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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...

Or perhaps how young should you try? And to top if off, why do you want to start them so young in the first place? I received the following from a teacher friend of mine the other day and it has had me thinking ever since. Can you please tell me why anyone thinks it is a good idea for 6th grades...

As regular readers know I am a huge fan of Kodu, the highly graphical, easy to program game development product from Microsoft Research. It is easy enough that an 8 year old can create some great fun games with it (and some smart younger kids have done cool stuff as well) so it is easy to take this software...

I recently ran some workshops to prepare students to be peer mentors and to mentor younger students with Kodu. The method I suggest is to have mentors show students some small steps and then let the students try. The latest version of Kodu has some really nice step by step lessons that students can do...

I did some work workshops with the great people from Digital Wish again this week (see also Teaching Teachers and Students Together ) We did a full day workshop on web development using Expression Web using the Heavy Metal Car tutorial workshop from http://expression.microsoft.com/education We were able...

The other day Chris Bowen (that’s Chris working with students below) and I gave a Kodu workshop for a group of students and teachers in Vermont. This was a train the trainer sort of work shop and the students will be acting as peer tutors as part of after school programs in their local schools. Some...

I had the following question via Twitter the other day “ Hey Alfred. We got permission to overhaul our computer lab, Have you seen any innovative strategies or configurations?” Now this is a question that comes up pretty regularly among computer science teachers. Or teachers who teach computer...

Recently the Kodu team announced a new version of Kodu and a new Kodu Community Website. You can read a lot of the details at Announcing the Kodu v1.2 and the Kodu Community Website The expanded community web site is pretty cool. What's the Kodu Community Website ? Also new in this release is...

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...

Yesterday the Unlimited Potential team announced the winners of the inaugural US Kodu Cup competition . Today we are announcing the winners of the first U.S. Kodu Cup. It’s a competition that challenged kids across the United States (from the age of 9 to 17) to use Kodu –...

Last week I celebrated eight years at Microsoft. I still miss the students which makes the guest talks I do in schools particularly valuable to me. Interestingly enough I was visiting a Microsoft office on the day of my anniversary and they had ice cream sundaes. Pure coincidence but a good sign I think...

Just a reminder that the submission deadline for the Microsoft Kodu Cup is next week on May 10th, 2011. There is still time to create a new game with Kodu and you could win $5,000 for yourself and your school and lots of great technology! But get cracking! The Kodu Cup is a game design competition for...

Create a new game with Kodu and you could win $5,000 for yourself and your school and lots of great technology! Welcome to the Microsoft Kodu Cup : A game design competition for students 9 – 17 years old. Time to step up your game! Kodu Cup is here! It's the competition you've been waiting for. And it...

I spent most of Saturday at the New Hampshire TechFest at Windham High School. NH Tech Fest is a Satellite Event of the USA Science and Engineering Festival   which was running concurrently on the Mall in Washington, D.C. I understand that Microsoft ad an even larger presence in DC but I was happy...

Well things are heating up with the Imagine Cup. Last week was the round one entry for the fall round of the game and Software Development invitational. Lots of teams have signed up but we will have a second round of sign ups in the late winter/early spring time. In the mean Dan Kasun has bee blogging...

OK so you know I am a big fan of Kodu . Perhaps you read about the Kodu workshop I did for students last weekend. Perhaps you just heard about Kodu from some random place. But where ever you heard about it you asked yourself “How can I as a teacher learn about Kodu ?” Well if you are in the Boston/Cambridge...

I’ve demoed Kodu a number of times and I’ve showed it to individual children briefly as well. Last Saturday I did a workshop for kids at HacKid at the Microsoft office in Cambridge MA and that was different. I had about a baker’s dozen young people between about 8 and 12. About half girls and half boys...

I’m happy to see that the Microsoft student website won the “Outstanding Website” award in the Education category from the Web Marketing Association. /Student as we call it is a very useful site for students to look for information about Microsoft tools, progucts, programs and special...

Happy Labor Day! Well here in the US anyway. Technically a public/work holiday and I do plan to spend most of it relaxing. Unless my wife has other plans that is. I spent yesterday doing some early fall yard work for example. But it looks good so it was worth it. I have spent some time collecting some...

One of the things I tell people when they ask me about why I came to work for Microsoft is that the company has grown up in many ways over the years. One of those ways is in giving back to the community both in general and education in specific. For example, last week it was announced that Microsoft ...

There seem to be a growing number of visual programming languages available these days. Kodu (below) is for creating games by younger people. It’s “When"/Do” model is simple and easy to learn. It’s a bit limited though. It is really a domain specific language for games. Scratch is also a visual...

Well I’m back from ISTE for a bit over 24 hours now. My luggage has even arrived. It apparently decided to spend a few extra hours in Denver. I had a great time at ISTE as I always do. It was a great time to reconnect with a good many people who I know either in person or online or both. I missed some...

Posting early this week as I hope to have more timely stuff to write about as the week goes on. I’m on my way to Denver for ISTE this morning. I hope to connect with a bunch of people this afternoon and evening. If you are coming I sure hope we connect in real life as well. BTW if you are at ISTE stop...

The Kodu team has just released a classroom kit of Kodu resources . If you are thinking about using Kodu either in a summer program or with students in the fall this will be a good place for you to start A range of lesson plans and activities are available for Kodu. The lessons are designed to be flexible...

I am starting to put stuff together to take with me to ISTE this weekend. I get in Sunday sometime and already have a dinner meeting set up. And some stuff do to Sunday afternoon if I get in early enough. I’ve been planning on this trip for a while of course. I have my official work duties, plans...