Teaching for WeTeach_CS: An Aggie in UT Country

Howdy! I want to share something I have been genuinely pumped about this spring.

I started teaching for WeTeach_CS for the first time, and it has been a blast. If you are not familiar with WeTeach_CS, it is a program out of The University of Texas at Austin focused on getting more, and better-prepared, Computer Science and Technology Applications teachers into Texas classrooms. Good mission. Definitely up my alley.

I am teaching in the Technology Applications program through the Region IV hub, and so far it has been a great fit. But before any of that kicked off, there was orientation. In Austin. At UT.

Now, I have my M.Ed. from Texas A&M, so I will admit I was a little disturbed by all the burnt orange. For those of you not in Texas, burnt orange is basically like the color yellow to the Green Lanterns. Still, I managed to survive. Barely.

The Part That Really Wowed Me

The orientation itself was great. Good people, clear purpose, and, maybe most importantly, a room full of people who actually cared about what they were doing. That matters.

But the highlight, especially for a tech geek like me, was getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the Texas Advanced Computing Center, better known as TACC.

TACC is one of the leading high-performance computing centers in the country, and it sits right there on the UT Austin campus. They support research across science, engineering, medicine, and a lot more. In other words, these are not the computers you are setting up in a classroom lab.

We even got to see Lonestar 6. And this thing is wild. It does not just use liquid cooling. The whole system is submerged in liquid. If you ever want to feel humbled as a tech person, go stand next to a machine like that for a few minutes.

After spending so many years teaching this material, getting to see that level of computing up close was one of those moments that makes you want to call somebody immediately and say, “You are not going to believe what I just saw.”

Glad I Said Yes

A few months in, I am glad I said yes to this. WeTeach_CS is well run, the people are sharp, and the work matters.

If you are a Texas teacher who teaches, or wants to teach, Computer Science or Technology Applications, and you have not looked into WeTeach_CS, it is worth your time.

More to come as the semester rolls on.