2025 Hawaiʻi CS PD Summit

Join us for an engaging onboarding session designed to introduce educators to the powerful features of MagicSchool AI. This interactive workshop will guide participants through the platform's tools and functionalities, ensuring a smooth transition into integrating AI for educational purposes.

Engagement and collaboration go hand in hand as the essential elements of any effective instructional strategy.  Learn how to adopt and adapt the Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) strategies that have revolutionized mathematics instruction to the computer science classroom.  Students strengthen their computational and algorithmic thinking while developing communication skills and building classroom community through the use of vertical whiteboards and collaborative coding platforms.  Long gone are the days of solo coding.  Teamwork is now as essential as technical prowess.  BTC strategies make computer science accessible to a more diverse group of students, and instruction more equitable for students of all experience and ability levels.

In this session, participants will engage by sharing our identity markers to better understand our unconscious bias. Participants will also read through classroom scenarios to consider how our biases, identities, and experiences shape our role in a computer science classroom as teachers, identify ways to recruit and retain students, and explore ways to differentiate instruction.

Participants will learn how to design and code their own Hawaiian video game through code.org’s Sprite lab Application. This “hand-on” workshop will introduce participants to Sprites and basic video game elements.

Note: To get the most out of this session, we highly recommend that you participate in the Getting Started with MagicSchool AI session on Wednesday at 10:20am OR completing the Level 1 MagicSchool Onboarding Certification beforehand. This will ensure you're fully prepared and can maximize your learning experience in this session.

Unlock the potential of culturally relevant computing through the MagicSchool platform. This session will explore strategies to create inclusive and engaging learning experiences that reflect diverse cultures and perspectives. Learn how to use MagicSchool to design activities and tools that connect with students' backgrounds, foster meaningful engagement, and promote equity in computer science education. Discover how culturally relevant computing can inspire students and empower them to see themselves as creators and innovators in technology.

CS has the potential to unlock creativity and future opportunities for students, yet it often feels inaccessible to both educators and learners. By integrating play-based, interactive experiences into CS education, we can make coding approachable and inspire students to see themselves as capable of thriving in future computing careers.

Join our session to learn how to design & code your own Unruly games for a variety of subjects. Using Unruly’s Play-Modify-Create progression, you will learn how CS can become cross-curricular and integrated into various classrooms throughout schools. In this session, you will experience how combining the power of play with CS makes it approachable and impactful for both students and teachers.