Mike Zamansky

Mike Zamansky

@zamansky.bsky.social

277 followers270 following86 posts

Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

Within my StuyCS Alumni Community we just had a long discussion of Alpha School and it's newest specialty school, Founders School. To me, lots of red flags. My thoughts here: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/alpha-...

cestlaz.zamansky.netAlpha School and Founders School just cybercharters reborn - C’est la ZRecently within my alumni community there was a discussion of Founders School - a private for profit school which is a specialty school under the umbrella of Alpha School. The deal is that at Founders...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

The NetLogo center is running it's first in person conference at the end of June. NetLogo is a wonderful modelling and intro language. Here are my thoughts on the language, it's use and the conference: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/netlog...

cestlaz.zamansky.netThe first NetLogo Center User Conference - C’est la ZTHe Netlogo Center is running their first in person conference at the end of June in Chicago (info and registration). It's an event I'm looking forward to attending and also to be presenting at. I've ...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

I've been spending the week in Boston spending time with the Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association, Inc. and members of the StuyCS family. Here's trip report and what we're trying to do to help build a community that has more than it's share of introverts: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/stuycs...

cestlaz.zamansky.netStuyCS in Boston - connecting generations - C’est la ZDevorah and I are spending the week in Boston, well techincally Cambridge. We came up last year around this time and had a big StuyCS meet up hosted at Formlabs. I was talking to my friends in the Stu...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

We had a great event for budding tech entrepreneurs for Stuy alums and students last week. Had a great panel and we learned all about negotiating term sheets and funding. Here's a writeup: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/safe-t...

cestlaz.zamansky.netSend Lawyers, VCs, and Money - C’est la ZSo, one of the things I've been doing since retirement is working for and with my alumni community. We've held focussed events like an AI panel and a blockchain talk and have had meetups in New York a...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

The history we're taught has always been subjective and in the USA, there are efforts to rewrite and erase parts of our history. A friend of mine is working on a tech project to ensure that Black history is not erased. cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/uneras...

cestlaz.zamansky.netUnerasable - an effort to prevent the erasure of history - C’est la ZHistory is a funny thing. They say it's written by the victors but even when the "good guys" win, the history taught is often, let's say, incomplete. Back in school we'd learn about all sorts of feel ...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

The other day Mark Guzdial wrote an interesting post on observing other instructors. It got me thinking about a number of things. Here's my first post on those thoughts just laying out how observations have been used in my career in K12 and College: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/improv...

cestlaz.zamansky.netImproving Instruction - College and K12 - C’est la ZBack in for the evening. Not in Barcelona anymore - spending a few days now in Madrid. Sadly, I got a message from a fellow CS Educator who lives in Barcelona the day we left so if any reader out ther...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

I attended at talk by Ray Kurzweil last week. Not many answers but some very interesting questions raised about intelligence, education, and AI: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/kurzwe...

cestlaz.zamansky.netRay Kurzweil, AI, Intelligence, and Education - C’est la ZOver a month since my last post. Wow. Anyway, last week was full of Artificial Intelligence events. On Wednesday, I attended a talk by Ray Kurzweil, hosted by Trinity High School - a posh private scho...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

One of the hot education topics in New York with the upcoming mayoral election is gifted education. From what I've seen, we usually talk about having or not having programs but not about how gifted programs should be run. Here are some of my thoughts: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/gifted...

cestlaz.zamansky.netGifted Education - Acceleration or Enrichment - C’est la ZLast week my StuyCS family community had a discussion about Zohran Mamdani's plans for gifted education. For people outside of New York, Mamdani is the Democratic candidate for mayor and there was a r...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

New York State just announced that it's creating a centralized policy for Dual Credit courses - college courses in Highs school - an alternative to the AP program. My thoughts and a comparison of both approaches: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/dual-c...

cestlaz.zamansky.netDual Credit Or AP - C’est la ZI saw this release from NYSED the other day. New York State wants to create a standard set of policies and procedures for schools implementing Dual Credit programs. A Duel Credit class is a college cl...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

In the latest CSEd Podcast, Kristin Stephens-Martinez talks to William Griswold about his practice of meeting with students outside of class. Great episode. My spin over on my blog relates this to high school as well: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/csed-p...

cestlaz.zamansky.netCS Ed Podcast, connecting with students, and a little AI - C’est la ZI listened to the latest episode of Kristen Stephen-Martinez's CS Ed Podcast. The episode focused on Professor Emeritus, William G. Griswold, of UCSD's practice of requiring students meet with him out...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

More on #CSTA2025 #CSED. The Exhibit hall, hallway track and receptions. Spent most of the time at the Pickcode and CodeHS booths but there was a lot more going on. cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/csta-2...

cestlaz.zamansky.netCSTA 2025 6 - Exhibit hall and receptions - C’est la ZExhibit Hall Let's start with the exhibit hall. First things I noticed that while Amazon, Google, and Microsoft were all listed as sponsors, none of them had booths in the exhibition space. This was a...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

The rest of the the sessions I attended at #CSTA2025, Great panel on CS Ed in the age of AI moderated by Pat Yongpradit and BT Twarek consisting of Julie York, Maya Israel, Allen Antoine and Jacob Shulman followed by a discussion of the CSTA teacher survey cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/csta-2...

cestlaz.zamansky.netCSTA 2025 5 - Day 3 part 2 - C’est la ZLet's talk about the final two sessions I attended. The Future of Computer Science Education in an Age of AI This was a panel. Pat Yongpradit and BT Twarek co-moderated a panel consisting of Julie Yor...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

Continuing my recap of #SIGCSE2025 - today two more sessions. One by @neilcbrown.bsky.social showing off a nice new Python programming environment and one by Joseph Maxwell sharing a program he built that gives students a chance to learn real SWE skills. cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/csta-2...

cestlaz.zamansky.netCSTA 2025 part 4 - day 3, part 1 - C’est la ZThursday, day 3. This was my last conference day since I had to leave bright and early on Friday. Four more sessions. As I started to write them up I thought things were getting a little long so this ...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

#CSTA2025 day 3. Four talks including a great session by Chris Orban, Mahmoud Harding, Jacob Koressel, and Tiffany Davis and another fun one by Colleen Lewis and Maria Camarena: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/csta-2...

cestlaz.zamansky.netCSTA 2025 3 - day 2 - C’est la ZFour sessions up for today. First one "Certified to Rock: Cleveland's Journey in CS Teacher Prep." Basically a discussion of the pathways for teachers to become CS certified in Cleveland. It wasn't a ...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

There was an article recently in the NYT on teaching CS in the age of AI. It discussed challenges for colleges as well industry demands. My take: cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/teachi...

cestlaz.zamansky.netTeaching CS in the Age of AI - my two cents - C’est la ZSaw this article in the New York Times yesterday. It's been making its rounds. There was some discussion in some of the CS Ed related online groups, my friend Alfred Thompson posted his take here, and...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

I'm seeing more and more antisemitism out there from people who should know better. I wrote this post about a really cool store I visited recently, what they had up, why it's antisemitic and why it's important to speak out against it. cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/cool-s...

cestlaz.zamansky.netCool store that I can’t support. Maybe ignorance, maybe antisemitism. - C’est la ZWarning: This post is political and involves my views on antisemitism and the Gaza situation. So, in my travels over the past year or so, I've been trying to hit independent book stores or otherwise c...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

Saw an article the other day saying that CS teachers without a strong background might be better than teachers in other areas with strong backgrounds (article linked in blog post) - I disagree #CSEd : cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/better...

cestlaz.zamansky.netBetter teachers - CS teachers without CS or Math teachers with math - C’est la ZThis article made its rounds this past week. It cites a couple of papers claiming that CS teachers are delivering better instruction and might be better qualified than teachers in other subject areas....
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

I've been seeing a lot on vibe coding recently. "Coding" by prompting AI repeatedly - no actual problem solving involved. I've also seen people saying how great it is as an educational tool, something I disagree with. #CSED cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/vibe-c...

cestlaz.zamansky.netVibe coding doesn’t jibe - C’est la ZThe truth is, I don't use those modern AI tools much. I'm not doing much coding and when I do, I've been using Clojure or Elisp - not so mainstream so as to have all sorts of AI support. For writing? ...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

I read a great blog post the other day by Kristin Stephens-Martinez. Got me thinking about the practice described and differences in teacher prep in K12 vs what instructors get in college. Here I rif on it (and the original blog post is linked in mine): cestlaz.zamansky.net/posts/daily-...

cestlaz.zamansky.netThe Daily Aim - C’est la ZThe other day I read Kristin Stephens-Martinez's latest blog post talking about how she has started to insert a daily plan slide at the front of her class slide decks. Stephens-Martinez, you might kno...
Mike Zamansky
@zamansky.bsky.social

The CS Education community is pretty active on Facebook, specifically in Facebook Groups. With Zuck and other tech leaders actions and behaviour, perhaps we should consider what platforms we should support: cestlaz.github.io/posts/choose...

cestlaz.github.ioChoosing our platforms - C’est la ZIn my Blog Reboot post I talked about blogging being a fading pastime. Over at Irreal, JCS responded that his experience says otherwise and that his RSS feeds in fact experiencing a rebirth. Both can ...