The CC Fest Teacher Camp, a free virtual coding class, bring together educators from across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America for a five-week journey into creative coding with p5.js. Led by Saber Khan from Los Angeles, this virtual professional development program demonstrated how thoughtfully structured online learning can create genuine community while building technical skills and pedagogical confidence. After three iterations, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, and Fall 2025, the program shows how thoughtfully designed online PD can build real technical confidence, deepen creative teaching practice, and cultivate a supportive, joyful learning community.
Location of attendees for Fall 2025
CC Fest (Creative Coding Festival) is a free, community-driven festival founded in 2016 by Saber Khan that treats coding as a form of creative and cultural expression rather than just a technical skill. Starting with 40 participants at NYU ITP, it has grown to reach thousands of participants across 20+ countries through in-person events in NYC, LA, and San Francisco, and virtual gatherings since 2020. The festival brings together students, educators, artists, and technologists for hands-on workshops, keynotes, and project showcases using tools like p5.js and Processing. Its core principle—"You don't have to be a coder...you just have to be curious"—reflects its commitment to making creative coding accessible regardless of technical background, with all events remaining 100% free and open to participants at any skill level.
The CC Fest Teacher Training Camp, launched in Fall 2024, is a five-week virtual professional development program specifically designed for educators who want to integrate creative coding into their teaching practice. The program emerged from educators who attended CC Fest events and requested deeper, sustained engagement with both technical skills and pedagogical strategies. Each weekly two-hour session combines hands-on coding instruction in p5.js, guest speakers from the creative coding community (including artists and educators like Angi Chau, Qianqian Ye, and Patt Vira), and collaborative discussion about classroom implementation. Teachers work through a structured curriculum covering fundamentals like shapes and color, animation and interactivity, loops and patterns, data visualization, and object-oriented programming, while building a portfolio of classroom-ready projects and joining a supportive community of creative coding educators from around the world.
Teacher Camp participants represent remarkable geographic and professional diversity. Over three rounds (Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025), 60% of applicants have come from North America, with the remaining 40% joining from Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Uganda, India, Japan, and other countries. This international participation enriches the program but creates scheduling challenges—40% of non-U.S. participants request asynchronous options due to timezone conflicts. The teaching contexts vary significantly: 65% are K-12 educators working in settings from well-resourced independent schools to under-resourced public schools in the Bronx, rural Florida, and Buenos Aires. Another 20% teach in higher education (digital art, design, or computer science), while 15% work in non-traditional settings including nonprofits like CodeClub.org, after-school programs, and community organizations. This mix brings valuable perspectives but requires flexible support—teachers in low-resource districts need offline tools and device workarounds, while university professors seek advanced pedagogical strategies for creative coding.
Equity drives most participants' interest in creative coding. Seventy percent work with students facing systemic barriers to CS education, including limited device access ("students only have smartphones"), connectivity issues ("no internet at home"), language barriers (English language learners), or absence of any CS courses in their districts. Sandra in Buenos Aires teaches students from "tenements and squatted houses" with minimal technology access, while Karioki supports Black and Brown youth in New York who rarely see themselves reflected in traditional CS curricula. Additionally, 40% of participants specifically focus on gender equity through all-girls schools or programs like Girls Who Code, seeking to create inclusive spaces where young women and non-binary students can explore technology without the gatekeeping common in traditional CS education. These educators view creative coding not as a technical skill to master but as a tool for student expression, cultural relevance, and educational justice.
Educators join Teacher Camp across three skill levels with distinct but overlapping goals. Thirty percent are beginners transitioning from block-based programming (Scratch, Blockly) to text-based coding, often expressing anxiety about their technical abilities—"I'm not a coder; I'm worried I'll slow the group down." These teachers, like Christie who needs "more than Scratch level to support advanced students," seek foundational skills in p5.js. The intermediate majority (50%) already use creative coding but want to deepen their practice—Lillian from Marymount NYC seeks "tools and tricks for scaffolding tricky concepts like nested loops," while Mauro in Portugal wants to integrate p5.js into music workshops. The advanced 20%, including university professors and professional artists like Paul and Ryan, come not to learn coding but to develop creative pedagogical approaches for their generative art and design courses.
Beyond technical skills, educators are primarily motivated by equity (60% of applicants) and community building (50%). The equity focus has grown from 40% to 70% across the three camps, with teachers explicitly seeking to expand access for marginalized students. Missy in rural Florida plans to "launch free coding and digital art cohorts for underserved communities," while Brian at an all-girls school wants to "combat the stereotype that coding is only for boys." The isolation of being the only creative coding teacher—or only CS teacher period—at their schools drives half of participants to seek community. Clara articulates this need: "I would love a community of other teachers to collaborate and discuss ideas with." These educators view creative coding not just as a technical skill but as a tool for social change, self-expression, and building connections across traditional educational boundaries.
Educators plan to implement creative coding across four distinct contexts, each with unique opportunities and constraints. The largest group (40%) will integrate p5.js into standalone CS courses like AP Computer Science Principles, introductory programming, or electives. Randy in Oregon wants to "redevelop curriculum to attract students interested in creative and expressive aspects of computer science," while Nancy in Los Angeles aims to make coding "empowering and fun" in her Exploring Computer Science class. These teachers face challenges aligning creative projects with standardized CS frameworks and worry about text-based coding feeling too abstract for beginners. Another 30% plan interdisciplinary integration, using creative coding as a tool for expression across subjects—Christie creating generative art backdrops for school musicals, Diane collaborating with math teachers to teach transformations through visual patterns, Sandra in Buenos Aires combining coding with digital storytelling. Their main obstacles are time constraints (seeing students only once weekly) and colleague buy-in, with teachers requesting ready-to-use lesson plans to lower adoption barriers.
The remaining participants split between informal learning environments and teacher training. Twenty percent will use creative coding in after-school clubs, summer programs, or makerspaces, like Elizabeth's digital art program mixing Scratch and p5.js, or Katty's integration with squishy circuits and robotics for elementary students. These programs offer more flexibility but struggle with sustainability (relying on grants or volunteers) and tech access for students outside school hours. The final 10%—mainly tech coaches and department leaders—plan to train other educators. Kris wants to help art and coding teachers across two campuses adopt p5.js, while university instructor Art hopes to show teacher candidates that "anyone can learn to program." These educator-trainers face resistance from colleagues who view coding as "too hard" or irrelevant to their subjects, compounded by limited professional development time in schools.