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December 2007 - Posts

Monday, December 31, 2007 11:28 AM

Projects for a Programming Course

At their best teacher blogs are full of information and idea sharing that benefits other teachers. For teachers of computer science or computer programming one of the most useful things teachers do is to share projects. A good project engages students
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Friday, December 28, 2007 4:15 AM

Use Your Wii Controller To Fly Through Virtual Earth

Now I love Virtual Earth and I especially enjoy using my Xbox 360 controller to fly around, zoom in and out and otherwise travel though the three dimensional maps. Its all so much better than using the mouse or arrow keys. Virtual Earth supports the Xbox
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Thursday, December 27, 2007 7:12 AM

Updates on Beginning Programming Languages

I would imagine that a lot of people are looking for interesting things to do with brand new computers this week. Some people are (I hope) looking for ways to teach young people about programming. Or perhaps you are looking for your self regardless of
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 3 Comments
Wednesday, December 26, 2007 7:49 AM

Fixing the AP CS Curriculum

So as you read this it is a day or two after Christmas. You may still be full from Christmas dinner and you just want to take it easy. Or it may be that you don't celebrate Christmas and you are struggling to find interesting content to read on the Internet.
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 5 Comments
Tuesday, December 25, 2007 1:00 AM

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva i s Novim Godom Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année! Froehliche Weihnachten und ein glückliches Neues Jahr! Kellemes
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 5 Comments
Monday, December 24, 2007 10:03 AM

Higher Algebra with Visual Basic

Here's something for the math teachers. And the people who are teaching computer science but who would really rather be teaching math. Or perhaps the people who just want to learn how to do some really mathematical things in a computer program. Brian
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Friday, December 21, 2007 10:02 AM

Office 2007 Tips and Tricks

Hilary Pike has a nice set of videos on her favorite features in Microsoft Office 2007 . She starts off with one of my personal favorites - the citation and bibliography tool in Word 2007. She also demos the Equation editor and Math Add-in (about which
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Thursday, December 20, 2007 5:40 AM

A Simple Check Digit Project

I've been thinking for a while that I hadn't played with any small projects lately. I like to play with what I would call toy projects that let me play with numbers. The other day I was entering passport data in a form and while looking at my passport
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 3 Comments
Wednesday, December 19, 2007 5:57 AM

A Student Blogs About His Imagine Cup Team

Andrew Grapsas is a student at Stevens Institute of Technology who is putting together a team to compete in the game creation invitational of the Imagine Cup competition . Andrew has started blogging about his team and their efforts. The Imagine Cup is
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 10:50 AM

Third Annual Microsoft Academic Days Conference on Game Development in Computer Science Education

The last two winters Microsoft and Microsoft Research have partnered to host a conference on game development in computer science education . Between the high quality of academic papers and the support through attendance and participation of commercial
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 3 Comments
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 10:14 AM

Stephen Downes on EduBlogs

There are a couple of reasons to link to this post by Stephen Downes . The best reason is because he has a wonderful list of very worthwhile blogs and blog posts there. Now you could say I am biased because he lists this blog but in all honesty I'd link
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Monday, December 17, 2007 4:04 AM

XNA Game Studio Express 2.0 Is Out

Over at the XNA blog they have announced that XNA Game Studio Express version 2.0 has now been released. Full information and links to the download may be found here . Unlike the beta the released version allows PCs and Xbox 360s to communicate over the
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:24 AM

Popfly Goes to School

Popfly is a very easy to use and yet powerful mashup tool for non-professional developers. It's really a lot of fun to use and lets amateurs create some really interesting combinations of data and displays. Professor Mark Frydenberg of Bentley College
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Saturday, December 15, 2007 3:51 PM

Robotics and .NET Fundamentals Series

Sometimes it really pays to have smart friends and let them figure things out for you even if you don't really plan it that way. Early this week a received a brand new robot in the mail. I've been waiting for it for a while. The problem of course is that
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 4:56 AM

Tandy Trower on Microsoft and Robotics

Tandy Trower is the General Manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group. A 26-year veteran of the company Tandy was hand picked by Bill Gates to get Microsoft serious about robotics. His is the team that created the Microsoft Robotics Studio. Recently Tandy
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Monday, December 10, 2007 4:05 AM

Torque X 3D for Education Boot Camp

Torque X is an extremely powerful game development tool (built on Microsoft's XNA) from GarageGames. Garage Games is running a special edition of their Torque X Boot Camps specifically designed for educators. It's coming in January and will be hosted
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Sunday, December 09, 2007 8:20 AM

Inspiring Teachers Inspired Students

I visited a high school last week. This is not atypical for me of course. I visit high schools on a pretty regular basis. In this case I was taking advantage of being in Texas for some training to visit Allen High School (Go Eagles!) in Allen Texas. Bryan
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 3 Comments
Friday, December 07, 2007 3:25 AM

Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture

There is a problem, a technical problem, that I hear about from teachers from time to time. I've passed along a couple of solutions to it by email but it occurred to me that posting the issue and the possible solutions here might make it easier for people
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:05 AM

Max Builds a PC

My friend Max is building a PC from parts. Over at Channel 8 ( First post in the series here ) he's looking for recommendations and suggestions about parts. Looks like a good conversation is taking place already but there is always room for more. Oh by
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, December 05, 2007 4:29 AM

How Do I - Videos

I found out about a bunch of new videos that show how to do different things with different Microsoft development products. They all run between 10 and 15 minutes and focus on specific tasks. They are adding new videos every week so you may even want
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 04, 2007 3:20 AM

Top November Posts

November was an interesting month in some ways. It seems that when I really lay out an opinion piece it attracts more attention in both readers and comments. At the same time some informational posts quietly attract a lot of readers as well. Is Computer
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Monday, December 03, 2007 11:21 AM

Blogs By and For High School Computer Science Teachers

Well the nominations for the Educational Blog awards are out again. I'm not nominated but some people I know and blogs I read are. Vicki Davis who writes a great blog called the Cool Cat Teacher blog is nominated for best teacher blog and I'm happy about
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 4 Comments
Sunday, December 02, 2007 3:39 PM

MSDN Flash - Newsletter for Students and Professionals

Hilary Pike (a friend and co-worker) edits a section of the MSDN flash newsletter designed for students interested in technology. The MSDN Student Flash covers various new technologies and resources for technologies that may be interesting to students.
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
 
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