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If you are using the Kinect sensor for projects, especially if you have the new Kinect for Widows version, you will want to get the latest software development kit and related tools. There is a full list of what is involved at the Kinect for Windows Blog > Kinect for Windows: SDK and Runtime version...

Please take a look at the new Game Design with XNA and Microsoft Technologies: Advanced XNA, Kinect, and Windows Phone curriculum units that have just been completed and are ready for classroom (or other) use. The teacher-created and classroom-tested lessons and projects are easy to engage and include...

The big news for me yesterday was at Finalists Announced for Round 1 of the Microsoft Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum . I attended this event as a judge last year and learned an incredible amount from these amazing teachers. This first round announced 44 teachers representing 32 projects from across...

And fun as well. Recently a co-worker sent me a link to some videos that were done by the Houston Independent School District about the pilot program they are running in several elementary schools. These schools are using video games involving the Kinect Sensor to help teach. And not just physical education...

The dream.build.play challenge is still wide open for people looking to take their Windows Phone or Xbox 360 game to the next level and win some big prizes. Create a Game & Bring Your Ideas to Life It’s time for the Dream.Build.Play Challenge! Open to anyone over age 14, the...

I know I have mentioned the Windows Phone SDK (software development kit) a lot in the past but usually only as a reference along with other things. It really deserves a post of its own though. T he Windows Phone Software Development Kit (SDK) 7.1 provides you with all of the tools that you need to develop...

Introduction We are going to create a simple Tic Tac Toe game for Windows Phone. We’ll be using Visual Studio as our development environment and C# for our programming language. All the resources you need are listed below and all are free. Resources: Windows Phone Development SDK...

The National STEM Video Game challenge kicked off a couple of months ago but it starting to come down to the wire. IF you missed the spring deadline for the Imagine Cup you can still enter this event though. Inspired by the Educate to Innovate Campaign , President Obama’s initiative to promote...

One of the things that often makes Imagine Cup entries a good educational experience is that they require planning and team work. A good Imagine Cup entry is seldom a one person project. Many universities use the Imagine Cup, especially the Software Design event, as senior projects. The Game Event makes...

Last Saturday I spend the day at Windham High School in Windham New Hampshire for the second annual NH TechFest . TechFest is a project created by parents and others interested in making sure that students are exposed to information about STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) careers in an interesting...

Last week I attended part of SIEGE 2011 ( Southern Interactive Entertainment & Game Expo ) in Atlanta Georgia. Before the main part of the conference started the conference hosted hundreds of high school and middle school students for a college open house and presentations on a variety of topics...

Revitalize your Computer Science program with Game Development with XNA: Semester 1 . This exciting and engaging computer science semester course enables students to apply a basic foundation in programming to create games and simulations for social causes using C# and Microsoft XNA Game Studio. Teaching...

Back in my college days we had a computer program that played three-dimensional tic tac toe. The game was played in a four space by four space four level cube. The object of the game was to get four of you pieces in a row.  Ever since I came across the paper on Connect Four that I blogged about...

Coding a game from scratch is hard. Make no mistake about there is a lot to it. OF course many people, especially students, think they are all ready to create the next great game. They can easily be frustrated when they find out that they don’t know near enough about programming (among other things)...

Computers are good at games. Well sort of. Computers are good at following rules and making decisions based on rules that are programmed into them. These rules have to come from somewhere and that somewhere is people. That computers are good at playing games is do in large part to the fact that people...

Michael Scherotter who works for Microsoft decided to run a computer programming day camp in his home for his 9 year old son and 9 of his friends. Taking  on teaching programming to 10-year olds may not be for everyone but from the sound of Michael’s blog posts it sure sounds not only possible but...

Would you like to pilot a new game development course (or two)  in your school? With free curriculum and software? Microsoft is starting a new  XNA online community group and curriculum pilot program that features: Free software Free teacher-created curriculum Two one semester courses Here...

I have been playing with Visual Basic and XNA for a few days now. Support has been out for VB and XNA for a little while now but the release of the Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta and a new document on Visual Basic Support in XNA Game Studio (Mango) has really kicked me into trying it out. As...

I’ve been working all week in C#. Now C# is a wonderful language if you are going to use semi-colons and curly braces. It fixes almost all of the issues I have with C++ and Java. But frankly I have missed the beauty of programming in Visual Basic. So when I saw Sam Stokes’ post ( You can...

Andrew Parsons is the Game Capitan for the Worldwide Imagine Cup Game competition. This gives him a good close look at the competitors especially the finalists. This week he has posted summaries of the finalists in the three competition fields. Imagine Cup Web Games Imagine Cup Mobile Games...

Pat Yongpradit , a talented young HS CS teacher I have written about before, has created a 5 week mini-course on game programming with XNA Game Studio. This course is particularly useful for educators who want to offer game programming to their students as an enrichment unit, as part of a summer school...

From the makers of the “XNA Game Studio Beginner’s Guide” DVD’s, the next evolution of Game Development training for Beginners! Online. Plaintext Searchable Code. Lessons for Design, Art, and Programming. Everything You Need, Free. Jump in at: http://create.msdn.com/gamedevelopment Developed in Collaboration...

XozGaming is an Imagine Cup game development team made up of two high school juniors from Lick-Wilmerding High School . Julius is the artist and Xander is the programmer behind their XNA Game – Strain. Strain is a Windows real time strategy game where you defend the world against a global...

How do we learn? How do we develop strategy in games, in work, in our daily lives? We store information and we use information from the past to decide what will happen in the future. In software we use heuristics to create software that learns. Recently I found a great example of a program that learns...