Looking Back, Looking Forward

This seems to be the time that people look back on the previous year and forward to the new year. It’s almost January which was named after Janus who is often pictured as looking both backwards and forwards after all. I’ve been doing a lot of this thinking lately. Perhaps too much looking back and not enough forward though.
Personally 2012 was a tough year for me. After a long decline, several years of which he spent living with me, my father passed away during the summer. That was (and to some extent still is) tough. I feel blessed that I had a job that let me take care of him at home for the most part though. Speaking of the job, that went away in early September. That was sort of tough as well. Probably a good time for it to happen though. As proud as I am of what I accomplished in 9 years at Microsoft I’m not sure I could do more there. Things (priorities, programs, people) change and that is the way of life. The last time I was reorged out of a company things turned out wonderfully – eventually.
So looking forward what now? I’m doing some curriculum development right now which I’ll probably write more about later when more of it is done. That and blogging and looking for a future full  time gig are keeping me pretty busy. As far as the computer industry is concerned I am convinced that mobile and touch are the future stars. I’m continuing to deepen my knowledge of both of those related trends.
I’m at an age where making a difference is a big deal to me. So opportunities to help attract more students into computing are high on my list. That may explain my enthusiastic support of the recent CSEdWeek. I’d love to do career talks at schools and groups of students as well. I’ll miss having Microsoft cover the T&E though.
And I am also interested in finding ways to help CS educators with ideas, resources, and what ever else I can find. I don’t see the same number of email from groups at Microsoft as I used to (don’t forget about me people!) but I have widened what I look for to more companies than just the one so there is that.
This blog seems to still be reaching some number of educators even with the move from my old location. That is exciting to me and I hope is a sign that I am still being useful. BTW if you have things I could/should pass along to computer science teachers drop me an email (act2 (at) acthompson.net), send me a Tweet (@AlfredTwo)  or contact me any other way that works. (Alfred’s contact information) I love to blog about great teaching resources.
I expect great things in 2013. The world didn’t end this month which I take as a great sign.