Prof. Kristin Stephens-Martinez

A shared inbox was a tool I started using when I was the hybrid chair of the SIGCSE Technical Symposium. It was extremely useful then, and I have since incorporated it into my teaching processes. So, this blog post covers why I use a shared inbox, considerations when using one, and two case studies of how those considerations played out. [ Also posted on medium. ] Why use a shared inbox? In short, efficiency! If more than one person in a group can respond to an email, the speed of response goes up while no one repeats work. I’ve lost count of how often I’ve seen multiple people get an email and respond simultaneously. Or I’ve been that person who started writing and thankfully didn’t send it before the other person hit send! But there are more efficiency gains than just that! There’s clarity on the context, on who is responsible, and in the email responses themselves. If the entire email thread is in the shared inbox, everyone has access to that context, and no one has to find an...

Time for a reflection on being the Hybrid Experience chair for SIGCSE TS 2023, a.k.a. round 2! This year was so much more manageable in terms of time commitment. I also helped introduce new processes and aspects to the symposium. In this post, I will start with the new processes and structures and then talk about the time commitment since the latter section references things from the former section. [Also posted on  medium .] New Processes and Structures The most significant difference is rather than being a committee of one, I was part of a committee of four! Dela Yazdansepas was my junior Hybrid Experience Co-Chair. Jacqueline Smith was the Authors’ Corner chair and Jessica Yauney was the Online Experience chair. Spreading both the workload and the mental load was extremely helpful and reduced so much of the stress. In addition, three other things. The first was to create a Trello Workspace for the committee. You all know I love my Trello boards ( class Trello blog post , pers...

I thought I’d go back to the SIGCSE TS theme for this blog post, but with one of my conference reflections. Though it’s not really one of my classic reflections since this was my first hybrid conference ever, and I was also creating the hybrid experience! I also attended the hybrid Learning@Scale and ICER conferences as an online attendee. Hopefully, I’ll find time to write reflections for those too. But first, SIGCSE TS 2022 because it’s better late than never! [Also posted on  medium .] What Happened Responsibility mainly drove the sessions I attended rather than interest. During the pre-symposium on Wednesday, I attended an all-morning Peer Teaching Summit that I helped organize. The focus is on facilitating discussion among college teachers about undergrad teaching assistants (UTAs). We also had UTAs present to contribute. During the symposium, I was a panelist on “Technology we can’t live without! (Covid-19 edition).” I attended one special session as an attendee just out of ...

 The Authors’ Corner was the brainchild of a SIGCSE TS 2022’s chairs meeting. By the time we articulated the idea, I didn’t know who contributed what to create it. The event aimed to enable authors to answer questions about their work online. The Authors’ Corner was primarily for online attendees and authors. [Also posted on  medium .] However, once we decided to do it, I said it had to be something where no one was left alone in a video call, “sitting in a black void,” waiting for someone to appear. The in-person equivalent event was presenters at posters or tables; if someone was interested in the project, they could talk to the presenter. However, the online versions of this I’ve participated in as a presenter and attendee put presenters in a video call alone, where they sat in a “black hole,” hoping someone would come and talk to them. Such events often make presenters feel insignificant and “unpopular” if no one comes, or maybe that’s just me. I refused to put our present...

  Hybrid Conference: Questions to think through Here is the first in my reflection series on running our first hybrid SIGCSE TS 2022 . In this post, I’ll cover a more organized version of the questions I’ve sent to those who’ve emailed me directly about running a hybrid conference. I did my best to cluster them so it isn’t an overwhelming laundry list of questions. But, to be honest, it is still an overwhelming list. Hopefully, the added context and extra ideas will help. Disclaimer: Opinions are my own. [Also posted on  medium .] This post is broken down into the following sections: Overall Experience (5 questions) Nuts and Bolts (3 questions) Videos? (2 questions) Hiring Help (2 kinds) Platform (1 question) Overall Experience (5 questions) Question 1: What kind of interaction/experience do you imagine for the hybrid piece? One person’s hybrid will not be another person’s since we have all experienced it differently. The organizers must be all on the same page. The only ...

So this past March, I was the inaugural Hybrid Experience Chair for the 2022 SIGCSE Technical Symposium . This conference is the Special Interest Group Computer Science Education’s (SIGCSE) flagship conference with over 1,500 attendees. My career plans included serving on committees like this. However, I hadn’t planned to volunteer for such committees until my kids were older and starting in a much smaller role. [Also posted on medium .] But when I got the call, I couldn’t say no. Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic started, I’ve been talking about how we can’t go back to pre-covid times as we glacially return to some new normal. In-person conferences are exclusionary. I experienced that first hand with SIGCSE TS 2020, the conference that didn’t happen due to the pandemic. I was eight months pregnant at the time of that conference and therefore couldn’t travel. So I had to remove my name from a submission because it required attendance. I supported my co-authors but couldn’t actually go a...