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Teaching Kids Programming – Extending SmallBasic
29 November 09 01:36 AM | llangit | 0 Comments   

I’ve been pair programming with Llewellyn Falco and wanted to share a bit of what we’ve been working on.  We’ve written and published some extensions to SmallBasic on CodePlex and would love your feedback. To use these extensions, you’ll need 1) Read More...

Filed under: Helping

Teaching Kids to Code – Graduating from SmallBasic
29 October 09 09:34 PM | llangit | 2 Comments   

Regular blog readers may know of my work with Microsoft’s free kid’s coding IDE, SmallBasic as a tool to introduce the fun of coding to DigiGirlz .  As I work with my volunteer developer teams on improving the way we work SmallBasic (more on that Read More...

Filed under: Fun, Helping

TeachCamp 2010
13 October 09 07:17 PM | llangit | 0 Comments   

You may know that I've led Microsoft's annual events for high-school aged girls (in SoCal) DigiGirlz for 3 years now. I will continue to do this, plan for 2010 is to host three one-day events (in April) in LA, Irvine and San Diego for DigiGirlz. Also, Read More...

Filed under: Southern California, Helping

DigiGirlz camp LA for 2009
02 September 09 11:35 PM | llangit | 3 Comments   

We hosted our first-ever DigiGirlz hi-tech camp for high-school aged girls at New Horizons, Culver City , (LA) CA last week (We have hosted previous events in SoCal in Irvine, CA  and in San Diego, CA).  DigiGirlz is a global program of annual, Read More...

Filed under: Southern California, Helping

DigiGirlz Summer Camp 2009
16 July 09 04:38 AM | llangit | 0 Comments   

We hosted around 20 girls over the past two days at Microsoft’s Irvine, CA office.   The global DigiGirlz program is funded by Microsoft and supports annual hosting of either one-day spring events or multi-day summer camps.  The goal of Read More...

Filed under: Southern California, Fun, Helping

SoCalDevGal shares…’Teaching Kids to Code’
26 June 09 09:04 PM | llangit | 0 Comments   

Here’s the deck from my prezo at SoCalCodeCamp in San Diego (UCSD) – enjoy!  Examples included have the following availability – SmallBasic is a free download, Kodu is NOT available to the general public on the PC.  Kodu will be released as Read More...

Filed under: Fun, Helping

Report from StepUp First Annual Career Conference in Carson, CA
20 May 09 04:29 AM | llangit | 1 Comments   

On Saturday after TechEd, I attended the first-ever StepUp Career Conference for underserved high-school aged girls.  This event was put on by the national StepUp non-profit, based in Los Angeles and was hosted at the Dermologica HQ in Carson, CA.  Read More...

Filed under: Southern California, Fun, Helping

Report from TechEd – WomenBuild 2.0 SeriousPlay with LEGOs
19 May 09 08:12 PM | llangit | 2 Comments   

Happy to have led the Women in Technology event at TechEd last week.  Asli Bilgin and I have been working with a team at Microsoft to build this event brand for a year now.  Microsoft has hosted WomenBuild events across the US and Australia Read More...

Filed under: TechEd, Technical Conference, Helping

Report from TechEd – MVP pre-show summit
18 May 09 08:19 PM | llangit | 3 Comments   

Sunday before TechEd I represented local evangelists at the TechEd MVP pre-summit.  In addition to meeting several MVPs for the first time, I got a chance to plan new events with key SoCal MVPs (most of whom also lead or actively participate in local Read More...

Filed under: Southern California, TechEd, Helping

SoCalDevGal has an idea…Virtual DigiGirlz
11 April 09 09:11 PM | llangit | 5 Comments   

Inspiration does come from unexpected places, doesn’t it?  I’ve been thinking, for well over a year now, on how to take the Microsoft DigiGirlz program to the next level – that is beyond live events to scale it online.  Well, I think I’ve got Read More...

Filed under: Fun, Helping

Teaching Coding to Kids? Try Visual Studio Learning Pack
06 March 09 01:31 AM | llangit | 1 Comments   

The Visual Studio Learning Pack 2.0 is a software package created by Microsoft to help students learn about computer programming. It consists of the following five components: Sort Designer Control is a supplementary teaching tool developed to help students Read More...

Filed under: Fun, Helping

See the Future of Software
28 February 09 03:46 AM | llangit | 3 Comments   

Check out this fun video showing Microsoft innovations Read More...

Filed under: Fun, Helping

Microsoft DreamSpark - Free software for students
11 February 09 05:24 PM | llangit | 0 Comments   

We've extended DreamSpark to include both college AND high school students!  You can get anything shown below (and more - see the DreamSpark website ) for FREE!  These are full-version products (not trials or versions that expire).  This Read More...

Filed under: Fun, Helping

Want to go to Tech-Ed 2009 in Los Angeles for free? Volunteer to work there
09 February 09 06:38 AM | llangit | 1 Comments   

  Submit your name via the Call for Staff tool. You will then be considered for a staff position helping at one of the product demo stations in the Technical Learning Center (TLC). Upon completing the required fields and clicking on the “Submit” Read More...

Filed under: Southern California, TechEd, Technical Conference, Fun, Helping

Is Math more important than Dancing?
26 December 08 07:04 AM | llangit | 1 Comments   

As I work to develop curriculum for next year's DigiGirlz camps, this talk seems particularly relevant. Ken Robinson questions educational priorities Read More...

Filed under: Fun, Helping