@amyko.phd
Professor @ University of Washington Information School. Computing, learning, design, justice, kitties, tacos, coffee, gender, politics, and transit. I write at amyjko.medium.com. I maintain wordplay.dev, bookish.press, adminima.app, reciprocal.reviews.
Annie Clark on staging next to a piano and her accompaniment, with a rose held high.
Tonight I’m grateful for the amazing St. Vincent for her transfixing show at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall in Portland. She was somehow engrossing, hilarious, irreverent, and more, all while transforming her music into jazz, in the spirit of the Portland jazz Festival. Incredible!
A hundred posters, two hundred people, in a ballroom.
Today I’m grateful for being part of such a vibrant community of Information School scholars! Our breadth is astounding, deep, impactful, and led by so many wonderful humans. This was tonight’s Research Fair.
SIGCSE TS posted a recording of my recent keynote, "Love, Learning, and Computing Education". If you haven't seen it, I hope this live version is a helpful guide for navigating this era of hate, at least in our little world of computing education: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVrn...
Today I am proud of the amazing Adrienne Gifford, middle school CS teacher extraordinaire; for submitting her first research paper last week! She’s been an amazing teacher partner, centering youth visions while also advancing knowledge. Thanks to NSF for supporting her participation.
Another day, another bundle of bad news for the kids. Forced outings in CA schools, mental health bans in TX. I’m grateful for all the teams and communities fighting to protect kids’ privacy and wellness, but amidst the backdrop of pointless war, it was a heavy day.
especially spines of capitalists, who like to hide in board rooms and let the poor do the talking
Today I'm grateful for a quiet Friday afternoon, made possible by my wonderful PhD students precrastinating the ICER due date. I spent it addressing GenAI in Critically Conscious Computing, I wrote a little seed grant, I cleaned up a dozen messes. It's a clean slate, which means a weekend of rest.
so rare to spot a spine in the wild
Today I’m grateful for the unsung heroes of peer review. I see you ACM TOCE editorial board. You chase down reviewers, write thoughtful evaluations, help shepherd work to excellence. Thank you for your service; it makes being an Editor a joy, even amidst crisis and change.
Today im proud of my amazing daughter and her commitment to being an outstanding special ed teacher. She deserves better than this country’s federal cuts have to offer right now, and so do the kids in her class.
"What Trump unleashed was, yes, a tidal wave of prejudice that has assaulted and corroded our civil society. But the real earthquake behind that tsunami was the promise of emancipatory irresponsibility." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-trump-s...
Today I’m grateful for the students on our student leadership council for speaking truth to power on behalf of their peers. In always eager to hear about their experiences and needs, even when we struggle to meet them.
Today I’m proud of my doctoral students, teacher collaborators, and undergrad researchers for their ACM ICER 2026 drafts! This is such an important and hard-won batch of discoveries, and I hope we get to share them all this August in Sweden.
2 days ago: fox2now.com/news/illinoi...
Deadliest years ever of late: www.stlpr.org/government-p...
Today I’m grateful for the organizing team of the SIGCSE #TS2026 symposium for making the most of our week of gathering, sharing, and learning. Here’s my trip report about my experience, which was full of facilitation, listening, connecting, and love. medium.com/bits-and-beh...
Today I was proud to share my 2026 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium opening keynote, titled Love, Learning, and Computing Education. Here's a rehearsal, in case you weren't there. Thank you to the organizers for inviting me to speak and to our community for listening and learning. youtu.be/iaT_zvNN_zc
Today I'm grateful for the endlessly resourceful Brianna Blaser, co-PI and director of AccessComputing. She lead facilitated such a wonderful, rich community event on disability in CS education today, probably our biggest ever! www.linkedin.com/in/briannabl...
Today I’m grateful for the abundance of thoughtful, committed, and constructive faculty and staff colleagues I have. It makes every bit of administrative overwhelm meaningfully easier when everyone around you knows how to work together and get things done!
Today I am grateful for the end of a very, very long day. A good day, with good people, but it was a 10 hour day, and that is enough! Zzzz
Today I’m proud of the clever, kind, and always learning students I get to work with on research. It’s never a straight path, but I’m glad to be on it with you, learning and growing as you do!
Projector screen, Emily M. Bender, Fen 10.
I’m so grateful for our wonderful colleague @emilymbender.bsky.social’s Katz Distinguished Lecture, deconstructing the dehumanizing qualities of “AI.” It was such a rich, transdisciplinary takedown, and argument for refusal.
This was fun to reflect on: how is the world changing and what’s the role of Information Schools in making sense of it?
Today I was grateful for a mostly unscheduled day, which gave me time to read, write, recruit, plan, perform, and ponder with abandon! As a Monday should be :)
Today I’m excited about the >20 new Lambert House volunteers! I facilitated a training on allyship with trans youth today and they were awesome. I’m looking forward to volunteering with them in the coming years.
Today I'm proud of a paper I wrote more than 2 years ago being accepted with revisions. It's about how we might conceptualize educational justice for educational programming languages. Collaborators Ben, Jayne, and Megumi helped shape its final form. I'll be sure to share once it's accepted!
Today I’m grateful for my mother, who modeled for me at a young age a healthy obsession with carefully managing my prospective memory. So much about our modern world requires remembering our future plans, and I couldn’t do any of my jobs or my life without everything she taught me about how.
Today I’m grateful for the City of Seattle for not only reimbursing my medical expenses from my bike injuries last June, but also encouraging me to advocate for pain and suffering compensation, and when I did, offering me more than I asked for, because the adjuster thought it was more fair.
Today I’m proud of getting enough sleep, eating healthy, breathing fully, and forgiving myself. There is no promise the day will be kind, but I can be kind to myself.
KeyKeynotenote
Now with kitties!