Interesting Links 3 December 2012

Last week was about getting some professional development time. I spent two days at the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference where I attended some good sessions on social media in education and toured the exhibit hall (Cool Toys For Teaching Software and Engineering). On Friday I traveled down to Cambridge MA to a “trade school” called MIT.  Mark Guzdial from Georgia Tech was giving a talk on what we know about how to teach computer science. Great talk and I now have a bunch of things to look into more deeply. There are a lot of universities within reasonable drive for me. I really need to look into finding out about more public lectures I can attend. Do you look for public lectures are nearby universities and colleges?

Also last week I spent some time evaluating applications for @NCWIT Aspiration​s in Computing Award. Some amazing young women have applied. Results should be announced soon.

Computer Science Education week is coming up soon. Are you participating? One of the things I am doing is participating in a Twitter chat on December 11th. See a global conversation on computer science education on eventbright for more information.

National initiative for cybersecurity education is a site by NIST who is interested in creating a more secure workforce.

Ed Donahue has published a great list of Windows Store Resources that will be worth a look if you are planning on developing Windows 8 apps.

XInput PInvoking your XBox 360 Controller (from Channel 9) is about programming for an Xbox 360 controller without using XNA.

Bertrand Meyer explains Why so many features? in software. makes a great read and possibly a starting point to talk about “bloatware.