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February 2007 - Posts

Tuesday, February 27, 2007 1:55 AM

XNA Links

I've been trying to collect some interesting and useful XNA links. Here is what I have so far. XNA Team Blog - Yep, that is where the XNA Team blogs. Dave Weller's blog - Dave is with the XNA group and is an acknowledged expert in graphics and game programming.
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 5 Comments
Monday, February 26, 2007 1:39 AM

Programming Proverbs 6: Use procedures

The word "procedures" here is a bit of an anachronism I guess. Today we talk mostly of "methods " Perhaps we talk about "functions" or "subroutines" but we are really talking about the same things. We are talking about small routines with a defined way
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Friday, February 23, 2007 1:27 AM

Video Game Ideas

Tony over at Computer Science Canada has some ideas for student video game projects . I've had students write variations on some of the ones he suggests. Not being a real player I am not familiar with all of the examples he gives but students probably
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Thursday, February 22, 2007 1:37 AM

Programming Proverbs 5: Construct the program in logical units

This is the fifth of a series of posts based on the book Programming Proverbs by Henry Ledgard . The index for the series is an earlier post and discussion of the list as a whole is taking place in the comments there . Comments on this "proverb" are of
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 2:05 AM

Computer Science and Data Structures

Mark Guzdial (CS Faculty at Georgia Tech) had a recent post about Information Technology students not studying data structures. Frankly it blew my mind. Data structures is such a fundamental aspect of computer science and information technology that I
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 5 Comments
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 1:41 AM

IEEE History Center: Oral Histories and Engineering Stories

The IEEE History Center announced recently that they have added 75 oral histories to their collection . There are interviews with all kinds of engineers and not just computer or Internet related people. Anyone interested in the history of engineering
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 1:31 AM

Learning Network Manager

I found this via a link from Dominic's blog . It looks like jsut the thing to help make life easier for people who manage school computer labs. It's called the Learning Network Manager and it is an open source project. The description from the web site
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Monday, February 19, 2007 1:36 AM

Programming Proverbs 4: Beware other approaches

This is the fourth of a series of posts based on the book Programming Proverbs by Henry Ledgard . The index for the series is an earlier post and discussion of the list as a whole is taking place in the comments there . Comments on this "proverb" are
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Sunday, February 18, 2007 8:07 PM

People Who Know Nothing About Schools Telling Us How to Fix Them

Today's rash of quick fix answers started with Steve Jobs telling us the teacher unions are broken in the worst possible way. Principals can't get rid of poorly performing teachers. Plus Jobs says we need online books that are updated like Wikipedia.
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 35 Comments
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Sunday, February 18, 2007 2:05 AM

"Scratch"ing the Programming Itch

Friday and Saturday I was at MIT (specifically the famous Media Lab ) learning about a programming platform/language for young people. The language is called Scratch and I may have blogged about it before. This weekend was the first time I really got
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 3 Comments
Sunday, February 18, 2007 1:20 AM

Feedburner Address for Subscriptions

I'm trying to get a little better information about traffic on my blog. Please subscribe using (or change the address you are currently using to subscribe to) the address http://feeds.feedburner.com/ComputerScienceTeacher for this blog. I'd really appreciate
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Friday, February 16, 2007 1:40 AM

Dreaming in Code - A Book Review

I finished reading Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg last week. This book is an attempt to be today's " The Soul of a New Machine " (Tracy Kidder was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for that book) for a software project. Kidder's book is a classic today
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
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Thursday, February 15, 2007 1:31 AM

Programming Proverbs 3: Use the top-down approach

This is the third of a series of posts based on the book Programming Proverbs by Henry Ledgard . The index for the series is an earlier post and discussion of the list as a whole is taking place in the comments there . Comments on this "proverb" are of
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 1:20 PM

Bob & Chris' Roadshow

While I write here primarily for computer science teachers I know that many who read this blog are professional developers and others who may be interested in this sort of educational/professional development opportunity. It's probably only of interest
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:19 AM

National Engineers Week

This year National Engineers Week (in the US at least) is February 18 through the 24th. There is some good information about engineering as a career at that web site including the following links: Discover Engineering Online Introduce a Girl to Engineering
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 1:43 AM

Texas High School Computer Science - Alive and Well

I spent several days in Austin Texas last week at the TCEA conference. TCEA is the second largest computer education conference in the US (probably the world) and is a pretty exciting place to be. Like most such conferences this conference reaches a wide
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, February 13, 2007 1:26 AM

How Many Ways Can Your Name be Misspelled

Every so often I run across an interesting little program that someone hacks together that looks to me like a potential programming assignment. Yes I know - suck all the fun out by assigning it to students. Must be the evil teacher in me. Be that as I
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 4 Comments
Monday, February 12, 2007 8:03 AM

More Game Development Resources

Somehow it has slipped my mind that Microsoft Research's Gaming group has released something called the Computer Gaming Resource Toolkit . There you will find a series of talk, papers, curriculum resources and Software & Code Samples having to do
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Monday, February 12, 2007 1:31 AM

Programming Proverbs 2: Think first, Program later

This is the second of a serious of posts based on the book Programming Proverbs by Henry Ledgard . The index for the series is an earlier post and discussion of the list as a whole is taking place in the comments there . Comments on this "proverb" are
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Friday, February 09, 2007 2:35 AM

A Time and A Place for Assembly Language Education

I came across Doug Ross' blog the other day while I was looking at the some the searches that lead people to this blog. He suggests that Assembly language should be used as a first programming language. He states that it would make a great weed out course.
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 3 Comments
Thursday, February 08, 2007 1:30 AM

Programming Proverbs 1: Define the problem completely

This is the first of a series of posts based on the book Programming Proverbs by Henry Ledgard . The index for the series is an earlier post and discussion of the list as a whole is taking place in the comments there . Comments on this "proverb" are of
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 4 Comments
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 1:47 AM

Hacker High School - Security Awareness for Students

A link to the Hacker High School web site went to the AP CS list the other day. It is an interesting site with lessons and exercises about computer and network security. It appears to be designed to be used in either a classroom or a computer club or
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, February 06, 2007 1:35 AM

Do you REALLY want a degree in Game Development?

Now I love programming games. I think that game deveopment is fun, interesting and a great learning experience. The game development programs at a lot of schools from high schools to university to graduate school are interesting and probably help attract
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Monday, February 05, 2007 1:38 AM

Dream Build Play - XNA Contest is up and running

I just realized that Dream Build Play is live and the contest has started. The first challenge is this week! If you haven't already downloaded Visual C# Express and the XNA Game Studio Express it is time to do so and get started. Are you or students you
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
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Sunday, February 04, 2007 12:00 PM

On the Road Again - Seattle then Austin

I am traveling today. I am on my way to Seattle WA for a couple of days of training. On Wednesday I leave Seattle for Austin TX and the TCEA conference. The plan is to be there for the T-A/CS SIG meeting Wednesday night and stay until Friday when I will
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Friday, February 02, 2007 1:57 AM

The Girl in the Java Class

A recent blog post at the NCWIT blog Katy Dickinson writes about her daughter's experiences with computer science education in high school. Her daughter had a horrible experience with her first "introduction to computing" class as a freshmen but was having
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Thursday, February 01, 2007 10:31 AM

Survey of Primary and Secondary School Information Technology

Microsoft has started a 10-day survey to gather feedback on the Primary and Secondary School Education Blueprint that they are developing. Primary and Secondary School IT Professionals and educational leadership can help shape the Blueprint so that it
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Thursday, February 01, 2007 2:04 AM

Visual Studio or VS Express Editions for the School Computer Lab?

Teaching computer programming requires good software development software. The Visual Studio family of products is the most modern state of the art tools available today. They are used by top professionals and yet are approachable to students and hobbyists
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
 
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