Educator Spotlight in CS: Kim Wilkens

9 August, 2022

Kim Wilkens graduated with a Computer Science degree and worked for IBM for over a decade. She “stumbled into education” in 2001 taking a job to set up a computer lab in a K-8 school and made the career switch as a technology teacher, saying that “CS education became my passion when I learned in 2010 that women represented just 18% of the CS graduates that year – down from 37% when I graduated. Kim founded a non-profit org Tech-Girls and became the CS Coordinator at the indpendent school. She is currently a PHD candidate at University of Virginia and a partner with Charlottesville City Schools and Computers 4 Kids, where they run a summer CS Institute for K-8 educators (open to all!).

“I am excited about so many things from this past year! I started a podcast series called Bringing CS Education Research into K-8 Classrooms where I get to interview researchers about their work and what they hope that K-8 educators can take away from it.”

“I also got to participate in the CSTA conference in person this summer and was so happy to see focus on equity and K-8 CS education and to be surrounded by so many inspiring educators, administrators, researchers and ed tech folks who are all passionate about CS for all students. Finally, we just wrapped up the Creating Equitable CS Experiences workshop from the CS Institute with seventeen K-8 teachers and it was so great to see their enthusiasm for CS! We love to share resources from this PD, so anyone who is interested can check out our handy handbook. I am looking forward to wrapping up my EdD studies this coming year and finding more opportunities to share my passion for CS K-8 education. I was recently interviewed by a writer from ZDNET – this resulted in the following two articles that educators might have interest in: How do you teach younger students computer science? The pandemic’s surprising impact on K-12 computer science education.“