We had such a fun time learning and laughing with Jean! She is the CEO of an innovative edtech and video game startup with a deep passion for democratizing storytelling in games, plus she’s a standup comedian, international speaker, professional coach, and avid pie maker! She also recently launched a podcast - Games, Grit & Gratitude: Real Talk. Find resources here.

We talk with Chic Thompson, founder of WagiLabs and Kayla Canario, K-12 Education Project Manager at Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education about brainstorming, design thinking, playing games, integrating STEM, Kidpreneurs and being the buffalo! Find resource here.

We first met Melissa Phillips as a middle school math teacher and now she’s a data scientist. Learn how bringing students to a math competition inspired her new journey! We also revisit imposter syndrome and some things we have learned to do to deal with it. Find resources here.

Sarah and Kim are both on new adventures this fall! Kim is now a full-time Ed.D. student in Curriculum and Instruction at the UVA Curry School of Education. Sarah is in a new position at a new school as the Distance Learning Coordinator or as she refers to it, a Professional Optimist. Find resources here.

We talk with student organizers about their experience with Bio-Med Tech-Girls. Noelle is a Junior at St. Anne's-Belfield School and a participant for 2 years. She is now the Tech-Girls intern helping out with the program. Sruthi is a 4th year studying biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia and helped design some of the content. Bio-Med Tech-Girls is a collaboration between the UVA Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), St. Anne's-Belfield School and Charlottesville Women in Tech. This year 23 young women from all over the U.S. joined a week filled with guest speakers, hands-on activities and a design challenge focused on the Go Viral Project developed by Dr. Jeff Saucerman and Dr. Shayn Peirce-Cottler from UVA BME. Find resources here.

Lisel Bruscia is the Executive Director of the STEAM Discovery Academy. She shares with us all about this program that she and her husband founded in 2016. It has evolved from summer and after school programming to including virtual programming and the opening of a new STEAM Incubator space in Charlottesville. Their programs infuse hands-on STEAM activities with play, design thinking and career education in mind. They also offer leadership programs for girls. Find resources here.

Despite or maybe because of the pandemic, we are busier than ever this summer - teaching online classes, running summer camps and taking and offering summer professional development. In this episode, we catch you up on all our summer activities and of course, share tons of resources!

Jean Weller is the Educational Technology Specialist in the Office of STEM & Innovation for the Virginia Department of Education. She is currently the administrator of #GoOpenVa, an open education resource community and repository for all teachers in Virginia. In this episode, Jean shares how the promises of edtech from the last 30 years finally seem ready to come to fruition and how #GoOpenVa can help teachers and students make it happen in Virginia. Find resources here.

Saber Khan is a progressive CS educator, Education Community Director at the Processing Foundation and co-host of the #ethicalCS twitter chat. Kim first met Saber at #MozFest 2016 where he and a colleague, Jennie Crowley, shared ideas for building an open source ethical CS program. In our interview, we explore what’s been happening around the ideas of ethical CS and learn about the power of creative computing with P5JS. Find resources here.

In this episode, we talk about stereotypes, failure and appreciating the creative side of CS with Camellia Pastore, a rising senior studying computer science at Virginia Tech. We last spoke with Cami during #MorningMeeting. We have worked with Cami through Tech-Girls, Spark Hackathon, Summer Spark and most recently as co-presenters at #MozFest and we are always blown away by this young woman's drive and wisdom. Find resource page here.