I’ve just managed to secure the last details of the upcoming Faculty Training Day Roadshow and can breathe a sigh of relief. But, if you’re an educator and want to get a handle on some cool technologies so you can use it to teach your students, or to teach your students on how to use it themselves, it’s now your turn to do something! :)
Here’s the official spiel:
Microsoft Australia invites you to attend a Faculty Workshop. This no cost technical training day is jam-packed full of information that will help you understand technologies that are used by a large component of the business world and show how you can help your students come to grips with them and be prepared as they enter the workforce.
The morning session introduces you to Expression Studio, including Expression Web, Encoder, Design and Blend. These four key design tools are being used by professionals in all sorts of technical areas such as web designers, programmers, graphic designers and more. But perhaps more importantly, these tools can be easy to learn and can give you and your students some exciting opportunities to work with.
- Expression Web is Microsoft’s premiere, standards-based web site creation tool and can be used to teach basics such as HTML and web page structure and layout all the way through to advanced web site layouts.
- Expression Encoder allows you to quickly and easily capture video from multiple sources, allowing you to either record a class, or record a lesson for one. It can also be used to repurpose existing video into a small but high quality format utilising Silverlight so you can get your important messages to your students no matter where they are, or even teach them how to use quality video tools themselves.
- Expression Design and Blend give the ability to create rich user interfaces and designs that can be used on their own or in the place of standard programming interfaces.
This three hour session will also show you other utilities you can use in the classroom that are based on Expression and associated technologies such as Deep Zoom and PhotoSynth.
The afternoon session will cover XNA Game Studio with a brief introduction into the world of game development and how you can use it to excite students of many age groups with technology. XNA Game Studio is a game focussed add-in for the professional level Visual Studio development environment that is now available to students and faculty at no charge through DreamSpark and Faculty Connection initiatives, allowing the programmer to get up and running with creating games for Windows, Xbox 360 and other platforms.
In addition to these two technical training sessions, Microsoft will also highlight the various programs that are in place to provide you and your students no cost software and curriculum resources so that you're best armed to gear up to teach programming with Microsoft technologies, and give you some ideas on how to integrate social awareness into the curriculum to inspire and encourage technical innovation in your class attendees.
There will also be an opportunity to see Windows 7 in action and a chance to play with it yourself so you can see what all the excitement is about.
Places are limited - don't miss out on this opportunity to skill up on Expression Studio and XNA Game Studio and be prepared to teach these crucially important business development technologies to your students.
Places truly are limited in some locations, don’t let someone else get your spot. :) Register here: http://www.microsoft.com.au/events/register/home.aspx?levent=986897&linvitation
I’m going to be a busy little camper getting around to all the places on the map, but I’m committed now, so here goes.
There are training days being held at the following venues:
- Microsoft Auditorium, Adelaide – SA - 21 Oct 2009
- Canberra University – ACT - 23 Oct 2009
- University of Western Australia – WA - 27 Oct 2009
- Deakin University – VIC - 30 Oct 2009
- Bond University – QLD - 2 Nov 2009
- Queensland University of Technology – QLD - 4 Nov 2009
- University of Technology, Sydney – NSW - 12 Nov 2009
Hope to see you there.
In just over 2 weeks, Microsoft Australia will be hosting a free technical academic day on the Gold Coast. Since this is my baby, I thought I’d better actually write something about it here and not just email and twitter. :)
Here’s the official spiel:
Tech.Ed Academic Day is a dedicated day of content relevant to IT educators. The day brings Microsoft “thought provokers” and respected university lecturers together to discuss current topics such as social and new media, and offers the chance to network with fellow educators. In addition to learning about exciting topics such as game development in the classroom, how Microsoft views open source and others, attendees will also learn about programs they can use to excite their students about technology such as Imagine Cup, the world’s biggest technology competition for students aimed at generating socially responsible technology-based solutions to the world’s toughest problems, DreamSpark for free software, Faculty Connection for a wealth of resources for use in your own curriculum stream, and more.
Tech.Ed Academic Day is free to attend – simply register your intent to attend here: http://www.microsoft.com.au/events/register/home.aspx?levent=347949&linvitation
Seriously though, the day is just too darned cool for words (check out the agenda below). Jeff, Jane and Ross are all excellent at what they do and totally worth coming to listen to, and I’ve also managed to get a few of Microsoft Australia’s best speakers along too as well as Phil Fawcett from Microsoft Research US who will bring us some amazing stories about some of the things he’s seen. And you’ll get a chance to ask me those burning questions about Faculty Connection or DreamSpark or Imagine Cup or anything else I rave on about.
Even for those of you who are interstate – flights from Melbourne, Sydney and even Canberra are only a couple hundred bucks for a return flight – how much would you pay for a typical Professional Development day even if it was in your own backyard?
Don’t miss out – the official registrations close in just a few days and I can’t guarantee you’ll get in if you don’t get your name down.
| Time | Activity |
| 9:00am – 9:15am | Welcome and Introduction.
Andrew Parsons, Academic Initiatives Lead, Microsoft Australia |
| 9:15am – 10:15am | Social and New Media and the impact on students, both in the classroom and without.
Dr Jeff Brand, Bond University |
| 10:15am – 10:45am | The place of Research in the Educational Institution.
Dr Jane Hunter, University of Queensland |
| 10:45am – 11:00am | Morning Tea |
| 11:00am – 11:45am | Microsoft and Open Source – a marriage made in heaven.
Nick Hodge, Professional Geek for Microsoft Australia |
| 11:45am – 12:45pm | Lunch – Informal session sponsored by ACS Foundation and NICTA.
Short presentations delivered by John Ridge (ACS Foundation) and Chris Nicol (NICTA) |
| 12:45pm – 1:15pm | Using Imagine Cup, DreamSpark and Students To Business to inspire your students to change the world.
Andrew Parsons, Academic Initiatives Lead, Microsoft Australia |
| 1:15pm – 1:30pm | Talking about experienced with Microsoft from a student’s perspective.
Luke Kim, Student Partner Lead |
| 1:30pm – 2:00pm | Who is Microsoft Research?
Phil Fawcett, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft Research |
| 2:00pm – 2:15pm | Afternoon Tea |
| 2:15pm – 3:15pm | Game Development – how to get students excited about software programming.
Dr Ross Brown, Queensland University of Technology |
| 3:15pm – 4:15pm | The Future of the Web.
Michael Kordahi, Delicate Genius and Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Australia |
| 4:15pm | Close. |
OK, I’m biased. You don’t need to tell me.
But regardless of what you think, the Australian team for Software Design absolutely did indeed rock their presentation. Every time I’ve seen them they’ve been better than the last, but seriously – they were like a group of professionals who had been doing their job for years. The presentation was smooth, articulate and they fielded the questions thrown at them with aplomb and a self-assurance that was exciting to watch.
Their eGreen solution generated some genuine interest from several of the judges, with one coming up afterwards to congratulate the team on coming up with a solution that could impact people worldwide.
Now the “but”. :(
Unfortunately, there were at least twelve other teams who rocked it even better than the Aussies did. That might sound like a lot, but remember there were close to 70 teams in the Software Design category, so going from 70 to 12 is pretty brutal and there were many students who were impacted by the cut.
The next round occurred immediately after the announcement was made, and later in the evening we learned who the top 6 teams were, including Brazil, Spain and Taiwan. I’ll blog coverage of the final presentations tomorrow.
I want to congratulate Team eGreen for being such amazing ambassadors for Australia and showing the world how skilled Aussie students are. Good on you Donovan, Xharmagne and James (and well done, Dat).
Wow, this is easily the most epic event I’ve ever been involved in. If you’re following my twitter feed (@mrandypuppy) you’ll know that I’ve been using words like “awesome”, “cool” and “wow” a lot as well as a bunch of exclamation marks. I’m conscious of it but I keep getting wowed by the experience, and I know this is just the beginning.
So far I’ve experienced:
- Catching a flight from Singapore to Cairo via Dubai with 60+ passengers being Imagine Cup competitors, their mentors and several of my peers. I was told about solutions that teams had come up with and the passion these kids have is inspiring, but with good reason. I mean, when an Indonesian talks for 30 minutes non-stop about a Malaria early detection system they developed, it’s hard to not be engaged.
- Carrying the Cup through Customs at Cairo and being questioned about the mysterious box.
- Today was briefing day – briefings for students, mentors, judges, employees, briefings everywhere. At first I thought it was over the top, but there is so much information to consume that it is totally warranted.
- Tonight was the official opening of the Imagine Cup competition. The highlights were:
- Student parade of the countries, a la the Olympics. Huge response as each team entered and again I was struck by how many countries are represented and how some of them strike me as out of this world – seriously, I never really thought about a team of students from Senegal showing solid innovation, or the inspiring stories of some of the teams just getting here like Palestine and Indonesia.
- Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect for Microsoft, telling the students that they truly are the future of creativity in technology because they’re not hampered by previous experience and preconceptions.
- Joe Wilson, the man who makes Imagine Cup happen every year (well, the man, behind the team of awesome dudes and dudettes that make it happen every year) pumping the students up and getting them ready for the competition and having all 445 students on the edge of their seats, hanging on every word.
- The Egyptian student who stood up during the proceedings to thank his government for their support of Imagine Cup and the roar of the crowd in appreciation.
sigh.
Tomorrow – first EPIC day of the competition. All 67 Software Development teams present, as well as Game Development, Embedded Development and other teams – all in action. The logistics to make all this happen are nightmarish, but everyone behind the scenes are positive and upbeat and just making it all happen.
So there is plenty of talk about Google being the best search engine out there, but with some pretty amazing improvements recently made to Live Search, and now particularly the launch of Bing, our new “decision” engine, it’s really time to see if Google really is the best – for you personally. One fun way of doing this is to use this fun little utility that Michael Kordahi wrote (a teammate of mine) called Blind Search.
Basically, you head over to http://blindsearch.fejus.com, enter your search term, and click the search button. The tool goes off and searches for your terms at Google, Bing and Yahoo. You get the three sets of results back – all formatted anonymously so you don’t know which column of results was returned by which search engine. Then you can either “vote” for the search engine that gives you the best, most appropriate results for you personally, or you can simply click on one of the results themselves and head off on your way like you would if you were using the actual search engine.
One really cool thing is that if you’ve been using Google and want to try out Bing, but aren’t quite ready to make the switch (personally I now use Bing as my favoured search provider but hey, you never know), you can actually use Blind Search as your default search provider. Here’s how:
- Head over to http://www.ieaddons.com/en/createsearch.aspx to create your own search provider.
- In the URL box, enter http://blindsearch.fejus.com/?q=TEST.
- In the Name box, enter whatever you want to call it – Blind Search, Taste Test, Trying out my options… you name it.
- Click Install Search Provider.
- When prompted, click Add and you’re done (if you want to make it your default, check the “Make this my default search provider” box before you click Add.
Works incredibly well and really opened my eyes to just how good Bing is; for me personally, the ratio seems to be about two-thirds Bing with most of the remainder Google with the very rare Yahoo. There seem to be some comments about the usefulness of the statistical info – people “gaming” the system, people finding it too easy to determine which column is which when looking at the source, etc. However that’s missing the point of the exercise – it’s more to break the preconception that Google is best. For what I search for, it seems like Bing is indeed best. Maybe that will be the same for others too.
(unfortunately a couple of people decided to try to game the system, so Michael had to take the public statistics down, but hopefully over time, they’ll become relevant and publishable. And full disclaimer, one tried to game it in Google’s favour and another tried to sway it in Bing’s favour)
I love my job. Sorry if you’ve heard me say that before, but I do. And it’s for moments like these. I got to tell the five teams who made it to the Australian Finals of the Imagine Cup that they had indeed succeeded in Round 1 and would be presenting their solutions to a judging panel and general public with a chance to win the opportunity to represent Australia in Cairo, Egypt at the world finals of Imagine Cup.
Team One – deCarbonate
Team deCarbonate decided to address environmental sustainability by helping people see the impact of their personal lives and actions through a carbon footprint calculator with mitigation suggestions and additional information aimed at highlighting actions that everyone can do to minimise their impact on the environment in a very real sense.
Team Two – eGreen
A comprehensive and potentially revolutionary system, eGreen seeks to help monitor all parts of the item production supply chain so that consumers know what impact they have on the environment when they buy particular goods. Using RFID tags, a special rating system developed by the eGreen team and web servers and other real world technologies, the system makes people aware of the full extent of the environmental impact of the products they plan to purchase.
Team Three – IWork
IWork is short for Instant Work, and is a system developed by this Canberra-based team to help job seekers find work easily and quickly with very little expenditure, addressing the need around the world of low income people who often need work in very short timeframes. This innovative solution integrates multiple technologies to help people take advantage of new access to things like internet access.
Team Four – Xtreme
Team Xtreme have developed the Fire Location and Managing Environment (FLAME) as a web-driven application that tackles a local issue that extends to the global scape where, worldwide, bushland hazard reduction management needs to be improved. Their solution uses a number of technologies to ease management of bushfires and other bushland issues and used real world situations and collaboration with local fire departments to ensure they met the actual needs found in today’s society.
Team Five – Firefighters
Our second Sydney team, and our second bushfire management system is perhaps unsurprising given the huge risks faced each year in bushfire season in Sydney’s surrounds and particularly in light of the tragedies that occurred earlier this year, it’s actually a great outcome that Imagine Cup enables students to tackle real issues that face can us quite personally.
As I have previously posted, the finals will be held at the North Ryde office of Microsoft Australia and are open to the public to attend – but it’s essential you register so we can make sure you fit in. Also, by registering, you’ll go into the draw to win lucky door prizes (like a Xbox 360 console), so don’t miss out on your own chance to win.
This is your last chance to come along – seats are running out so act now. Send an email to ausic@microsoft.com with your name, phone number and how many people you’re registering for if you’re intending to bring others with you.
The event starts at 6pm, Wednesday 27 May at:
1 Epping Road
North Ryde NSW 2113
I hope to see you there!
COOL! We’re on the final approach for Imagine Cup 2009 and I’m happy to announce that we’ll be holding the local finals for Australia on the evening of the May 27th.
The top teams who have entered the Software Design category go head to head with some incredibly creative and innovative ideas on how to make our world, and our country, a better place.
This year, the finals are open to the public although seats are limited. Come and see the competitors present their solutions to a panel of judges from the industry, media, academia and Microsoft and find out who will be going to Cairo, Egypt to represent Australia at the worldwide finals.
This is a great opportunity for students, teachers and faculty to see why we are so keen about Imagine Cup and how it can help make a difference through technology.
The details:
- Date: 27 May 2009
- Time: 6:00pm start, finishing approximately 9:00pm
- Where: Microsoft Australia office
1 Epping Road
North Ryde, NSW 2113 - Cost: Free to attend
To ensure you’ve got a place, send an email to Australian Imagine Cup with your name, contact phone number in case of emergencies and how many people you’re registering for, if you’re bringing more than just yourself. Note that if you do not register, you may not be admitted to the event if we’re oversubscribed, so don’t miss out.
Hey, I almost forgot, for those who register, you might even get a chance to win some cool lucky door prizes.
Tech•Ed 2009 Australia is just four months away and we’re now looking for speakers. If you’d like to speak at Microsoft’s premier technical conference, held this year on the Gold Coast, you’ll need to get in quick as the tracks will be finalised over the coming weeks.
If you want to know more, Andrew Coates has got all the info, including the rules for submission, what the thirteen tracks are, and even tips for having your submission viewed favourably.
Click here for the skinny.
A quick summary of the tracks:
- Windows Client and Windows Server
- Office System
- Unified Communications
- Web
- Developer Tools and Practices
- Architecture
- SQL and BI
- Security
- SOA and Business Process
- Dynamics
- Mobility
- Azure Services Platform
- Virtualisation
Personally, I would love to see some faculty (and maybe some talented students) putting in some ideas that maybe twist these a bit to make a different outlook on the topic and get developers thinking.
So, if you’re interested, go to Andrew’s blog entry and get the info.
11 June 2009
Star City, Sydney
REMIX AUSTRALIA
Nothing more to be said, really. Remix is Microsoft Australia’s leading conference about what’s on the horizon for both developers and designers and if you’re involved in either of these industries you should seriously consider registering ASAP.
We’re talking Silverlight 3, Azure Services, SketchFlow, Expression Blend, IE8, making SharePoint actually look cool, Virtual Earth, and ASP.NET 4.0, as well as Surface Computing User Experiences, Microsoft and Open Source, S+S and even the Live Messenger Web Toolkit.
At just a couple hundred bucks to attend if you register before May 21, don’t miss your chance to get along to this fantastic opportunity.
Head to the REMIX site for more info.
(almost) Completely ripped off from Andrew Coates’ blog…
We’ve got a few seats left for some more great free training in Sydney next week – 19-21 May, this time on VS2010 and .NET 4.0. If you're interested in attending please email
Shuk Chan.
Day 1
Visual Studio Team System 2010
8:30AM Registration and Breakfast
9:00AM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 0 - 2
9:45AM Break
10:00AM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 3 - 4
10:45AM VSTS Hands-On-Labs
11:45AM Lunch (Provided)
12:45PM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 5 - 7
1:15PM Break
1:30PM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 8 - 10
3:15PM Break
3:30PM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 11 – 12
4:15PM Break
4:30PM VSTS Hands-on-Labs
Day 2
.NET Framework 4.0
8:30AM Breakfast
9:00AM Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0 Overview – Module 1
9:30AM Managed Languages Overview – Module 2
10:00AM Break
10:15AM CLR 4 Overview – Module 3
11:30AM Lunch (Provided)
12:30PM WF/WCF – Module 4
1:45PM Break
2:00PM ADO.NET Data Services v2 – Module 5
3:15PM Hands-on-Labs
Day 3
Visual Studio 2010
8:30AM Breakfast
9:00AM ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 – Module 6
10:15AM Break
10:30AM Project Velocity – Module 7
11:30AM Lunch (Provided)
12:30PM Parallel Computing Overview – Module 8
1:45PM Break
2:00PM Hands-on-Labs
So I’ve been hard at work getting this organised and it’s finally happening. The only scary thing is that the Melbourne day is next Monday! Less than a week away. Which means registrations have to happen in the next few days. Spaces are limited and we’re already 25% registered after only a day so if you’re keen make sure you register soon!
Here’s the goss:
This free technical training day is jam-packed full of information that will help you understand technologies that are used by a large component of the business world and how you can help your students come to grips with them and be prepared as they enter the workforce.
The morning session introduces you to .NET and core programming concepts that can be used as a basis for building teaching content for your own students as well as going into the reasons why it's important to include .NET and C# as part of your curriculum. Over the space of three hours, you'll learn how .NET works and how it can be used to create programming projects for Windows, web browsers, mobile phones and even Xbox consoles.
The afternoon session will cover Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), a new way of creating programs that have innovative user interfaces and experiences and is the same technology used to provide Silverlight on web browsers. The three hours includes an introduction and definition of core WPF concepts and, like the morning session, will include pointers on how to build coursework from what you'll hear on the day. All attendees of the WPF session will receive a copy of WPF-in-a-Box, a complete resource guide to learning and using Windows Presentation Foundation, including hands on labs, links and resources.
In addition to these two technical training sessions and the WPF-in-a-Box kit, Microsoft will also highlight the various programs that are in place to provide you and your students free software and curriculum resources so that you're best armed to gear up to teach programming with Microsoft technologies, and give you some ideas on how to integrate social awareness into the curriculum to inspire and encourage technical innovation in your class attendees.
Places are limited - don't miss out on this opportunity to skill up on .NET and WPF and be prepared to teach these crucially important business development technologies to your students.
When:
- Melbourne, VIC – Monday, March 30th 2009
- Canberra, ACT - Monday, April 20th 2009
- Brisbane, QLD – Tuesday, April 21st 2009
- Sydney, NSW – Thursday, April 23rd 2009
Session Times:
- .NET 9:00am-12:00pm
- WPF 1:00pm-4:00pm
If you’re faculty at a university, TAFE or high school and are interested in attending, please contact me through my blog and I’ll send you the registration details.
That’s right - as revealed today in the official Windows Mobile blog, students enrolled in DreamSpark will have the Marketplace registration fee waived, allowing them to build their mobile apps quickly, and bring them to market. Since students often have innovative ideas that can revolutionise the way we look at applications, this is an exciting piece of news. Oh, and did I mention that developers (including students) will earn 70% of the revenue generated from their application sales?
Read all the details about the marketplace from a developer perspective here: Windows® Marketplace for Mobile Developer Strategy Announced!
Remember – DreamSpark gives students (university, TAFE and high school) completely free access to all of Microsoft’s developer and designer tools. Head over to www.dreamspark.com and sign up today if you haven’t already.
Awesome news… :)
Microsoft certifications add cred to your claims when you’re going for a job, so why not give it a go and sit a certification exam for one of the dozens of certifications you’ve got to choose from?
What, you don’t want to spend the dosh on an exam that you may not pass? Well, first up, if you’re someone who knows your stuff, then you’ve probably got a pretty good chance of successfully completing the exam, but if you’re worried, I’ve got a bit of a deal here for you.
I have six free exam vouchers right here on my desk, just dying to be given away to a good home. Each voucher is good for one exam, to be sat any time before April 30, 2009, so well and truly worth it.
To get one, send me a note on the contact form and if you’re one of the first six, I’ll send it out, no questions asked.
Please note that you’ll need to be an Australian resident, and I ask that you only ask for a voucher if you’re seriously thinking about taking an exam, but apart from that, it’s yours.
UPDATE: All of these have been allocated. I'll respond to everyone who contacted me, but I received way more than six, so apologies if you miss out.
Hey guys and gals, I know I’ve been a bit slack about blogging over the past couple of weeks so as a kind of apology I have six copies of the Windows 7 Beta to giveaway.
If you’d like one, simply contact me through the Email link up there on the left and if you’re one of the first six, I’ll ship it out to you directly.
This is the full product – kinda equivalent to Windows Vista Ultimate – and works beautifully. I’ve been running it for the past month without a hitch. The beta will last until August too, so you’ve got plenty of time to check out this next version of Windows before it hits retail.
What are you waiting for – email me now. :)
Imagine Cup is the world’s biggest technology competition for students and you can be a part of it. Check out this week’s podcast which is all about Imagine Cup, including an interview with David Burela, one of the winners of this year’s Imagine Cup. Get to the article directly: MICROSOFT - Imagine Cup
The full podcast feed is available at: My Microsoft Podcast Feed
