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.
Coding For Fun – The Book
This just out in time for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah etc gifts for the programming geeks you know...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 12/09/2008
School of the Future Summit 2008
Microsoft recently held its fourth annual school of the future summit. Were you there? Me either....
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 12/08/2008
Separating TV from Reality
Have you ever watched one of those TV crime shows where they run come computer software to do face...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 12/05/2008
Edublogger Awards for 2008 – Voting Open
I am very excited to be nominated for Best Individual Edublog 2008. Honestly it is an honor...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 12/04/2008
Links For Girls, Links for Career Stuff, and Going Green
So I got a number of links to links today. OK some are direct to the items but some are to pages...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 12/03/2008
Cheating, Ethics, Computer Science
It all started when I saw a link to this article about students creating videos to show others how...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 12/02/2008
Online Tech Communities for Students
There are lots of places online for students who are interested in technology to congregate and get...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 12/01/2008
Top 10 Education People to Follow on Twitter
This is a list of the people I know who are twittering about education (in general – not much CS...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/29/2008
Thanksgiving Reading
Why post anything on Thanksgiving? I mean people are all spending time with family or sleeping...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/27/2008
CSTA Leadership Cohort Workshop
I saw this announcement on the AP CS mailing list recently and thought it might be of interest to...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/26/2008
Just Add Imagination – Follow Up
By far the most read, most linked to, most popular by any measure blog post I ever wrote was called...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/24/2008
Weekly Wrap-up November 21 2008
I’ve really been offline most of this week. Everything posted this week until yesterday was posted...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/21/2008
Nominate Your Tech-Savvy Superintendent
Now don’t laugh. There are some very tech-savvy superintendents of schools out there. This are...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/20/2008
Journal for Computing Teachers (JCT) Fall 2008
Are you a member of the Special Interest Group for Computing Teachers (SIGCT) of ISTE? If you are...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/19/2008
Learning Snacks
I received the following announcement about Learning Snacks last week. Since I am out today (minor...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/18/2008
English as a required language for programmers?
This is unexpected. It’s worth discussion though. Scott Hanselman wrote a post titled Using...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/17/2008
Engineering Links for Girls
While some may dispute it I truly believe that we have a shortage of engineers in the US. Probably...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/14/2008
LearnScratch.ORG
I keep learning cool things from Twitter. No really. The people I follow are often doing interesting...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/13/2008
Certification 101: Getting Started with Microsoft Certification
Have you ever wondered about getting a Microsoft certification? Maybe as a teacher/instructor you...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/12/2008
2008 Edublogger Award Nominations
The nomination process for the 2008 Edublogger awards is now open. I’ve got a few nominations to...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/12/2008
Fun With Formulas
Last week I was in Denver for a large middle school STEM event. They had a large selection of...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/12/2008
Director Office of Educational Technology
Ever since the election the blogosphere has been a buzz with discussion about who should have what...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/11/2008
MSDN Developer Conference
Wait! Aren’t the MSDN Developer Conference programs for professional developers? Well, yes,...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/10/2008
Free Copy Of OneNote for Teachers
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about upcoming free online presentations in the education area from...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/10/2008
Making CS Relevant, Meaningful, and Engaging
Leigh Ann Sudol starts an interesting conversation about reenergizing pre-collegiate computer...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/07/2008
Computer Science for Middle School
I spent yesterday at a large STEM event in Denver Colorado. Something like 1,500 middle school girls...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/06/2008
The Future Of Programming Languages
I have to confess that I am a programming language geek. I’m always looking at new languages and...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 11/03/2008
Interactive Geometry Tool
The Live Geometry project is “A computer model of plane geometry that allows you to create...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/30/2008
Teachers Sharing Projects
It’s no secret that one of the things I think is most valuable about teachers blogging is that they...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/29/2008
Tech Talk Tuesday For Teachers
I got a lot of “T” words in that title. What I found this week was a whole calendar of videos and...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/27/2008
Announcing Small Basic From Microsoft DevLabs
Do you remember the old days of learning how to program with a simple, easy to use, uncomplicated...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/23/2008
What Does This Code Do?
“What does this code do?” is often a bit of a gotcha sort of question. OK sometimes it is a simple...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/23/2008
Talking Points – Information About IT Careers
A friend forwarded the following announcement to me the other day. This is a really good resource...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/22/2008
C# Yellow Book
Looking to learn or teach C#? Rob Miles announced that the C# Yellow Book which “is used by the...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/21/2008
NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing 2008
I received this announcement through Facebook the other day. If you know a girl with aspirations in...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/20/2008
Free E-books on Visual Studio 2008 and MS Robotics Studio
Microsoft Press is celebrating their 25th Anniversary with some free e-books. Two that may be...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/17/2008
Surface Technology Development
One of the hottest new technologies in computer interfaces is Microsoft Surface which uses...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/15/2008
Learning How to Use Silverlight
Have you heard about Silverlight? Have you ever wanted to learn how to use it yourself? If you...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/14/2008
Kick-off the Northeastern Girls Collaborative Project with a day of networking
I received this from the event organizers who asked me to pass it along. Looks like a good event. I...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/13/2008
Video Games As Educational
Last week Microsoft announced a large investment in research into educational games. There have been...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/13/2008
Friday Links 101008
I have a small backlog of interesting links so I decided to group some of them in this post. Some...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/10/2008
In Praise of Small Colleges
Following in the footsteps (sort of) of Bill Gates, Craig Mundie is making a fall college tour. He’s...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/09/2008
Beginner Developer Learning Center
One of the questions I get all the time is “I have a student/child/nephew/daughter/etc who wants to...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/08/2008
How to Build an Academic XNA Game Development Laboratory
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has one of the best game development programs in the US if...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/08/2008
Visual Basic .NET and C# Side By Side
Recently Clint Rutkas and I has some fun discussing which was better between C# and Visual Basic...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 10/07/2008