committee. I am planning to apply for the next year’s conference committee again. As a chapter leader and a member of the chapter leaders committee, I have been attending and contributing to the chapter leader learning series. I have served initially as a volunteer bag stuffer and workshop and session moderator in the 2018 conference and had fallen in love with the organization through the people. I have tried to help every time I could and have not looked back since.

 

What experiences and perspectives do you bring to supporting equitable participation in computing education?

 

I have seen the power of a teacher’s organization being able to reach a great swath of students. One teacher can affect 200 or more students each year and bring a wealth of knowledge to them. On top of this knowledge is also a wealth of experience-of life-that reflects the truth of the teacher and the truth surrounding each student. Coming from a country in the Global South, it is a Herculean task to convince some schools that it is possible to have a computing curriculum without fancy computers (though it won’t hurt to have them). I have been trying to be that Hercules: to touch other teachers so these teachers may touch their students. A greater conversation has to be had about privilege and equity and inclusion, but we’re ready to have that talk. I’m grabbing the coffee cups now.

Allen Tsui

Computer Science Lead

Willow Brook Primary School Academy, London, England

 

Why do you want to serve on the CSTA Board and what do you hope to accomplish as a member of the Board? How does this align with current CSTA activities?

 

Technology has made our World a smaller place, allowing teachers of all age groups to come out of their classrooms and become globally connected. I want to be the UK representative to share best pedagogical practice and be able to learn from each other to ensure that we collective secure the digital literacy skills for the citizens of tomorrow. I am passionate about raising participation rates for Computing in schools especially among those parts of the community which are under-represented, demonstrating that learners as young as those pre-K stage will have some abilities to ‘code’ and ways of raising the profile of Computing as a subject so that it is valued intrinsically rather than some compliment to other parts of the curriculum as some educational settings seem to have adopted.

 

What leadership experiences and skills can you contribute to CSTA and its Board?

 

I am the subject lead for Computing at Willow Brook Primary School Academy in North East London.  Since August 2020, I have also been the Community Leader for the Community at Schools network which is the British equivalent of the CSTA. I became a Wakelet Community Leader in February 2022. I qualified to teach Primary in 2012 and have worked with every year group from pre-K to age 18. Before teaching I worked as a Resources Manager in the British equivalent of the DA’s Office for almost 24 years. During that time, I saw and supported the technological transformation of the workplace from standalone IBM PC XTs to being involved in the “Digital to Desktop” project at the turn of the century with 8,000+ devices installed to over 100 offices via a secure WAN.

 

What previous experience do you have with CSTA? 

 

I am a relatively new member to the CSTA having only joined earlier this year. I have however been aware of the work of the CSTA but being UK based never thought that it would be possible for me to reach out and build this fantastic global connection. I had the opportunity to attend ISTE in Philadelphia back in 2019 when I was working on the Team Kano stand to help launch their Windows PC in the Microsoft Village. I am very prolific on Twitter @TsuiAllen and always happy to share everything associated with my teaching practice.

 

What experiences and perspectives do you bring to supporting equitable participation in computing education?

 

The work I do to increase accessibility and inclusion to Computing featured in a CNN Business News online article (“How to prepare children for jobs of the future”, by Temujin Doran and Nell Lewis CNN Business July 30, 2019). The sponsorship received from my employer to carry out Action Research on equality and inclusion also received an award from the Mayor of London’s Office in 2019.