XNA and Game Development and Expression Web and Web Design Talks

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Last summer I helped present two talks at the CSTA CS & IT Symposium. In both cases I had small rolls with Pat Philips doing almost all of the talking on the talk about the Expression Web course. Steve Scanlan, an wonderful classroom teacher, did most of the talking after my introduction of game development on the XNA talk. The recordings of both of these talks are available through the CSTA web site. If you are thinking at all about adopting a game development computer science course or a new web development course you will find these talks interesting.

Computer Science, Game Development and the XNA Game Studio Platform
Presented by Alfred Thompson & Steve Scanlan
This presentation talks about creating and implementing a high school game development curriculum using the (free) XNA Game Studio. We present the reasoning behind this type of course, show screenshots and a video introduction to student projects, as well as show examples of the sort of code students can create. We also talk about how freely available curriculum has been used and modified with real students. We present a collection of helpful resources including websites, tutorials and videos from Microsoft and independent web sites.

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Web Design and Development—A Key to a Growing Program
Presented by Pat Phillips & Alfred Thompson
It's quick and easy for students to create interactive websites using the professional Web design software from Microsoft—Expression Studio 3. Learn how your secondary schools can receive Expression Studio at no cost! Explore the free teaching and learning resources that will enable you to add Web design to your students' toolbox of communication tools and explore deeper Web development techniques. The free curriculum materials range from 2-hour tutorials, to 2-week multi-disciplinary units, to a full semester of comprehensive Web design concepts. All of the materials were created by teachers and tested by students. Students can install the software free of charge on their personal computer making this a valuable software option for many schools challenged with providing professional design and developer software to students.

Download presentation as PDF
View streaming video of session