Useful Web links for Computer Science/IT/Computing/ICT/Programming teachers

I have found a number of these websites useful for developing some programmes that have been useful in teaching students programming and included in these are some fun innovative projects.
If anyone has any other useful websites they use for encouraging students to get into IT I would love to hear about them!

K-12 Faculty Community Site http://www.microsoft.com/education/FacultyConnection/precollegiate
A source for curriculum resources, teacher forums, and program announcements

Programming Languages for Beginners

• Alice – http://www.alice.org/ – A 3-dimensional, drag and drop programming language from Carnegie Mellon University
• Kodu - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/ A graphical programming tool for younger students. (Not available for public release yet!)
• Scratch – http://scratch.mit.edu/ – a light weight 2-dimensional, drag and drop programming language from MIT, for learning resources visit http://learnscratch.org/
• Small Basic - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx Small Basic is a project that's aimed at bringing "fun" back to programming. By providing a small and easy to learn programming language in a friendly and inviting development environment, Small Basic makes programming a breeze. Ideal for kids and adults alike, Small Basic helps beginners take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.
• Microsoft Popfly - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950523.aspx Popfly includes a simple way to create and share games with your friends. Choose from a variety of built-in templates or start from scratch to create a side scrolling game, a 2D shoot-em-up, or a host of others. And best of all, you can get started without writing a line of code. You can also build mashups. Mashups are a kind of application that take information from many places and mix it together.

MSDN Academic Alliance http://www.msdnaa.net/
A Microsoft program for schools to get Microsoft Development software for labs, teachers, and students - costs attached

DreamSpark for High schools https://www.dreamspark.com/HighSchool/Default.aspx
DreamSpark High School provides professional-level development and design tools to students enrolled in an accredited, secondary educational institution at no charge.

XNA Game Studio Express http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna
Software for developing games for Windows, the Zune and the XBOX 360. Also links to the XNA community with sample code, tutorials and support forums.

Visual Studio Express Editions http://msdn.microsoft.com/Express
Free development tools (IDEs) for Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual C# and Visual Web Developer

Beginner Developer Learning Center http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/bb308754.aspx
A web site for people of all ages who want to learn programming and web development. Tutorials, videos, projects and web casts

Microsoft Robotics Studio http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics
Visual Programming Language for robots, runtime libraries for higher level programming, a 3-dimensional robot simulator with sample simulations, tutorials, and videos

Coding 4 Fun http://blogs.msdn.com/Coding4Fun
A web site for hobbyists and computer tinkerers - sample projects and information for doing fun and interesting thing with programming; often combined with interesting or unusual hardware

CSUnplugged http://www.csunplugged.com/
Computer Science Unplugged is a series of learning activities that reveals a little-known secret: computer science isn't really about computers at all!

Privacy
Also I know that we are back at school now, but 28 Janurary was Data Privacy Day 2009

January 28th, 2009 is the second annual Data Privacy Day. Intel has a great information page about this day and includes this explanation:

Designed to raise awareness and generate discussion about data privacy practices and rights, Data Privacy Day activities in the United States have included privacy professionals, corporations, government officials, and representatives, academics, and students across the country.

One of the primary goals of Data Privacy Day is to promote privacy awareness and education among teens across the United States. Data Privacy Day also serves the important purpose of furthering international collaboration and cooperation around privacy issues.

At the Intel Data Privacy Day page you will find educational resources that you may find useful in class. Items include:

• Teen privacy online (ZIP 2.69MB)
• Teen privacy online script (PDF 159KB)
• Teen privacy online sources and resources (PDF 32KB)
• Teen privacy online highlights (PDF 124KB)
• Privacy Today slide presentation (ZIP 39.3MB) and manual (PDF 522KB)
• Secure your computer to protect your privacy presentation (ZIP 594KB) and speaker notes (PDF 319KB)

Fun Stuff

Ok, now some fun stuff, got a webcam, now you can have your own Microsoft Surface,

One of the hottest new technologies in computer interfaces is Microsoft Surface which uses multi-touch to allow several items (like hands for example) to control things happening in software. The hardware for this is a bit expensive. OK it's a lot expensive. Microsoft recently released some software as an open source project that makes this technology a lot easier and less expensive to try out. It requires a webcam to use and the following Touchless SDK video shows what it is about.

http://www.codeplex.com/touchless/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=17986

And something for you Mythbusters fans out there, what is the difference between a CPU and a GPU?

Well there is cost for one thing. And prep time for another. Oh wait, you don't know what I'm talking about. Let me back up. Apparently at some sort of event the NVidia people wanted to show the difference between how a CPU works and a GPU (graphic processor) works. They also had an interest in entertaining people so obviously they hired the people from the TV show Mythbusters to create the demo. You can see the demo here. Now if you know the show at all you probably know that they are big fans of robots and of shooting things – all sorts of things with all sorts of shooting apparatus. Yep, there is some of that here.

Discussion on ICT in the school

Summary of discussion questions

What do you think about how our students learn? Has it changed over the past years?
More use of IT, availability of information. Students don’t all learn the same/ variety of ways. Multitasking, applying knowledge. More opportunities to learn in different ways, more interactive learning, increase in ICT, student technology savvy ‘digital natives’, moving away from more traditional teaching methods, practical involvement, activities, group work, research on internet, interest, more student focused rather than teacher directed, teacher facilitator, multi tasking, more demanding, more options, use of graphic calculators, declining levels of student commitment to learning now we fear this will continue.

What changes will be needed over the next 5 years?
Use of Internet, games, reliable systems computers, advance workshops, scaffolding to solve problems, thinking processes, more computers, training for staff, accepting of new changes, more connection with students, more critical about sources, 24/7, better reliability, class room blinds, subject amalgamation, more access to technology. Some subjects more than others, some subjects not practical to use interactive material, both technological and traditional factors needed to be balanced, mindful of assessment style used. Has potential, exciting challenges ahead. What are teachers going to teach? Students still need to understand underlying principals, methods, basics, must be able to interpret/apply answers they have.

What changes have you already made to your teaching over the last 3 – 5years?
Availability of technology for everyone, more integration, acceptance to change, paradigm change, data projector, internet resources, becoming more open minded to new ways of learning/methods of learning, less paper work/ worksheets, more electronic, more group work, thinking about how we can incorporate into learning, Power point, data projector, ASTTLE, more group work, discussion, integrated curriculum.

What obstacles will be in the way of you making changes needed?
Money, time, space (room), access, choice, class size, availability of technology in the class room, confusion surrounding ICT, willingness to change, too much assessment, trust, old buildings, knowledge/training. Danger of using technology to teach in the same old way, time to change.

The handout information
Over that past few session we have talked about how our students are changing along with changes to the curriculum and assessment. This has meant changes to our teaching practice with the increasing use of ICT resources, (educational technologies).

We all have different ideas and interpretations of these issues and it would be good to discuss these.
What we would like is for you to mix up in groups of different departments and discuss the questions. Could you please appoint a scribe and record responses on the A3 paper.

ICTPD Thursday

Two documents were talked about

New Curriculum Document
Enabling the 21st century learner

http://www.tki.org.nz/r/nzcurriculum/schl-curriculum-design/enriched-orewa-college_e.php
Clip showing the teaching and learning taking place at Orewa High School, now a Year 7 to Year 13

Digitial Immigrants, Digitial Natives

This was the topic of today's Thursday morning Professional Development. Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives. This is a topic that Marc Prensky has talked about for the last couple of years.

Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.

Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.

The article in question can be read here.

However, I started to wonder as I listened to the presentation and what was being described to me...

They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age.

This may be true, but are today's students really digital natives,
- it has only been in the last five years that they have been using cellphones, ok, that may not be true, but txting and pxting has really only been available at lower costs so that they can use them, thanks to telecom's $10 txting plans (introduced 2004 with 500 txt for $10, unlimited txt introduced 2005?).
- Ipods, only in the last 2-3 years has the price drop allowed students to purchase them, before that there was the portable CD players.
- Cellphones with mp3 players in them, last two years.
- Internet access, broadband has only really been available at decent speeds, (still debatable) in the last 3-4 years, the power of the Internet and changing atmosphere of downloading music and making it available for everyone (thanks apple and itunes)

These are digital users, not digital natives, you may be asking why i have used this, well what do they use there cellphone for,
number 1 txting, being able to have that quick txt to say hi to someone in a another room, ask a question, get a straight away answer, abuse them if they do not respond within 5 seconds.
number 2, pxt, small digital camera to take those pictures of there best mate, or use the video recorder to record an event, eg, look what happened with the fight in Hastings, fight, record, youtube, within the time it takes to order a mcdonalds burger.
number 3 phone calls.
number 4 play games, and now with some it is there portable music player, what else does a cellphone have on it, do they use it?
Ipods (released 2001), Not really made available to students price range until 2006, Music player, what else does the Ipod do, do they use it, probably not, just the extra hard drive space it gives you to take homework home to complete a piece of work, or backup (have to be reminded to do that)
They are somewhat addicted to their personal websites, bebo, myspace, a quick way to communicate with someone, do they really use the full function of a computer to do this, no, they are users, not natives.

To be a native, don't you have to understand what is going on, how things work. Just because you turn a dial with your thumb and select your music file and can change the volume, does that make you a native? Can you speak the language, or is this a new form of pigeon language because they can't speak the real language?

Today's txting language, this has been around for many years, previously with Internet relay chats, (irc.undernet.org.nz used to be the one I went on), the geeks talking online with the old "BBS" bulletin board service, the "digital immigrants" were once the original "digital natives" and paved the way for today's students. Have today's trendy teenagers picked up what the "geeks" were doing many years ago?

What about the digital integrator, digital innovator, digital administrator, or the digital developer without these people there would be no digital native or digital immigrant.

Some resources for future use on this subject

The monkey wrench conspiracy
Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives Part 1
Pay attention - youtube
T4
ted.com

Notes from the meeting, Just found in autorecover - 2 July 2007
ICT PD Thursday June 28, 2007.

Thought provoking ICT professional development
Approach with an open mind
Think about it, listen to the thoughts, and how it relates to your own teaching

Digital immigrant, digital natives, based on the work by Marc Prensky.
Students now the technology, cell phones, ipods…

Students are digital natives
Teachers are digital immigrants

Look at text language and what students are using

Students Today:
“Our students today have changed dramatically, Today’s students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach.”

Students don’t want to do one thing at a time,

Digital technology has caused today’s students to think and process information differently.

Students thinking habits have changed, we have to cater for the students thinking habits, and we have to change our teaching.

Students are digital natives; they are native speakers of the digital natives of the 21st century.
What is happening today, msn, bebo, txt, skype, ipods, im, surfing, all being done when they get home.

We are not digital natives; we try our best to assimilate to our new environment. Some of us we do a better job than others. But the majority of us will always speak with an accent.

Do you print our your emails
Do you print out information you want to highlight or edit?
Do you ask for a manual when you buy new technology?
Do you dread daylight saving because you have no idea how to change all the different clocks in the house?

Teachers are speaking a different language to their students.

Digital natives can multi task
Thrive in instant gratification

Digital immigrants
Are used to waiting
Do things slowly
Take things one step at a time
Complete only one thing at a time.

In the classroom, this can lead to conflict. In the classroom we don’t understand each other.
Educators blame students for not paying attention

We need to adapt and make changed to suit our new environment. Technology is not going to move backwards

Students are just as capable today as we were at that age.

They just learn and process things differently

We need to translate
We need to work though the changes as individuals and departments
We need to learn the technology available to us
Knowledgenet
Hot potatoes
On line surveys

The ICT committee are available to help you avoid getting “lost in translation”

Use the practical sessions after this meeting to guide you and come to us for help when you need it.

ICTPD

On Thursday we are having our ICTPD session. There will be a 30 minute session at the start.

The following was shown

Introduction

ClickView
This has been available in the school and we are looking at releasing it for the students to use in classrooms.
Schools have a commitment to provide audio and visual resources.
School has a video library, 500 hours worth of documentaries and programmes.
These are all on VHS and slowing getting transferred to digital.

ClickView, software application for Video on Demand.
Click View Library has around 1000 titles.
All areas of the Curriculum are available on it.
You will need a data show, and may like to consider getting some speakers.
Very much Australian based. Putting on New Zealand content ourselves.
Available on your own laptop.

ICT English – Short but sweet
KnowledgeNET, being used by two teachers.
Interactive Whiteboards – wow factor, capturing information, student brilliance, save, keep, look at it later.
Film study with year 12, look, leap, pause, explain and point.
Potential to insert clips, isolate moments.

ICT Science
Demonstration of a piece of software that is uses in the department
Projectiles, staff demonstration
Tracker, a java application: Video analysis tool, freeware. http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/
You can record the video and play it back and analyse the path to show the students.
Identify frame by frame the position of the projectile.
Tracker is able to create a graph of the motion to show constant motion, also able to show the motion of the Y axis, also able to show the acceleration and declaration.
Able to show live interaction between the view and the graph.
Can’t show this really through normal methods, ICT is able to show the students in real time what happens.

The next 20 minutes will be set to individual teachers requirements. Ok, the individual teacher sessions are: Inserting tables in word, inserting an image in word, from digital camera to laptop, KAMAR attendance, KAMAR printing and students photos, ClickView, Hot Potatoes(wasn't installed on the computers in the classroom to be used for the training), Survey Monkey(removed) and Filing. Meanwhile the Social Science and Maths development will be doing development and training on knowledgeNET.

Now we have had TELA laptops for the last five years. Some teachers are still phobic about using them but slowly coming around. But how about some PD that relates to today for those teachers that feel like they are being under represented, here are some examples.

• Blogging - KnowledgeNET (When Available)
  
• Podcasting - subscribing and using in iTunes
• Web 2.0 - what is it and how does and will it affect teaching.
  
• GoogleEarth - Geography, Social Science, Science,. We are already starting to use it with science and the living stream project.
  
• downloading flash movie files (.flv) and inserting into smart notebook.
• TeacherTube
• RSS Feeds
• Web slideshow
• ClusterMaps
• Teacher related forums, there are some good ones provided on TKI for specific subject areas.
• Photoshop simple editing
  
• Creating games in flash? education purposes
• Digital Learning Objects and how to integrate them into your teaching.
• The interactive CD-ROMs available for English that have just been made available and how they will be able to work with the new Interactive Whiteboards.
  
• Second Life

You may be asking why Second Life for professional development

Well in http://www.eschoolnews.com/ClassroomNews/ that I subscribe to had articles about Second Life and Teacher Tube

“Virtual island” offers real-world earth science lessons
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/sl
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently launched what it says is the first government-sponsored, earth-science “island” on the popular virtual world of Second Life. Visitors to the site can virtually “experience” several earth-science phenomena while learning about the cutting-edge science that NOAA conducts regularly. Second Life is a three-dimensional virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. On NOAA’s island, users can soar through a hurricane on the wing of a research aircraft, rise gently through the atmosphere atop a weather balloon, or search for a hidden underwater cave on a side trip from an NOAA submersible. One climate-change scenario illustrates a warming world with melting glaciers and rising sea levels, while a virtual beach demonstrates how to recognize the onset of a tsunami—and eventually the site might enhance public awareness of rip tides, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters.
To visit the island with their classes, teachers must sign up for a free Second Life account. After a short orientation process, users follow a link to be “teleported” straight to NOAA’s island. The site was developed by the NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab (ESRL).

And on teachertube

Education veteran creates “YouTube” for teachers
http://www.teachertube.com
Given the enormous popularity of YouTube, it’s not surprising that an education-specific version of this videosharing web site should emerge—and on March 6, that’s just what happened.

TeacherTube, the brainchild of 14- year education veteran Jason Smith, gives teachers a more educationally focused, safe venue to watch and upload videos that help demonstrate a new concept or skill, address specific learning objectives, or provide professional development for their fellow educators.

TeacherTube includes daily featured videos on topics such as teaching about the digestive system, or how to make classroom posters with Microsoft Excel—and it also offers a video tutorial on how to upload your own videos to the site. Users are able to rate videos and leave comments; search for videos by tags; find, join, and create video groups to connect with people who have similar interests; and even customize their experience by subscribing to member videos, saving favorites, and creating playlists. When you upload videos to the site, you can choose to broadcast them publicly or share them privately with only those you invite. The site is offered free of charge for all users.