On the 26th of June I attended the Scottish Further Education Unit’s Computing and Information Technology Subject Network Conference - A Qualifications Update.
As part of the event, I delivered a speech on the latest Developer Technologies (including Visual Studio, XNA, Silverlight and Expression) and their relevance to the Academic Sector.
The main topic of the presentation was on how teaching “cool” and “fun” technologies can help to enthuse and attract students and make the appreciate the beauty of developing software.
I think the presentation was very well received and the attendees seemed to agree that using gaming and/or rich Internet applications as a mean to teach students programming concepts and techniques (joining fun and academic rigor) can be a good recipe for success.
The slides I used can be found below.
I also referenced to a number of sites (they are all quoted in the slides but for ease of access I list them again here):
Dreamspark – We are giving to students the opportunity to get hold of our software design and development tools at no charge. All that is required is that students can verify their status every 12 months.
MSDN Academic Alliance - MSDN AA is the easiest and most inexpensive way for students and faculty in the technology and design fields to get the latest Microsoft software they need.
Microsoft IT Academy - The Microsoft IT Academy program enables learning institutions to connect the world of education to the world of work by enabling faculty and students to acquire new technology skills in an academic setting.
Microsoft Faculty Connection – A resource for technology news, customizable curriculum, learning and teaching material, free software downloads, and newsgroups.
XNA creators club – For those interested in Games Development with XNA Game Studio, this is a must go destination for starter kits, forums, education material, resources, etc.
Silverlight.net – The resource to get hold of all you need to develop Silverlight applications and compelling rich experiences delivered in the browser and across different platforms
In terms of Silverlight demos (which of course are not in the slides), I showed a couple of very nice Silverlight 2 and Deepzoom sites:
but many more can be found here: