Melany Cordova has been facilitating workshops for CS Alliance since we started 2 years ago. She learned to teach coding to students and teachers through Northern New Mexico College’s STEM Mentor Collective. She’s an avid coder and loves exploring all of the fun CS education resources. Having grown up in Bolivia, she is bilingual. She is raising her 9 year old daughter to be a fearless, bilingual coder as well. Melany is heading up our PD for teachers in Northern NM as well as organizing the code-a-thons.
A native New Mexican, Dixie Cooper attended Point Loma University in San Diego as a scholarship athlete playing volleyball while earning her under graduate degree in Psychology. Following graduation she spent a year teaching 5th grade at PS75 in the South Bronx, New York City always returning home to teach for Horizons Summer School each summer. After two years at APS, Dixie would develop a love for teaching coding to middle school students and return to the classroom to further her teaching skills. Dixie is a recent graduate of CNM Deep Dive Coding Camp and will soon pursue her master’s degree. Dixie’s first project is to get the CS Discoveries curriculum from Code.org into NMPED’s Canvas platform so all NM teachers have easy access to implement and customize. Dixie is working to develop the code-a-thons and other experiences for teachers and students.