Interesting Links 18 May 2015

Last week I made my travel arrangements for the Annual CSTA Conference. Less than two months away and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll also be at ISTE this June. Not as much CS stuff there but a lot of edtech stuff that I find interesting as well as a lot of great educators to talk to. But big as ISTE is, the CSTA conference is the one I would go to if I could only go to one conference a year. Hope to see a lot of people there.

http://Code.org targets high school computer science via @usatoday Great news for the districts involved. I have some thoughts on what about the rest of us to share soon. In the mean time you will want to read Mike Zamansky’s blog post - What's Expedient vs what's good - curriculum vs teachers

The new partnership will encourage high schools in 35 of the nation's largest districts, including New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, to offer Code.org's computer science course this fall.

Code.org will provide curriculum, tools, training and funding to school districts that qualify, said Code.org CEO and co-founder Hadi Partovi.

Dawn DuPriest @DuPriestMath  had a couple of good posts on teaching loops last week.

• Looping Lessons!
• Advice on a coding lesson! Credit Card debt and Loops

If you go to this link:   and click on the YouTube tab, you will see a list of links to Alice 3 tutorial videos.

I could not help myself. I backed another educational Kickstarter last week. The banana piano was just the beginning. Makey Makey GO, the portable invention kit, is here! How I’ll use it I have no idea. It may go to my wife for use in the MakerSpace in her middle school program.

Microsoft Band SDK Release and Band Studio Introduction (Channel 9)   via @ch9

A Speech Library Helper for Cortana – may make for some interesting projects.

9 Anti-Patterns Every Programmer Should Be Aware Of – what do you think of these? 

Amazing how fast memory is getting bigger on the inside without getting bigger in the outside.