Wednesday, September 19, 2012

We Are Making Things Too Hard

I once had a conversation with Bill Gates. Yes, in person, face to face. And while I will not go into the whole meeting he said a couple of things that I continue to think about on a regular basis. One of them is that he suggested that development tools have gotten more and more powerful but at the same time that has made it harder and harder for students and other beginners to use them. I think that anyone teaching programming using tools like Visual Studio and Eclipse and the various markup languages that seem to be growing in power and complexity daily would agree with this. This has spurred the growth on simpler tools such as Alice, Kodu, Scratch and IDEs for beginners like Small Basic, BlueJ and Greenfoot. These are great learning tools but I wonder if they keep beginners, and by that I mean hobby programmers as well as students, away for the main stream of programming. Away from the really cool stuff.

Today when you think about programming apps for phones you have three options: iPhone using Objective-C, Android using Java and Eclipse with add-ons (Or App Inventor about which I will say more later) or Windows Phone using Visual Studio (C#, C++ or Visual Basic). Your user interface is likely to be drawn using some sort of markup language that is probably going to have its own learning curve. In my humble opinion it shouldn’t be this way!

Many years ago I worked with an operating system called TRAX. It’s so obscure not that I can’t even find it in Wikipedia. Why bring it up now? Because back 30 years ago this operating system used a mark up language for describing a user interface that was much like the ones we are using today. Where is the progress? Oh sure today we have some drag and drop capability and I love getting started that way using Visual Studio for Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps. But a lot of modifications seem to have to be made in the code. Sure I can do it. I have almost 40 years of experience writing code and messing around in mark-up languages.

As long as I have been programming which is about 40 years now people have been talking about programming getting easier and easier to the point where one day everyone would be able to program. It seems as though we went so far with that (remember Visual Basic 6.0 and earlier?) and then started backtracking. Now Visual Basic .NET was a huge step forward in power but we lost something in ease of use. Control arrays which I thought was one of the most powerful features in VB 6.0 were still doable in VB .NET but it took a lot more work that had to be coded by hand.

Moving from Windows Forms in earlier versions of Visual Studio to Silverlight and HTML5 today again seems like a bigger step backwards in ease of development than it is step forward in power. I’m not sure I understand the motivation behind it either. Who is pushing for this sort of thing?

Now a word or two about App Inventor for Android. I did a throw down event where we demonstrated development of apps for iPhone, Windows Phone (my part) and Android. I have no doubt that the App Inventor demo “won” for many definitions of won. I like to think I was second – Objective-C is weird looking to me. But with App Inventor one has a domain specific (phone in this case) version of a drag and drop block programming language (it builds on work at MIT that went into Scratch) that makes it easy to do very powerful things very easily. The demo made ME want to start developing for Android! Why can’t we have more of that sort of thing?

Why can’t we have domain specific blocks for more types of apps and applications? Why can’t we have more work in developing block languages that make it easy to avoid syntax and create more WYSIWYG user interfaces? Oh sure the professional programmers will sneer at it and stick with their powerful tools that make them feel like the elite – or is that l33t? But why not open development to the rest of the world?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Decorate For Inspiration

Last week Mike Zamansky (blog at C'est la Z Twitter @Zamansky), who is the head computer science teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, tweeted about asking his alumni to send in SWAG to decorate his classroom He asked for logo goodies from companies the alums work at, started, or have a major stake in. And they delivered. He’s used these goodies to decorate his classroom What a great idea.

I know a lot of schools like to do things like display banners and the like from colleges and universities that their graduates attend. Guidance departments are prime locations for this sort of display. I wonder how many students actually notice such things though. And university is still fairly short term. What I like about this idea is that the display is in a classroom that is directly related to the careers that are highlighted. There is a more closer connection between the students in the room and the alumni who are sending the stuff back for the display.

I think this idea has applicability for a lot of classrooms. Showing students a tangible sign of success in the field they are studying in the classroom can be very inspiring. What do you think? How do you decorate your classroom or lab to inspire students?

Monday, September 17, 2012

NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing 2012

One of the ways that one can help young women with an interest in computing and related fields is to provide recognition for the world they have already been doing. One of the great programs in this regard is the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing. Along with the NCWIT awards listed below, a number of universities offer scholarships to winners and runners up of the Award for Aspirations in Computing. Applications open officially next month but you will want to look into the awards and application process now so you can encourage young women to apply.

The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing honors young women at the high-school level for their computing-related achievements and interests. Awardees are selected for their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history, and plans for post-secondary education. The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing offers both a national and local "affiliate" competitions to generate support and visibility for women's participation in communities nationwide.

Applications are accepted from September 15-October 31. Award recipients are notified in early December and award events take place around the country December through May. To apply, girls must register online. Click here to begin registration. You can register anytime and will be notified when applications open.

The Award for Aspirations in Computing is open to all high school girls residing in the US and you may re-apply each year. You may only receive the National award once.

National Award-winners receive:

$500 in cash

a laptop computer, provided by Bank of America

a trip to attend the Bank of America Technology Showcase and Awards Ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina

an engraved crystal award for both the student and the student's school

The Application period is now open!

Interesting Links 17 September 2012

From my point of view the first week of this blog at this location has good well. I realize that I’ve posted a number of longish posts about some of my own thoughts and ideas that were not technical. I hope that has been as good for readers to read as it has been for me to write. It felt good to express myself this way.

Just one favor. If you have a blog, a web site or even just post links to a book marking site I hope you’ll post a link to this blog (http://alfredtwo.blogspot.com) for me. It would really help make it show up on search engine results and also let more people know that “I’ve moved.”

But don’t worry I’ve got a lot of links and short tidbits to share with you today.

All Hands on Deck! Scaling K-12 Computer Science Education is a very important post on the Communications of the ACM by Cameron Wilson and Baker Franke. It includes a call for computer science teachers to take part in a survey.

If you are a K-12 computer science professional development (PD) provider or know of one, it is of vital importance that your efforts are recognized in this national landscape study of computer science PD. By completing the survey (link below) you will ensure that your PD opportunity will count.

PD Survey Link: https://uchicagocenter.us2.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3ehqq2eWXOhlzvf

I’ve been noticing a lot of wise notions in Twitter lately. I’d like to start with on from ‏@kdwashburn that resonated with me.

"I believe every great—and by great I mean not just instructive, but inspiring—teacher is him or herself a determined learner."

This week I discovered the Computer Science Student Network the web at http://www.cs2n.org and on Twitter @CS2Network The mission of this site from Carnegie Mellon is to engage more students in Computer Science and STEM.

http://TryComputing.org Is a web site from IEEE with resources to try to help students to consider a career in computing. Some good stuff there and well worth a look.

My friend Andrew Parsons wrote about FREE Windows Store Access for Students. This is a great opportunity for students though honestly is is a lot easier for college students. BTW follow Andy on twitter @MrAndyPuppy

Don't forget to sign your US K-12 school up for the FREE Kinect Trial Program at http://msft.it/6018ToiA

17-Year-Old Girl Invents Cellphone Heart Test For Patients In Developing Country. This is yet another reminder that technology that is available to students can be used by students to make a difference in the world.

@TCEA tweeted a link to this infographic on protecting your online reputation that looks great for high school students and adults! I can see this hanging on classroom walls.

Are you aware of these Microsoft Office Add-ins for Scientists I can see them being useful for teachers and students of science.

CSTA website with CS events for kids is a site worth checking from time to time. Right now you can learn about:

Great new post from Mark Guzdial @guzdial: A Question that Everyone should Ask their CS Professors: Why do we have to learn this?

Video of the Week from Microsoft Research @MSFTResearch On how MSR continues to push boundaries to automate intelligence in your daily life.

College student? Apply today for Google's Engineering Practicum Internship Program. Deadline to apply is October 15!

Tweet Follow @alfredtwo

Friday, September 14, 2012

Think Outside The Textbook

I was talking to a teacher, well chatting online via Facebook actually, and I described what he does as “thinking outside the textbook.” Speaking as someone who has written several textbooks I will easily admit that textbooks can be wonderful tools. They can make a teacher’s job a lot easier. They supply information, explanations, review questions and more. These days they often come with PowerPoint decks, test banks, and more. At the same time they can be limiting as well. It is easy to fall into the trap of teaching as if what is in the textbook are the only things that students need to know.

Few good teachers limit themselves to the textbooks that students are assigned though. Most teachers I know have a collection of textbooks that they use to help them widen their curriculum. They borrow information, projects, quiz questions and more. This lets them make their courses richer and more interesting.

Computer science changes rapidly though. Textbooks change very slowly. Most districts can only buy new textbooks every five to seven years. This is hardly often enough to keep up with the latest developments in computer science. Programming languages and integrated development environments (IDEs) seem to change annually if not more frequently. Sure you can stick with old versions and texts if you want. I know of teachers still using products that haven’t been supported let along sold in years and years. This works. Sort of.

And then there are the latest developments in application types: Games, Kinect and other new user interfaces, phone app development (I talked about this at To App or Not To App) and soon Windows 8 apps. By the time a textbook comes out that covers it there are new versions that may have breaking changes. And yet students want to learn about these things. Students often have little patience with the line “it may not be the bleeding edge but the concepts are for ever.” It’s a true statement but students always want to be current.

So what do you do? Well the easy way out is to stick with the textbooks. It’s the safe way to go. Going beyond the textbooks is scary. It’s hard work. It’s not required. So why bother and how to you do it?

First off it is exciting for students to be on the leading edge. When students are excited and motivated to learn they work harder, longer and learn more. This is just the sort of thing that attracts more students to computer science programs. Those are some good whys. But it is still hard.

There are resources available on the Internet to try the new things. Lots of online documentation, sample code and even help forums. Few teachers have the time to learn this stuff before teaching it though. So what is a teacher to do? Ask their students to help them learn it!

One of the things I heard recently at an education forum was that teachers should model lifelong learning. By setting an example of being someone who is always learning new things teachers help students adopt the same attitude. For a lot of people it’s a bit scary to “give up control” by admitting that they don’t know something. It takes some courage to admit ignorance in front of teachers. Generally though students respond well to the idea of learning along side their teacher. Making the learning of a new technology a cooperative experience benefits students and teachers alike. In the long run everyone learns more.

There is more to learn than what is in the textbooks. Thinking beyond them and learning to learn with students opens new doors to learning. And best of all it helps students see lifelong learning modeled for them.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

To App Or Not To App

I was at the industry advisory board meeting for one of the career/vocational schools I am involved with earlier this week and the topic of apps came up. Apps for phone and tablets are a big deal in industry these days. The advent of Windows 8 tablets and the continued growth in sales for smart phones means they will become more important rather than less. So on one hand it feels like teaching app development is something that high schools should be doing. Especially for people who are in industry. But what about the educational value?

Universities have an easier time resisting the lure of “industry wants” than community colleges do. So true a “college prep” high school can ignore industry trends more easily than career technical schools. But ultimately it boils down to what concepts are you needing to teach and what are you preparing students for after they leave your school? Concepts are always more important than short term technical skills. Well for a lot of us they are. The questions for educators becomes “can we teach the concepts as well with apps as with traditional programs?” and “are there things we can teach better with apps?” This is were the discussion went in our meeting this week. I’m not sure we settled on a common agreement though.

In some ways the issue also relates to the notions of attraction and distraction. I know educators who want to stick with DOS style applications so that students don’t get distracted by the “fun” of creating a graphical user interface. Other teachers find that students want to create “real” looking programs and are unimpressed with DOS applications. Creating apps, if any thing, compounds this problem.

Students today love their phones. They love sharing apps. IF they could create and share their own apps with their friends that could be a great attraction. On the other hand there is some distraction involved. There is the whole GUI design piece of course. Then there is the distraction of using other features of phones – any one want to write an app that lets you shake the phone to roll your virtual device? It is easy to see students spending so much time figuring out how to respond to a shake that they ignore what the project is really supposed to teach them.

I think these trade-offs are manageable though. They are with GUI and event driven programming and they can be with smart phone apps. And let’s not forget the attraction of using their own phones!

But that is not enough. Being as good as is not enough to move most people. Rightly so. Especially when we all know hat some administrator is going to toss a fit about students using phones in class.

I think there is extra value in app programming. I think that the constraints placed by the smaller form factor makes students think about their user interface in valuable ways. And makes them appreciate what goes into the professional apps they think should be free. The amount and types of storage forces them to think about efficiency of storage and look into cloud storage (and processing) which are keys to the future of computing. I also think that the sooner students start developing using new user interfaces (touch, voice, motion, etc.) the sooner we get really creative ways to use our devices.

The question in my mind is not should students write apps but for what devices and using what tools. I’ll have some thoughts on that (and maybe a surprise of two) in the very near future. In the mean time what do you think? Are apps a positive learning tool or just the latest thing to distract students from the core concepts they need to learn?

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

One of the things I hear from university computer science faculty on a regular basis is that they have trouble retaining students. What happens is that students sign up to be computer science majors but after a course or two they give up. Computer science isn’t what they expected it to be. Professors hear things like “I didn’t know there would be programming involved.” Seriously! Or it is harder than they expected. Some students expect it to be all fun and games. But basically students didn’t understand what they were signing up for. And why would they if they never had any real computer science in school before university?

This is sad and it is a real waste. It is a waste of time and energy on the professor’s part. It is a real waste of time and energy and money on a student’s part. Students who have had computer science in high school are much more likely to finish a computer science major than students without HS CS in their background. It’s not just that they know more computer science. In fact often students, even AP CS students, aren’t ready to skip courses in college. Oh some may skip a course or two but many find it better to still start with the first course for majors. The big difference is that they know what they are getting into.

This is not universal by any means. Some people do take their first computer course in college and fall in love with the subject. I did. And some who took a CS course in HS find out that the university level is not for them. This happens in all majors from time to time. But the odds are improved the more a student knows what they have gotten themselves into.

Now some people say “computer science is hard and that scares some away.” If hard work were enough to scare people away how do we wind up with so many students in pre-med that many American students have to go to medical school outside the US? A motivated student is not afraid of hard work but challenged by it.

If we had more high school CS programs a) more students would get a chance to be exposed to the subject in a somewhat less stressful environment at a lower cost. And b) more students would get to university knowing what they are getting into. We might not have more students going into the major (though we might) but we’d have a lot better chance of retaining those students. Now that would be a good thing.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Are You The Best Part Of A Student’s Day/

Yesterday is used a quote from an educator friend of mine that “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.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot since Paul first tweeted it. Most computer science courses are electives which gives those teachers an edge. Their students selected to be there. But honestly I‘ve seen students turned off by that first computer science course as well. Done wrong any course can be painful. I’m of the opinion that learning should be fun. Not that a teacher’s job is to be an entertainer of course. They shouldn’t be torturers either!

Obviously you never want to sacrifice rigor (what ever that means) but you can create an environment in a classroom where students want to be there. I start with the smile. Yes I know the adage that “teachers shouldn't smile until after Christmas” but that is ridiculous. How can a student be happy to be in your class or even your presence if they don’t sense that you are happy to be in their presence?

I used to occasionally arrive at school in the morning grumpy. I am so not a morning person. This is an attitude that dooms one to failure so I worked to get out of it. What I liked to do was walk through the building saying “hi” to as many students as possible with as big a smile as possible. I do think some of the students thought (may still think) I was crazy. A lot of them started smiling back though. Simples are reinforcing. If someone smiles at you it is hard not to smile back. And when people smile back at you it lifts your spirits. Think of it as a positive feedback loop.

And yes I smiled in class too. I cared about my students. I still do and it gives me great joy to hear from my former students. I worked for a head of school who talk his teachers that they should all look for students they could relate to, that they could be more than a teacher to. He believed, and I agree, that every student in every school needs at least one teacher who they believe honestly cares for them.

A computer teacher runs into a lot of students who don’t fit the typical school model. Oh sure there are some jocks in computer science classes and some really good looking people in them as well. You don’t have to be a geek or a nerd to take computer science. Those students who are a bit geeky and who don’t quite fit in who are in computer science often look for a mentor/friend/person they can relate to in the computer science teacher.

Now sometimes the CS teacher teaches other things and maybe sees themselves as a math teacher roped into teaching a section of CS. They may already have their math geeks. And that is fine. But I hope they also keep an eye out for the CS geeks who aren’t math geeks. I for one was a computer geek without being a math geek. The two are most decidedly not equivalent!

The other thing that can make a course and a teacher the best part of a student’s day is freedom. Not license to do what ever they want. Make no mistake about it students want, need and even respect boundaries that are expressed clearly and maintained fairly. But some freedom to learn the things that interest them beyond the limits of the course. The freedom to make their projects truly their own. The freedom to go beyond what the teacher knows themselves.

In a class where the teacher respects their students students will usually respect the teacher in return. Mutual respect and a spirit of “let’s do this together” can support a lot of individual initiative and learning. A project that a student feels ownership of is a project that a student is more likely to want to work on.

I can remember students asking me “Mr. T do I really have to leave and go to my next class?” Of course they knew the answer was “Yes!” but you know that was an expression of the class being a highlight of their day. And why shouldn’t it be?

Are you or your class the best part of some student’s day? Not for every student – that’s an unattainable goal – but for at least one student? How does that happen for you?

Monday, September 10, 2012

Yes I’m Still Excited about Computer Science

It’s the start of a new school year and a new chapter in my life. I thought I would report this from about a year ago.

The short version is that 38 years after the life changing experience that writing my first computer program was I am more excited about computer science than I was then. And that is saying something. This is my first experience trying to do a video cast but since a lot of students don’t read this seemed like a good time and a good topic to try it out. I hope you like it.

Some links that I talk about for reference:

http://www.dreamspark.com for free software for students.
http://www.imaginecup.com for the international student development contests that Microsoft runs annually.
http://www.kinectforwindows.org for the free Kinect SDK for Kinect applications on Windows

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?

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Welcome to My New Blog Home

This blog has actually existed for a while but had not been my real blog home. Recent changes (Leaving Microsoft) mean that I can no longer blog about computer science education and related issues at my previous blog. That’s unfortunate although I am happy that the content there will remain. Some of you are visiting this transparently as you have been subscribed to my blog via feedburner and some RSS reader. Glad you came by and I hope you’ll stay. Others have arrived though a pointer someone shared. If any of you have pointers to my blog that point to the old location I hope you will update them to point to http://alfredtwo.blogspot.com I’d appreciate the help.

Other than location what’s changed? Not a lot really. I still love Microsoft products but I’ll probably be writing more about products and tools from other places now. My wife says I have to stop thinking of “iPad” as a “dirty word” and I’m working on it. Smile

I’m hoping that my friends and anyone else interested in computer science education will continue to forward links and references for me to share. I look around a lot but miss things without other to help. My new email address is act2 @ ACThompson.net Just pull out the spaces.

I’m going to continue my Monday morning round up of links and references. Most of those were and will continue to come from (and be tweeted about by me) on Twitter. You can follow my on Twitter @AlfredTwo and if are a Twitter user I hope you will.

Monday, September 03, 2012

Don’t Panic

The other day I was looking through the analytics for this blog to see what sort of searches people were doing that let them here. Mostly I was seeing things I expected to see but one stuck out. Someone had searched for the string “i am scared of programming.” I suspect that the searcher was not afraid of the act of programing but that they were afraid that it would be too hard. Or perhaps that the course they were taking or thinking about taking was too hard. Although it is possible that the act of programming was scaring them. Some people are afraid that they will “break something” through their programming activities. In any case there sees to be a lot of fear around when it comes to programming. It may be one of the things that keeps people away from the field.

A bunch of years ago I wrote a textbook for learning Visual Basic 6.0. When talking with my publisher I joked that I would like the words “Don’t Panic” in large letters on the cover. The more geeky in the audience will remember that being on the cover of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” One of the big goals of that first book was to be a friendly, gentle introduction to programming. Scaring people was the last thing on my mind. I don’t want to scare people away from programming and computer science. I want to attract them TO programming and computer science.

So what is scary about programming? For many it is the syntax of programming languages. The semi colons, the curly braces, the simple words in strange configurations, and the fussy way that programming languages what instructions to be specified. Recent years have seen the development of several languages, or environments perhaps, that have tried to avoid as much of the syntax problems as possible. Environments like Scratch, Alice and Kodu have gained a lot of usage particularly among teachers teaching younger students but even among teachers of older students. These tools allow the introduction of programming without the “scary” syntax of most major programming languages. Students using these environments learn that they can program and that it need not be something to be afraid of.

These tools are great and I love them but they have some limitations. One of these limitations is that they are essentially “walled gardens” and the programmer can only operate within these environments. At some point one has to move on to more traditional programming languages. One hopes that most students have more confidence about the idea of programming when they make this jump and that the syntax will no longer seems as frightening because the concepts will be familiar.

One of the other things that seems to scare some people is the literalness and the pickiness of “computers.” One really has to be pretty particular about how one gives instruction to a computer. It seems like the slightest little error – a typo, a missing semi colon, a letter in the wrong case – can make everything fall apart. For someone who is not used to being a detail oriented person or someone who just wants the computer to “do what I mean” programming can be frustrating. And yet bugs are not a time for panic but a time for patience.

I think some people are also fearful that they will not be able to combine the problem solving with the syntax and fussiness of programming to get something that does what they want the computer to do. When taking a course the fear is that this will lead to poor grades. I’ve seen more than a few students avoid taking a computer science course because of the fear of getting a poor grade. It is unfortunate that the focus on grades gets so high that it overshadows the value of actually learning. That does happen though.

What ever the source of fear I think that often that is the biggest barrier to entering computer science for many people who have the opportunity. Far too many people don’t have the opportunity for formal education in computer science and programming in K-12 of course. And that is a large problem. But in schools that do offer computer science and/or programming I think fear keeps many from even trying. And that is unfortunate.

How do we get the word out that there is no need to panic? Friendly tools like Scratch, Alice and Kodu can help a little. I think that themes that really gather students interest (gaming, phone development, etc.) can help motivate students to move past their fear. I think that introducing computer science (which is more than programming) at an earlier age can help prevent fear from developing. I think we can create more early courses in middle school (or earlier) that introduce the concepts more gently can be helpful. I know that a lot of people are concerned about reducing the rigor of CS education. This make sense of course. We all want an AP CS course that is really a college/university set of rigor. But we don’t teach AP Calculus to students who haven’t learned arithmetic first. In fact we usually expect students to have many years of math courses before they get to AP Calculus. And still no one says “you’re not giving enough rigor in math” because we realize that you have to work up to some things. We need that sort of attitude about computer science as well

Here we run into the old problem of no time in the curriculum. This is a tough one. The answer is probably something involving incorporating computer science into other parts of the curriculum. We’re a bit short of properly trained teachers for that which is an issue. Like so many problems though panic is not the solution. Neither is just giving up. We need to sit back, analyze the problem, develop a plan and execute it. Sounds a lot like programming doesn’t it?

Friday, August 31, 2012

Computer Controversies For Fun and Discussion

I love a good discussion. Pros and cons and honest and hopefully friendly discussion of issue with different opinions make for good learning experiences. One of the things I would like to do should I ever get a full-time advanced computer science course is to ask students to study some controversial topics in computer science and write up their own researched opinions. Important issues need to be thought about and discusses seriously and not just have answers blindly accepted. And of course we all know how much emphasis there is lately in bringing writing and related literacy skills into more of the curriculum. This seems like a natural fit.

I came across two lists of “controversial programming opinions” with one post named “20 controversial programming opinions”. It has some 76 comments as I write this post. A second post called “Hopefully More Controversial Programming Opinions” adds to the mix. Personally I didn’t find a lot to disagree with in the first post. The second one I found several things to disagree with. The big thing I disagree with in the second is:

Computer science should only be offered as a minor. You can major in biology, minor in computer science. Major in art, minor in computer science. But you can't get a degree in CS.

I think that is too narrow a few. I can see requiring a minor in an “unrelated area.” I can even see, in some cases, requiring a second major. Although admittedly fitting a second major in with a CS major is just about impossible in four years of university.

Besides the controversies listed in these posts there are some that a particular to computer science education. The ever popular What Programming Language to Teach First? comes to mind. And the objects first, object late, or object never discussion (see Objects When? If Ever?) never seems to get old.

Assembly language is an additional source of controversy. Does anyone really need it anymore? Should it be reserved to people with special careers or paths of study in mind or should one have some experience in order the call themselves a serious programmer or computer scientist? personally I believe that understanding Assembly language gives one important insights into how computers work and how to more deeply understand software concepts. Some disagree completely while still others suggest Assembly language should be the first programming language people learn! Great topic for discussion.

Do you discuss controversial issues on your classroom or work space? Does full agreement ever come out of these discussions? Love to hear about it.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Useful Download Links for Windows 8 and Windows Phone Development

Part of my job is to help people find valuable resources. I especially like it when they are free. Free is good. These links are for students, faculty and professional (or non professional) developer. Please check these links out, visit the websites, find what looks interesting and download the tools.

Windows Phone 7 Development for Absolute Beginners A great series from Channel 9. Speaking of which don’t miss out on the Coding 4 Fun Windows Phone Tool Kit.

VS Express 2012 RC for Windows 8 Download on VS Site Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8 provides the core tools that are required to build compelling, innovative Windows Store apps. And its free.

VS Express 2012 RC for Windows 8 & Windows 8 Release Preview Downloads on Dev Center This link brings you to the Windows 8 Development Center with a large collections of links for tools, software development kits and a link to the Windows 8 Development Center where you can get a limited time evaluation copy of Windows 8.

How to Develop a Windows 8 App in 30 Days

Insider tips and tricks on Windows 8 application development.
Personal on-the-phone access to a Windows 8 architect*.
An exclusive one-on-one Windows Store design consultation*.
An opportunity to get expert help from a Microsoft Services Engineer at an App Excellence Lab.

Phone SDK Download

The Windows Phone Software Development Kit (SDK) 7.1 and 7.1.1 Update provides you with all of the tools that you need to develop apps and games for both Windows Phone 7.0 and Windows Phone 7.5 devices.

The Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update provides additional functionality to the existing Windows Phone SDK 7.1. Using this update, you can more easily develop apps and games that are optimized to run on 256-MB devices.

How to Develop a Windows Phone App in 30 Days

Now that you have taken on the 30-day challenge to build a Windows Phone app, let's get down to the brass tacks. How to start? What happens next? Where to get a device to test your app? How to make money on your app? Help is at hand at each step of the way. The schedule below highlights themes and how you can make the most of each week with training, resources and support. Your journey begins here.

Generation App – Where Ideas Meet Code

If you have an app idea that's ready to build, you can find the expertise you need to make your app a reality at Elance.com. The world's leading platform for online employment, Elance connects entrepreneurs with qualified online professionals and provides the tools needed to hire, view in-progress work, and pay for the end results on an hourly or by-project basis.

Azure 90-day Free Trial Azure is Microsoft’s big cloud offering. This site lets you sign up for a 90 day free trial so that you can try Azure out and learn more about cloud computing. Visit the Azure 90-day Free Trial website for the details and fine print.

Your free Azure trial contains

compute -750 small compute hours per month
web sites - 10 Shared Web Sites***
relational database - 1 Database Unit of Web Edition and Business Edition SQL Database****
storage - 35GB with 50,000,000 storage transactions
bandwidth - Unlimited inbound / 20GB Outbound

Friday, August 24, 2012

NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing 2012

The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing honors young women at the high-school level for their computing-related achievements and interests. Awardees are selected for their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history, and plans for post-secondary education. The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing offers both a national and local "affiliate" competitions to generate support and visibility for women's participation in communities nationwide.

Applications are accepted from September 15-October 31. Award recipients are notified in early December and award events take place around the country December through May. To apply, girls must register online. Click here to begin registration. You can register anytime and will be notified when applications open.

The Award for Aspirations in Computing is open to all high school girls residing in the US and you may re-apply each year. You may only receive the National award once.

National Award-winners receive:

$500 in cash

a laptop computer, provided by Bank of America

a trip to attend the Bank of America Technology Showcase and Awards Ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina

an engraved crystal award for both the student and the student's school

Monday, February 27, 2012

Interesting Links 27 February 2012

The highlight of this past week for me was taking part in the CSTA CS & IT conference program committee meeting. The agenda should be available soon once some final details get nailed down and I’ll blog about that when it happens. Suffice it to say it looks to me like this well be an outstanding professional development event this summer. If you are a computer science and/or IT teacher start making plans to attend it now. Hope to see you there. Until then a few other links to share

Student Windows Phone Apps Need Votes We’re looking for the public to vote on the finalists of the Big App On Campus competition. Please check out the apps students have created and vote for your favorites. I’ve actually installed a few and have been using them on my phone. Some good stuff.

Don’t forget that there are still a few chances for student developers to enter the Imagine Cup. Check out this post about the next round of Imagine cup deadlines coming up

For teachers of all subjects I hope you saw my blog post: Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum–Reminder Can we get more CS teachers to apply? Yes we can! Some special prizes are available for CS and IT teachers. Check it out.

Are you attending a FIRST Robotics event this weekend? Events each of the next six weeks in the US and Canada. These are a real opportunity to see students creating some amazing robots and using STEM skills in exciting ways. If you have kids you want to see get excited about science, technology, engineering and math these are great events for them to attend. I find inspiration every time I go to one.

Want to Get and Keep a Job…Coding Seems to be the Key according to this post by Tara Walker. It’s a shame that CS education isn’t growing as quickly as the need for CS professionals.

Dani Diaz works with professional developers at Microsoft and he has been working on a cool Windows Phone Starter Kit for Conferences - Small And Mighty That might also serve as a foundation for other projects such as a school application. It’s worth a look.

Lastly a link to my computer science education blog roll. If you are looking for good blogs about computer science education this list is a good start.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum–Reminder

I know I keep blogging about this event but it really is a great event and I really hope many of you apply for this wonderful opportunity to showcase your work with innovations in teaching CS and technology. It is one of the most exciting teacher competitions ever! Check it out! A cool trip and prizes! And a chance to meet and learn from some of the most energetic and energizing to say nothing of innovative teachers in America!

Oh and projects that use Visual Studio, XNA, Kinect SDK, Windows Phone SDK, Expression Studio or many other Microsoft developer and designer tools are eligible for a special prize of an Xbox 360 + Kinect.

Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum July 31 – August 1 in Redmond, WA

Be Recognized for Your Innovative Teaching

Are you using technology to improve the teaching and learning experience? Have you implemented technology in innovative ways to engage students and inspire creative thinking?

Compete for recognition as a 2012 Microsoft Innovative Educator and see firsthand what other innovative educators from across the United States are doing.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to collaborate with your peers, develop new skills and gain new perspectives.

Who should apply?

Educators or teams of two educators leading class projects that use technology to positively impact student learning
School leaders directing programs and initiatives that use technology to enhance education throughout the school community

Watch a short video, learn more and apply at: www.microsoft.com/education/usforum

The application for the Microsoft Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum is available now and is open to all U.S. K-12 educators. Deadline to apply is May 15, 2012. (Early decision deadline April 1).

Applicants who are accepted to the Forum will have their expenses to the Forum paid by Microsoft.

For more information contact pilusforum@microsoft.com

By teachers

By me:

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

No Room in the Inn–I Mean Schedule

I spent yesterday at Stevens Institute of Technology, an outstanding university across the river from New York City. The occasion was a high school computer science workshop for faculty and students. While the students were getting demonstrations on some of the cool technology that Stevens faculty and students are working on the high school teachers were involved with a panel discussion. I was on the panel along with Jan Cuny (NSF), Bob Slater (Alice/CMU) and Tara Canobbio (Google). We started of with some great discussion of pedagogy. Don gave us a preview of Alice 3.1 Alice 3.1 looks amazing though I suggested they need an interface with Kinect so that avatars could follow people’s movements in the real world and act on them in the virtual world. Now wouldn’t THAT be cool? I of course brought up the usual – Kodu, XNA game development and Windows Phone development. There continues to be a lot of interest in game development and mobile/smart phone development to attract students and we do have a lot of free curriculum resources for that. But after a while a bigger worry became the topic of discussion – there is too little room for computer science in the curriculum.

This is a complicated issue (I wrote some about it just last week at We Need A Wider Conversation on CS Education) but basically these are some of the issues:

Students have room for fewer and fewer electives because of increased mandates and CS is mostly an elective
Most states (42 of 50 including New Jersey) do not allow computer science to count as either a math or science so may not help towards graduation requirements
Students will often not take “hard” electives for fear of hurting their GPAs
Certification for computer science educators is a mess – I could write a lot about that but is should be sufficient to say that lack of a clear certification for CS teachers contributes to the problem

Teachers, for the most part, feel helpless to fix these issues. There are large and powerful organizations for teachers of subjects like math and even art and music. These groups have lobbied hard to get their subjects either increased inclusion as graduation requirements. The CS community has not been as successful. Now there are efforts to change this. The CSTA (PLEASE if you are a CS teacher join and get active) has worked diligently at the national level and through local chapters at the state level to lobby for more CS education. Getting CS Education Week though Congress was a big win; a good step in the right direction. But without computer science being in the common core we’re still playing come from behind. Computing in the Core, a partnership between professional agencies and some in industry (Microsoft is active) is working towards this goal. But ultimately education much like politics is local in the US. That means that decisions are seldom make at the national level (no matter how much some people which it were different). Decisions are made at the state and local level.

Some schools have decided on their own to make computer science a requirement. Some, Los Angeles for one, have at least worked hard to make it more available starting with grade 9 in order to give more students the opportunity to learn what CS is all about.

In the US we are not turning out enough of the high quality computer science professionals that we need. These are great, world changing jobs but we are cutting back – in many cases actively and deliberately for cost cutting reasons – on the education of the very people we need most to turn the economy around. Some special purpose schools (Software Engineering High School) are great as far as they go. In the long run though we owe it to all children to have the opportunity to be exposed to a real, engaging, and valuable computer science course.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Interesting links 11 December 2011

Last week I posted a list of some of the great computer science related blogs I read on a regular basis (Computer Science Education Blog Roll) Week after week these people share ideas and thoughts and tools that really make a difference in the world. This week, as usual, I list some of the best posts from those very special people. But first Andrew Parsons reminds me that Just One More Week To Enter The Rock Paper Azure Fall Sweepstakes! This is an opportunity for programming hotshots to learn a little about writing applications for the cloud and have a go at writing some artificial intelligence code as well.

I really love Ben Chun’s idea of spending the first 5 minutes of class writing a method of the day. Take a look at his blog post Question of the Day and find the link to the first 10 questions he used with his students. For C#, Visual Basic and F# you could probably do something like this fairly easily with Pex 4 Fun and save some grading time.

I also enjoyed this blog post by Johnny Kissko ( @johnnyeducation) about Kinecting the Gaps in Education. Well worth the read.

In other news, the Alice team (alice.org) out of Carnegie Mellon University has a new Alice Facebook page to help build community.

Ed Donahue ( @creepyed) tweeted about A beginners guide to developing for Windows Phone . Download the guide (the link is to a PDF) and get started!

Computer Science in Top Ten Degrees That Pay Back: In Computer Science As more and more students (and their parents) start to take the economic viability of various degrees and majors it is nice to see computer science near the top of the list.

The student focused Microsoft home page at microsoft.com/student/ has been completely updated and redone. Well worth checking out and sending students you know to visit.

Did you notice that the new Kinect for Windows SDK Beta 2 is now available for download?

last but far from least, Tony Franklin (@TeachTec) has but the most amazing list of Tools for Schools at teachtec.cloudapp.net. This site lists over 100 free Microsoft Education resources that you can use. Oh and perhaps FREE works for you? Check it out and pass it along to any other teachers you may know.

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Why I’m Still Excited about Computer Science

It’s computer science education week and that has me thinking about what I’d like to tell students about computer science. So I decided to record something on the subject.

Some links that I talk about for reference:

http://www.dreamspark.com for free software for students.
http://www.imaginecup.com for the international student development contests that Microsoft runs annually.
http://www.kinectforwindows.org for the free Kinect SDK for Kinect applications on Windows

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Interesting Links 13 November 2011

I spent a lot of time watching the Twitter feed and reading blog posts about the Microsoft Global Forum last week. And some watching the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as well. A good number of this week’s links are to posts related to the Global Forum. Let’s start with post event reflections from three attendees who were there in different roles.

Lee Kolbert (@TeachAKidd) was one of the judges: What's in Your Heart? My Reflections as a Judge From The Microsoft Global Forum
Johnny Kissko (@johnnyeducation) is a teacher who represented the US at the Global Forum. Reflections from Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Global Forum
Doug Peterson (@dougpete ) was there as a blogger/reporter My Takeaways from the Partners in Learning Global Summit

Two more teacher reflections

Doug Peterson had a series of blog posts from the Global Forum and between his tweets and posts I feel like I had a good idea (in a very small way) of what was going on. Here’s a bit of the day by day as Doug experienced it.

Here is the list of the 2011 Global Innovative Educator Award winners! If you are interested in participating in 2012 follow the Microsoft Partners in Learning Facebook page. A few more news pieces from the Global Forum

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke to the group and throws a fish! Also Microsoft announces partnerships to inspire and support educators around the world:

Kinect was big at the Global Forum and coincidentally there is a new home page for Kinect for Windows kinectforwindows.org

From Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Ed Donahue (@creepyed) send out an invitation to heck out the flickr group, This is what a computer scientist looks like, A great collection of women of all types who are involved in computer science. Chances are good that girls you know will see imagines of women like them.

Also at GHC, Ashley Myers (@OrganizeFISH) Tweeted this interesting tidbit “AP Calc and AP Stats have almost 50/50 female/male. AP CS ~16% female. ” Make you think doesn’t it?

Launching the 2nd Annual CSEdWeek Ideas for colleges from Mark Guzdial (@guzdial) that apply to many businesses as well.

Bob Familiar (@BobFamiliar) blogs about a new program for app developers. [Your App Here] offers opportunity to have your Windows Phone app featured

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Interesting Links 7 November 2011

Andrew Parsons has written an amazingly complete blog post about Create and publish your own Tower Defense game for Windows Phone 7. It you want one place to send a student for a “how to” this is the place. For high school students the DreamSpark piece is a little different in that they should get an access code from a faculty member at their school. That is a minor detail though and shouldn’t cause anyone any real issue.

I found a couple of new (to me at least) computer science teacher blogs last week:

Super Computer Science by Rebecca Dovi
CS Principles @ North by Deepa Muralidhar - This is a blog following the journey of teaching a CS Principles pilot. Their curriculum is growing at http://hcps.us/phhs/comsci/cs_principles.htm

Have you seen the Kinect Effect video? Or read about how ‘Kinect Effect’ Magic Pushes Beyond the Living Room. It’s pretty cool and full of ideas and potential. last week Vice President for Education at Microsoft, Anthony Salcito, talked about The Kinect Effect in Education. What are some of your ideas?

For more on Kinect, it’s been out a year now, you may want to see this article on Silicon Valley’s Kinect Contributions.

I’d like to point out a few great blog posts by others in the last week or so.

Computer Science needs good bait by Garth Flint
Stats, data, and answers, as to why there are so few women in technology fields. by @RachelAppel
The Role of Academic Blogging by Amy Bruckman
High School CS Teachers as the New Computing Professionals on the blog at @blogCACM written by Mark Guzdial
Resources and Content from our Phone Camps by Kenny Spade

One last interesting article. How one woman technologist single-handedly created thousands of jobs article and video interview on| Venture Beat. Very cool way that one person used the power of the Internet to solve literally thousands of small problems for lots and lots of people

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Writing My ISTE Keynote

I had mail today saying that ISTE was looking for nominations to present a keynote in San Diego this summer. They asked “could it be you?” Well unlikely it would be me but I asked myself “what would I say if I was asked to give the keynote at ISTE?”

So I sat in my hot tub for a half an hour and now have a basic outline ready. I am thinking that I will write it up over time and post in on my blog. Either this one or that one. Why not?

The next thing I thought is that everyone in education should write their own ISTE Keynote and publish it online. If you don’t have a blog I’d be willing to post some of them here. But really, isn’t it time you started your own blog?

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Interesting Links Post 31 October 2011

Busy week last week. You may have read about my two days in Atlantic City (Kinect-ing at the NJSBA Annual Workshop). Real work. Enjoyable work but none the less it was work. Friday I visited a career technical high school, Upper Cape Cod Tech, and had a wonderful visit with students and faculty alike. And then from Saturday night until Sunday night I got the experience the wonder of life without power. Yes we did have a big snow storm in New Hampshire and the trees and power lines took a beating. It was quite a reminder of how dependent we are on electricity these days. But we’re nice and warm and have Internet back now so all is right with the world. I was afraid I would have to run the engine in my car to power my laptop and get me an Internet feed from somewhat to do this post but I’m getting to do it from the comfort of my home after all. Here now some links that I hope will be useful.

People often ask me what it is like to work at Microsoft. I tell them it is pretty great. Last week Great Place to Work® Unveils World's Best Multinational Workplaces and Microsoft tops the list. This list is for companies with a global foot print but Microsoft regularly makes local lists in numerous countries, states, and local geographies. Most of the people who work at Microsoft love it.

Please welcome Doug Bergman, Computer Science teacher and innovative educator, to Twitter @dougbergmanUSA. Visit his blog at http://innovativeteacher.org/ Read about how Doug is excited to represent the US at the Global Innovator Forum Nov 7-11 in Washington DC as well.

Congratulations to Mitchel Resnick - awarded the McGraw Prize in Education for Scratch

The new Windows Phone Blue Book now available from Rom Miles (@robmiles) Learn the latest for creating Windows Phone Apps from someone who really knows how to teach.

Meet the Microsoft Tech Student of the month for October – Shashank Srinivas

Did you see the news that once again a technology company is promoting a woman to the top spot? Last week I read that IBM tapped its first woman CEO to succeed current CEO Palmisano. The opportunities for women in technology are there all the way up to the top.

The Teacher Tech blog (Twitter @TeachTec) continues with there TeachTecTip series with Add sounds, movies and animation to your PPT (this post includes a How-to video & step-by-step instructions.)

Are you ready for Computer Science Education week? If not read about some Activities for CS Education week on the CSTA blog.

Have you heard about the upcoming HTML5 Game Camp Series? Coming soon to Boston on 11/17, plus Atlanta, NYC, and Penn State soon after.

NEW: Streaming videos of CS&IT 2011 Presentations! Did you miss the SC & IT conference in New York City this past summer? Good news then. The presentations were recorded and videos are now available. Catch them now!

Have you seen some of the latest things from coding4fun? Check out Digesting Kinect. Using the Kinect to teach the Digestive System

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Interesting Links 17 October 2011

I spent two days are a Windows Phone event last week. One of several I posted date for at Your Chance to Learn Windows Phone Development for Free There are a lot more of them up and down the east coast. We had a few faculty members and students at this one and I think they all learned a lot. I know I did.

The Teacher Tech blog had an interesting featuring the work of Kelli Etheredge @ketheredge who I I met at the US Innovative Education Forum this summer. Read about it at Putting your students in the court room–mock trial, of course

Know a tech-savvy girl? Encourage her to apply for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing! I wrote about this earlier at 2011 NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing. This is a really great program to bring some positive attention and recognition of girls who are interested in careers in technology.

One of the ways Microsoft is using software to make things better is by Making Buildings Energy-Smart at Microsoft. Ideas like this not only reduce energy consumption but make everything more efficient. This is just one way that software is making a difference in solving the worlds problems. For students the Imagine Cup is an opportunity to come up with their own ideas for using software to make the world a better place.

Doug Bergman writes about his experience with the World Series of Innovation on his blog. I wrote about this event earlier at NFTE World Series of Innovation

I don’t know if you saw the very sad news that Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the "C" language and co-creator of Unix, passed away last week. A lot of good things came from his work over the years. BTW the Windows Phone workshops I attended were in the heart of Cambridge’s Kendall Square where there is recognition of Steve Jobs, another pioneer we lost recently. People have been leaving various things there to honor his memory. I took a picture.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

When Fish Fly

How excited am I about the Partners in Learning Global Forum? I’m seriously thinking of taking vacation days and paying my own way to Washington DC to see if I can “crash” it. I had a great time and learned a lot judging the US event (Innovative Education Forum–Judging Day) this summer. I met some great teachers doing a whole lot if interesting things. One of the special things about this year’s event is that the attendees were grouped into teams and asked to create a “learning excursion activity.” The team that created the best activity as judged by their peers would be the “tenth team” that the US sent to the Global Event. Well the winner was announced this week at Flying Fish & Kinect help lead the final U.S. team to the Partners in Learning Global Forum.

The winning team is made up of:

Doug Bergman, computer science, Porter-Gaud High School, South Carolina
Johnny Kissko, math, Frenship High School, Texas
Margaret Noble, media arts, High Tech High, California
Donna Thomas, computer science, Sherwood High School, Maryland
Lou Zulli Jr., computer science, Lakewood High School, Florida

Some of those names will be familiar to regular readers of this blog. For example Doug and Lou have been congratulated before for their performance at the US IEF event. (Congratulations Louis Zulli Jr. and Doug Bergman) Johnny Kissko and his KinectEducation site have been linked to several times as well. Margaret Noble made a trip to a United Nations conference on Education in the Middle East that she documented at Guest post: A reflection by a U.S. educator visiting Jordan “…a United Nations conference for education” and which I linked to.

Their project is really interesting and I encourage you to read all about it at Flying Fish & Kinect help lead the final U.S. team to the Partners in Learning Global Forum. But in brief,

The intent of “When Fish Fly” is for students to work in a collaborative design team to create an Xbox Kinect game (using the Kinect SDK among other tools) that replicates the sights, sounds and “sense of place” of this iconic venue within the Pike Place Market (you all have likely seen or heard of the Pike Place Fish Co., it’s the fish market where they throw whole fish when you place an order!). Of course not all students will have a chance to visit this market so the lesson was extended to be applied to any noted venue or location in your community.

Lou Zulli is having his CS students implement the project for real. I look forward to haring more about it in the very near future.

On a separate, but related note on Kinect : On Friday we released new lesson ideas and activities for use in the classroom with Kinect. These resources, aligned to Common Core Standards, were created by a team of educators (including one member from this team – thanks Johnny!). Check out the site and let us know what else you need to bring together gaming and learning in the classroom.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Interesting Links 20 September 2011

I really had to post the information about the new Game development course yesterday (Game Development with XNA Curriculum–Semester Course). I’m pretty excited about that material. Teacher developed and tested and aligned to standards. And it is game development. How cool is that? Closely related to that the opening of the new Imagine Cup US website (Blogged at Imagine Cup 2012–Changing The World For The Better last week). It’s not too soon to think about putting some student teams together for that. Most high school students we’ve seen have competed in the Game Design or IT Challenge.. I’m hoping we see some highly motivated students enter this year though. Of course I ran into more stuff than that last week. This week’ links include a number of opportunities for students and teachers.

Start with the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing for high school girls.

The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing honors young women active and interested in computing and technology. We are looking for next generation of technical talent. Award winners receive cool prizes, gadgets, scholarships and all girls can join a community of fellow technically-inclined young women..

And don’t forget the NFTE World Series of Innovation that I wrote about last week. It’s a really interesting set of challenges for students in a wide range of ages.

Program Call for Participation ISTE 2012 Now open thru Oct. 5 San Diego here we come. Are you doing interesting things in your computer science courses? We really need more CS related presentations at ISTE. There are always a good bunch of CS teachers there looking for new ways to do things.

Do you have things planned for Computer Science Education week? http://www.csedweek.org/ “December 4-10, 2011 – is a call to action to share information and offer activities that will advocate for computing and elevate computer science education for students at all levels.”