Interesting Links 5 March 2012

I took some vacation days last week. Here in New Hampshire the weather has been wild. On Tuesday I went kayaking with my son and on Thursday we had a major snow storm. Even with the snow I was able to relax a bit. I collected a bunch of interesting links as well. Hard to keep off the Internet – I’m not so good at this vacation thing. In any case I am pretty happy with what I have to share with you today. Check them out.

Looking for Kinect for Windows with XNA curriculum? Well we’ve got some available now. Written by Rob Miles these files include a manual, a bunch of PowerPoint presentations and about 7 demo programs to help you get started.

Moving to 24/7 Learning through BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) – A nice article about the work my friend Lou Zulli is doing with his students in Florida. This is part of Anthony Salcito’s 365-day look at global heroes in education.

Teachers Be Recognized For Your Innovative Ideas and apply to the Partners in Learning US Forum.

This program is the company’s effort on a global scale to recognize, acknowledge and showcase amazing teaching happening in our schools today. Yes, there is a technology component (perhaps for obvious reasons), but like with all good teaching, it is not one thing that generates this positive impact, it is the creative and effective use of all the pedagogical tools in an educator’s arsenal, and of course, the person themselves.

Pat Yongpradit gave what I am told was a very well received talk on how he does game development as group projects in game development. He uses a bunch of materials to support both his course work and his students involvement in the Imagine Cup His materials including project phases, roles, and individual and group reflections may be found at Pat Yongpradit’s download page.

Meet Microsoft’s February 2012 Tech Student of the Month – Gavin Earley

ISTE's computational thinking toolkit is a large new set of materials for teaching computational thinking. Well worth looking at if computational thinking has moved up on your teaching priority list.

Did you see the announcement that you could now download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview? Something for those of you (or your students) who like to play out on the bleeding edge.

Microsoft partners with Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Emanuel to create an Early College STEM School See Microsoft partners with Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Emanuel to create an Early College STEM School for more information on this exciting new project.

Doug Bergman @dougbergmanUSA on the AP program in general and the APCS exam in particular A must read in my opinion.

Thanks to a Tweet by Eugene Wallingford (@wallingf:) I found an interesting blog post titled "Nobody wants to learn programming, they want to learn how to make programs." I thought I was all
set with this one until I started reading some of the comments. Recommended.