Monday, June 01, 2015

Interesting Links 1 June 2015

Two more weeks of school for me. Our seniors graduate this weekend and then we have final exams for everyone else. The year has flown by. Soon I’ll be into summer mode. ISTE first and CSTA later in July. I hope to learn a lot and reconnect with a lot of people at both of them. Both events will help me improve my teaching practice. As do all the things I learn on the Internet during the school year. Here now some things I think are worth sharing.
Speaking of the CSTA Conference, Doug Peterson shares news about what looks like a  great UT Dallas Outing that is a free part of the conference (for registered participants). I’m really looking forward to seeing what is happening at the University of Texas in Dallas.
Ray Chambers is planning a  summer series of Touch Develop  Webinars via Skype Ray is in the UK so time zones will be an issue for some but that’s the case for anything these days. Ray really knows TouchDevelop though so making an effort to watch is likely to be a good use of time.
It's not late to Break Into Code! The beginner's coding challenge ends June 7th: It is for students 9-18 years old worldwide.
Create a Chatting Robot with @TouchDevelop and see if you can pass the Turing Test This is a lesson plan by Simon Johnson and Carrie Anne Philbin that looks very interesting. I may use it next year myself. I like the idea of of introducing the Turing Test in a way that makes sense to students.
Looking for projects? I’, always looking for them so this post on Five alternatives to the Fizzbuzz test for hiring programmers was something I found interesting. I may use some of them. 
Edutopia has a nice list of the Best Education Podcasts which may give you a lot to listen to and learn from over the summer.
Virtual Field Trips and Education (Technology) Inequalities is a post by Audrey Watters that makes the point that virtual field trips are not real trips. People seem to get excited about the idea but it never moved me.





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