Posted by Dan Blier on Mar 01, 2019

On Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019, DFW CSTA held its second annual conference. The 2019 DFW CSTA Collaborative Conference brought together teachers from across the Dallas-Fort Worth area to learn, network, and collaborate. The conference was hosted at Plano ISD's Academy High School in Plano, Texas.  

 

 

 

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On Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019, DFW CSTA held its second annual conference. The 2019 DFW CSTA Collaborative Conference brought together teachers from across the Dallas-Fort Worth area to learn, network, and collaborate. The conference was hosted at Plano ISD's Academy High School in Plano, Texas.  
 
This conference was created because many of the CS PD opportunities in Texas are based out of Austin or Houston. We wanted to provide an opportunity for our members to learn locally.  We know that many of our neighboring districts have only one or two teachers who are often the only CS teacher on their campus.
 
This year's keynote speaker was JC Jollant, Director of Development, at Finestra. He shared his expertise with us on the topic of blockchain.  
 
DFW CSTA was honored to be the first chapter to receive the CSTA Chapter Grant. We used these funds towards food, conference bags, educator of the year, and supplies.
 
Our conference offered three sessions of two choices on topics such as starting a competitive CS team, the different majors in CS, how to make CS enjoyable, sharing great ideas, blockchain, and lambda expressions and streams. Participants receive a certificate for PD hours they can bring back to their campus. Presenters included some of our DFW CSTA members and our university partners from the University of Texas at Dallas and University of North Texas.
 
We honored our first recipient of the 2019 CS Educator of the Year.  Trina Cunningham is a CS teacher from Garland ISD. She received a specially printed bag, a class set of whiteboards, a class set of rubber ducks, an external hard drive, and a framed certificate.
We ended the event with lunch. This included time to network with others. Participants were encouraged to visit with one of Plano ISD robotics teams so they could showcase their hard work. The post-conference feedback received was very positive and appreciative.  
 
Serving chair of the conference meant that I was responsible for leading the planning and implementation process. During one of our membership meetings, we surveyed our members for topics of interest. The entire DFW CSTA officer team was very supportive and helpful throughout this process to make our event a success.