Interesting Links 15 February 2010
I’m running late today I am afraid. Got home late from the west coast last night and my body is a little confused about what time it really is. Make me think of the old song that asks “does anyone really know what time it is?” Any way it was all worth it as I had a great time at TCEA in Texas before heading far west to California for a CS & IT Symposium planning meeting. We’ve just about got the agenda set and it looks like it is going to be an amazing conference in July. And we have some things in it that will interest middle school computer science teachers as well as high school.
Speaking of conferences, my favorite multi-day conference is coming up next month. SIGCSE will be in Milwaukee this year. Will you be there? Intel is already talking about their presence at SIGCSE. I saw a Tweet from @intelswblog linking to the Intel blog post about SIGCSE. And over at the CSTA blog there is a post on K12 day and events at SIGCSE. I hope to see a lot of people there.
One of the big pieces of news last week was Computer Engineer Barbie! Around half a million votes were cast. Girls picked news anchor Barbie while the general public picked computer engineer Barbie. Now of course the computer science community being what it is this didn’t happen without some controversy. I may have more on that later in the week.
Speaking of women in computer science, if you haven't already, please sign up to Ada Lovelace Day! Int'l day of blogging to promote women in tech at https://findingada.com/ The idea is for thousands of people to blog about women in technology on March 24th 2010. I’ve signed up and have already written my post. You’ll have to wait to see it though. I encourage everyone with a blog to join in this year.
Finding the files in directories and sub directories is one practical recursive problem @robmiles shows how to do it. The code is in C# but I think that one can easily figure out how to do the same thing in Visual Basic from it.
People are wondering why are there no computer science labs submitted to National Lab Day? IS it because not enough computer science teachers know about it? How about you? Do you have a good lab project to share?
From Matt MacLaurin (@mmaclaurin) Of the Kodu team retweeting @PlanetKodu: Planet Kodu are also hosting a free course that explores all things Kodu, starting on the 1st of March. See the Kodu course overview at their web site.
A co-worked passed over a link to this funny bit that is a video on a CRM system for a lemonade stand business. OF course it may be overkill (maybe?) for a lemonade stand but it is a good way to introduce what a CRM system is about and how applications are used in today’s world.
Also in the news last week was this article called Wi-Fi Turns Rowdy Bus Into Rolling Study Hall With bus rides getting longer for sporting events and even for picking up and dropping off students to school is wi-fi for school busses an idea whose time as come? What do you think?
Lastly for this week, a link to An idiots guide to really bad programming. I have seen students do everything on that list. Multiple times. Show it to your students and let them discuss why these things make up bad programming. Fun for the whole class. :-)