Getting Ready for NECC
It’s just over a week until I head out (down to?) San Antonio for this year’s National Education Computing Conference (NECC). I’ll start on Saturday the 28th with the annual CS & IT Symposium. This year’s event looks to be the best yet. I hope to see many people who read my blog as well as many old friends there. I’m really excited about this event.
I will also be at several of the SIGCT events. The SIGCT wiki has a list of events at NECC that should be of interest to computer science teachers. Two events definitely on my calendar are the SIGCT meeting Tuesday morning and the SIGCT Forum: Why Is Teaching Problem-Solving So Hard? on Monday morning. The latter is early, costs 20 bucks but would be worth it even if they didn’t serve breakfast. :-) And lots of people much smarter than I am will be there sharing ideas. Should be very educational.
There should be some interesting things and people at the Microsoft booth this year. I know that there will be people talking about the new Expression Web Development curriculum that is out and which will be expanded. Also I see that the OneNote people will be there. I’ve heard talk that the Popfly team is sending out some people as well. Even if they don’t I’ll be happy to demo and talk about it.
I’ll also bring an Xbox 360 controller or two so I can demo XNA Game Studio Express. And the way Live Earth works with them.
If you are going to be at NECC (or just live in the San Antonio TX area) I’d love to meet you. Just come find me. I’ll be checking in at the Microsoft booth from time to time and they can give you my cell phone number. Or email me at AlfredTh (at) Microsoft.com