Interesting Links 10 September 2012

Happy Monday! I actually want to start this post with something my friend Paul R Wood ‏@paulrwood said on Twitter last week. Paul is a technology director at a private high school in Texas and a great person who really cares about his work.

I may be the best thing that happens in my students and my staff's lives that day. I can handle the other stuff. They come first

Something to remember. Are you the best thing that happens to your students? For a student interested in computer science you could easily be that.

Doug Peterson ‏@dougpete pointed me to this cool article. Hacker Uses A Kinect To Help His Mom Email After A Stroke Now this is out of the box thinking used for good. This is the sort of thing that hacking used to mean and should/could again.

Vicki Davis‏@coolcatteacher Talked about the Natural User Interface - which Kinect is a part of – in her lesson on Evolution of the Interface Do you talk about various ways of interacting with the computer with your students?

"What do you think you can do with Computer Science?" Best answer ever

Come Celebrate International Dot Day with Us - September 15, 2012  via Angela Maiers @angelamaiers

Patrick Godwin @ximplosionx shows how to deploy a cloud app in 6 days; yes only 6 days! Patrick is a college student who really knows his stuff.

Seems like everyone I know sent me a link to Why Estonia Has Started Teaching Its First-Graders To Code on Forbes. Interesting idea. A wonder how it will play out in the long run.

The Computer Science Teachers Association announced that the "We are the Faces of Computing" Poster Contest Launches! You may have students interested in helping improve the image of computing. Pass this along.

From Microsoft Research‏@MSFTResearch Microsoft Research's Kodu gets kids coding with new Mars Rover game.

New book out from Rob Miles  @robmiles: Back to School with Kinect Start Here!

Programming for girls – Post by @lblanken Are special programs for girls working? How do we know?