Anna A.

Anna has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and a Bachelor of Education degree from Western University in London, Ontario. Anna has been teaching high school computer science and math for over 25 years. It’s been her pleasure to teach computer science to high school students and watch them find a new interest or skill they didn’t know they had. Anna's goal has always been “computer science for all” which means encouraging all students to take at least one computer science course before they leave high school. Anna teaches open, college bound and university bound level courses. Anna has increased the number of students taking computer science at her school to the point where another computer science teacher was hired. Anna has particularly been focused on increasing the number of females taking computer science. She started an annual all-girls hackathon a few years ago along with a colleague. Anna has also invited former female computer science students to speak to girls at a Girls’ Night In event. This increased female enrollment across all courses. For students who excel at computer programming, Anna encourages them to participate in both online and team competitions outside of class and encourages students to get involved in computer science competitions like the Big Data Challenge (a data science competition) and CanHack (a cyber security competition). A few years ago Anna and a colleague started the first coding competition as part of the Halton Skills Competition which promotes the skilled trades through competition in our Halton area school boards. Anna hopes that as more and more students are exposed to computer science, they will use these skills to create applications that will help our society and contribute to the common good.