Additional profile information on Alfred Thompson at Google+
Well last week was an interesting one. Just as many teachers are back in school preparing for the new school year the Microsoft US Academic Developer team (the group I am part of) was having their annual “off site” meeting. Just like a back to school week for teachers it involved looking forward to the new school year, learning about new things like programs and procedure changes. We got to meet new members of the team and get reacquainted with people who have been around for a while. It also involved some team building events. Schools don’t seem to do as many of those as industry does for some reason.
My work group has some similarities to groups of teachers I think. Like teachers we work individually for the most part. While teachers are spread out through a building we are spread out through the country. We both have regular meetings (though my group meets mostly virtually via teleconference) but in between meetings run fairly autonomously. Teachers rule their classrooms (with in the strictures of policy) and people in my group run their local business fairly autonomously (with in the strictures of policy). There are of course many differences. But as I think back to my own classroom teaching I think one similarity may be that it is a little easy to become isolated and too self-contained.
My first teaching job was part-time at two schools. I spent two days teaching at each school and on the fifth day I was at which ever school had the most need for someone to take care of computer problems that week. My time during the day was packed. There were days when a 20 minute lunch would have seemed like a luxury. At one school I already knew many of the teachers (having served on the school board and having had my son go through the school) but the other one was new to me. It was hard to learn enough about those teachers that year. In hind sight some more team building time may have been helpful to me.
Even when I was at a school for a number of years and had gotten to know all the teachers I think team building exercises might have been helpful. Sometimes in these events we learn more about ourselves and each other then we thought possible. For example, last week my team went on a kayak tour. I shared a three person kayak with my manager and one other member of the team. You’d be surprised at what one can learn from such an experience.
My manager pointed out that he was content to take breaks and look around but that I paddled all the time. At one point when he was ready to relax and delay the return to the dock he heard me say “look we can pass them on the outside.” referring to the kayak in front of us. I learned that my manger knew how to relax which I sort of knew before but this brought it home. I really respect that about him. One doesn’t always learn that sort of thing in formal meetings.
I’m not sure what my manager learned about me but I confess that I learned something about myself. In thinking abut the event I realized that I was worried, perhaps too much, about keeping up with the younger members of the team. I am the oldest member of the team and about half the members of the teach are younger than my son. So I worked at trying hard not to be left behind. I probably missed some of the enjoyment of the tour because of it. This is something I need to think about in my interactions with the team. Do I just try to keep up or do I do what I think is right in a way that works for me?
Many of us tend to brush off these sort of team building programs as a waste of time. Or dumb. Or a way to avoid work. But as I go along I am starting to see more value in them. They help build a common culture for a group with a set of shared experiences. And they are a chance to learn new things about our selves and our co-workers. Is “team building” a part of your work experience? Does it work for you?
Since I was offline for much of last week and didn’t have the time to find new things I thought that the start of the new school year would be a good time to re-introduce a program I have blogged about before. At the start of the year seniors are starting to think about their futures. Yes, most seniors in my experience seem to see senior year as something of a speed bump between them and their future. The CareerForward curriculum may be helpful in some schools and with some students as a way of helping their prepare. It may be even more useful for juniors who don’t “know it all” yet. :-)
Course background: CareerForward is a media-rich online learning program, developed through a unique public-private partnership between the Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Virtual University and Microsoft. The program helps students wrestle with some of the burning questions about their futures: What am I going to do with my life? What is the world of work like? What will I need to succeed? What’s next for me? Using a variety of multimedia, course topics explore these questions and more. Throughout the course, students are asked frequently to reflect on what they’re learning, to write their thoughts down as a continual refinement of their thinking, and to discuss their thoughts with other students, either in-person or online. Students can work with local educators to access the online course, which takes about four to six weeks or approximately 20 hours to complete. The course is designed to be facilitated by a local teacher and can be used independently or as part of an existing face-to-face course in career planning, business or global studies. cFWD student/teacher video: http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/031c7926-608f-42eb-aa7f-a29 cFWD course location: http://nroc.careerforward.org/careerforward/ cFWD trailer: http://www.mivhs.org/coursefiles/careerforward/index.htm cFWD online teacher webcast http://educationwebcasts.com/Webcast.aspx?i=4265
Course background: CareerForward is a media-rich online learning program, developed through a unique public-private partnership between the Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Virtual University and Microsoft. The program helps students wrestle with some of the burning questions about their futures:
Using a variety of multimedia, course topics explore these questions and more. Throughout the course, students are asked frequently to reflect on what they’re learning, to write their thoughts down as a continual refinement of their thinking, and to discuss their thoughts with other students, either in-person or online. Students can work with local educators to access the online course, which takes about four to six weeks or approximately 20 hours to complete. The course is designed to be facilitated by a local teacher and can be used independently or as part of an existing face-to-face course in career planning, business or global studies.
cFWD student/teacher video:
http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/031c7926-608f-42eb-aa7f-a29
cFWD course location:
http://nroc.careerforward.org/careerforward/
cFWD trailer:
http://www.mivhs.org/coursefiles/careerforward/index.htm
cFWD online teacher webcast
http://educationwebcasts.com/Webcast.aspx?i=4265
Updated with additional links on September 3rd 2009.
Here is a quick overview of the first item in the list.
Learn the underlying skills and principles of software development--as you design and build your first games for Xbox 360, Windows, and Zune.
Designed specifically for students with no computer science background, this curriculum teaches the fundamentals of C# programming and the XNA Game Studio framework--for skills you can apply to game programming and beyond.
· Write code to create and control game behavior
· Build the game display--color, graphics, text
· Create multiplayer features
· Capture and cue sounds
· Process input from gamepads and keyboards