I just got back from SIGCSE2018 - the big annual conference on computer science education. Although I've been in this racket for decades, this was only my second SIGCSE and once again I had a blast.

As with most conferences, a highlight was the "hallway track" where I got to spend time with friends and colleagues from all over the country. I also got to check off a few names from the "people I've been following online and want to meet in person" list. There are a few more on the list but it's getting smaller.

The theme was CS For All but the range of topics covered was both wide and deep.

For me, I left thinking about a few themes:

College faculty can learn a lot from K12 teachers in terms of

pedagogy and teaching.

So can "thought leaders," policy makers, and big companies.

Colleges face a huge challenge in both developing pedagogues and

transfering pedagogical knowledge over to researchers.

Can you do both CS4All and have quality CS teachers in the short

term (I doubt it)?

Researchers vs Practitioners and the value of listening to one or

the other.

Nifty assignments are frequently regular assignments reskinned with

graphics.

There were a few sessions that dissapointed me but most of the ones I attende were terrific. I thought I'd blog about some of them in detail over the next few weeks.

Here are the sessions I'm planning on writing about:

Implementing Malloc: Students and SYstems Programming presented by Brian

Railing

[[https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3159471][Creativity, Customization, and Onwership: Game Design in Bootstrap:

Algebra]], presented by Kathi Fisher

An Explicit Strategy to Scaffold Novice Program Tracing, presented

by Benjamin Xie

presented by John MacCormick

[[https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3159609][Connect the Dots to Prove It: A Novel Way to Learn Proof

Construction]], by McCartin-Lim, Woolf, and Mcregor

Google Supporter Session on Incorporating Machine Learning into

University Courses.

I might talk about a few other sessions as well.

Overall it was a great conference. I look forward to sharing my experiences with all of you in the coming posts.