Member Of The Month
Member Spotlight : Julie York (CSTA Maine Regional Representative - Cumberland County)
Julie York is the Computer Science and Media Teacher at South Portland High School in South Portland, Maine. She’s the department chair for the Career Preparation Department and gets to teach classes such as: Animation & Game Design, Media Literacy, Introduction to Computer Science, Video Production, Advanced Tech, Digital Graphics, and much more. She has a passion for learning, making, and working with students. Outside of teaching she has two businesses (Weekend Anime & Games in Westbrook and PortConMaine, the annual geek celebration) and two children (both adorable and fun!).
Julie York's Students Explore VR
Julie's Student Run Makerspace Set Up
Student's working on a PC Build Together
Why is CS Education Important?
CS is important because it effects everything we do and everything we will do in the future. It's a framework of thought and a method of thinking that connects concepts and practices. It's a science that allows people to really be creative and take action solving problems and coming up with solutions.
What does CS Education Mean to You?
To me, Computer Science is a flexible field of study that really encompasses a lot of different aspects. It's electronics, coding, problem solving, collaboration, making, testing, exploring, and critical thinking. It's the ability to break down problems into smaller components and come up with patterns and solutions that can build organically. Computer Science is about getting as much data as possible and working towards conclusions and solutions. It's creativity blended with math and science. It's beautiful and fun!
What is your favorite lesson?
That's really hard to pick! There's so many great ones! One of my favorite Computer Science lessons though have to be the inquiry projects in my Advanced Technology Course. Letting students drive their own learning is so powerful and fun. Doing inquiry projects also allows me to learn along with the student : it's always exciting to see just where their interests take them and what they accomplish. For Introduction to Computer Science, I love the Binary Flippy-Do ; something potentially complicated gets broken down into an easy to understand process.