Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson
Alfred Thompson's blog about teaching computer science at the K-12 level. Alfred was a high school computer science teacher for 8 years. He has also taught grades K-8 as a computer specialist.
Windows Phone 7 Development for Absolute Beginners
I’m excited about this. It is a series of videos designed as a four day workshop for learning...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/16/2010
Interesting Links 15 November 2010
I got a new Xbox 360 with a Kinect device last week. I spent much of a day “testing” it out and some...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/15/2010
EduBlogger Nominations 2010
I have this whole mixed emotion thing with the EduBlogger awards. On one hand I think that everyone...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/13/2010
Lines Can Be Fun
Graphics can be a lot of fun for students. Well honestly they are fun for a lot of adults....
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/12/2010
XNA and Game Development and Expression Web and Web Design Talks
Last summer I helped present two talks at the CSTA CS & IT Symposium. In both cases I had small...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/11/2010
Microsoft Technology Associate Certifications Revisited
Last July I wrote about the Microsoft Technology Associate program and I thought it was time to...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/10/2010
How Does Kinect Work?
Chances are you have heard about the Kinect for Xbox 360 which lets you play games without a...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/09/2010
Interesting Links 8 November 2010
Well we are really and truly into November now. Over the weekend we went back to Eastern Standard...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/08/2010
Three New Chances to Get Involved in the Imagine Cup
I talked about these new Imagine Cup events briefly on my links post on Monday but I wanted to pull...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/05/2010
Teaching real-world programming
The title of this post is borrowed from an article at the MIT (original article at Teaching...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/02/2010
Interesting Links 1 November 2010
The big thing going on last week was the Microsoft WorldWide Innovative Educators forum in South...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/01/2010
Microsoft Free Tools for Teachers
Every so often I do a talk on various free software tools that Microsoft has available for teachers....
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/29/2010
An Exploratory Computer Science Course
One of the great things I get to do these days is to participate in advisory boards for Programming...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/28/2010
Imagine Cup 2011 IT Challenge
Imagine Cup 2011 is the premier student technology competition. Inspired by the UN Millennium...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/27/2010
Welcoming Andrew Parsons to the US Academic Team
The latest person to join the US Academic Developer Evangelist team is Andrew Parsons. Andrew is...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/26/2010
Interesting Links 25 October 2010
Busy week last week but than most weeks are. Also a long week since I was working a booth at the New...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/25/2010
New Hampshire TechFest 2010
I spent most of Saturday at the New Hampshire TechFest at Windham High School. NH Tech Fest is a...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/23/2010
Computer Class or Computer Science Class
There is much too much confusion about the difference between a “computer course” and a “computer...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/22/2010
President Obama Recognizes Science Superstars
Earlier this week President Obama hosted the winners of a number of major STEM (Science, Technology,...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/21/2010
Finding a Place For Computer Science Education
While I spend a lot of time, some of it laying awake at night, thinking about the state of...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/20/2010
Interesting Links 18 October 2010
Well things are heating up with the Imagine Cup. Last week was the round one entry for the fall...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/18/2010
Kodu Kamp for Educators
OK so you know I am a big fan of Kodu. Perhaps you read about the Kodu workshop I did for students...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/15/2010
What does your school need?
The What Our School Needs contest is being run by the Bing team at Microsoft. You are using Bing for...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/14/2010
Kodu Programming For Kids
I’ve demoed Kodu a number of times and I’ve showed it to individual children briefly as well. Last...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/13/2010
What are you using?
I blog about a lot of resources here and I’m curious about what sorts of things teachers are...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/12/2010
Interesting Links 11 October 2010
Yesterday was 10/10/10 which a lot of geek types had fun with. Of course 101010 in binary is 42 in...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/11/2010
Small Basic Curriculum
Small Basic is, in my opinion, one of the really cool platforms for introducing programming to...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/08/2010
Interesting Links 4 October 2010
What a week. On Friday I gave a keynote talk at the 16th Annual Technology and Learning Conference...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/04/2010
Would you play this game?
I love puzzles and small little programming projects. When you can combine those two at get a...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/28/2010
Interesting Links 27 September 2010
Last week I wrote a post about the Imagine Cup. (Imagine Cup–Solving the Worlds Problems Through...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/27/2010
Imagine Cup–Solving the Worlds Problems Through Software
There are many indications that today’s students are motivated as much, if not more, by the chance...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/23/2010
Pretty Code
Way back in the old days when programmers coded using simple text editors and command line editors...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/21/2010
Interesting Links 20 September 2010
I’m happy to see that the Microsoft student website won the “Outstanding Website”...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/20/2010
NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing 2010
I really like this award program so I am happy to promote it on my blog. The following is from the...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/17/2010
Pex for Fun
Can you read code in C#, F# or Visual Basic? Do you like programming puzzles we (well the Pex Team,...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/17/2010
Being Careful About Examples
Yesterday I posted some very simple sample code. I have to admit that I spent a lot of time on some...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/15/2010
How Many Letters Are There in The Alphabet?
You saw the title and a single number came to mind. If you are English speaking your probably...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/14/2010
Interesting Links 13 September 2010
Lots of good links this week. And if you are visiting via the web I wrote a rare week-end post on...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/13/2010
Objects When? If Ever?
This post started as a comment on Mark Guzdial’s blog (Moti asks: Objects Never? Well, Hardly Ever!)...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/11/2010
Most Popular Posts From August
It turns out the be complicated to figure out what the most popular blog posts are for a particular...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/10/2010
How I Wound Up in Computer Science
The Computer Science Women blog (https://www.compsciwoman.com/ and on Twitter @Compsciwoman) has been...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/09/2010
Visualizations and Sorting
I love visualizations. One of my all time favorites are the programs that show how different sorting...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/08/2010
Interesting Links 6 September 2010
Happy Labor Day! Well here in the US anyway. Technically a public/work holiday and I do plan to...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/06/2010
Students And Intellectual Property Rights
Earlier this week a friend sent me a couple of links to articles on intellectual property and...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/03/2010
Dr. James Parrish–Interesting New Blog and Imagine Cup Advice
Dr. James Parrish is on the faculty at the University of Arkansas Little Rock and has recently...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/02/2010
DreamSpark–Software for Learning
I’ve talked about DreamSpark before of course but the start of the school year seems like a...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 09/01/2010