Monday, May 10, 2010

Interesting Links 10 May 2010

You have to love the Internet and especially twitter. You can hear about things that you’d never hear about from the main stream media. For example, from Andrew Parsons (@MrAndyPuppy) I learned that there is an official Geek/Nerd Pride Day - May 25: Geek/Nerd day Information and Geek/Nerd Day Facebook Page. Not sure I am a big fan of the list of rights and responsibilities on the Wikipedia page but it is an interesting idea none the less.

Looking at the network logs for links to this blog I found this list of the Top 50 Computer Science Blogs I’m pretty happy to have made this list. There are some good blogs on it but I really think there were some missing. Mark Guzdial’s Computer Science Education blog and Eugene Wallingford’s Knowing and Doing just to name two. There are several other good CS blogs in the blog roll on the side of this page (click to the blog if you are reading via RSS)

Speaking of other good blogs, Hélène Martin reminds us that while loops are more complicated than we sometimes remember  with a post titled While loops gone wild. She talks about some of the things she does to teach indeterminate loops and what works or not at times.

A lot going on around the Internet on women in computer science last week. For example, from Derrick Love (@Dlove03) i spotted a link to a blog post titled Computer Science Lacks Women, Minorities. Dan Lewis on the CSTA Blog writes What's Different About Boys' and Girls' Interest in Computing? And Mark Guzdial writes about Women in CS in Qatar: It's Complicated. That last one is particularly full of surprises. If you are all interested in computer science perceptions in different cultures it is a must read.

Interested in contests? From @ScholasticTeach I learned that you can join the Partners in Learning Network by 6/30 for a chance to win a Dell computer lab for your school. Hey, it’s all free!

A bit about professional development and other events. From Liz Davis (@lizbdavis) I learned that there is a Creative Computing workshop for  Middle & HS teachers at MIT. Looks like it is derived from the CS4HS curriculum plan developed initially at Carnegie Mellon. Should be a good program.

Liz also twittered about the Scratch at MIT Conference in August: http://events.scratch.mit.edu/conference/index.php/Scratch/2010 and  Scratch Day on May 22nd. Registration is now open at http://sdmit.scratch.mit.edu/.

Speaking of Scratch – Gail Carmichael writes about Scratch and Eighth Graders on her blog. A good blog to follow BTW. Also she has some great links to resources including many that she used with her eight grade students. Worth the visit just for all those links.

From @Safer_Online I learned about some Free printable online safety brochures available for download. Take a look – you may have a use for them.

Last but not least, I have a new post at the Educator’s Royal Treatment today - Four T’s That Spell Trouble for Technology Adoption In which I talk about some of the issues that get in the way of implementing technology programs in schools.

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