Insights from a seasoned Computer Science Trainer
There are 54 entries for the tag
technology
If you are in the Orlando, FL area during the first week of May then you should head over to the Orlando DotNetNuke user group meeting. Nik Kalyani will be the speaker and you will learn a great deal from him. DotNetNuke Module Development with the MVP Pattern This session focuses on introducing attendees to the Model-View-Presenter pattern, support for which was recently introduced in the DotNetNuke Core. We'll start with a quick overview of the pattern, compare it to MVC, and then dive right into ......
With this grassroots effort, several techie groups have met to discuss how they can help the people of Haiti with various projects they started. Here’s a list of projects: Check out their Wiki and try to get involved if you can. We Have, We Need Exchange This project will create a "Craigslist" type of self-identified needs and requests by non-profits assisting in Haiti relief operations. Clay Johnson @cjoh Port Au Prince Basemap This project will provide new geospatial perspectives and data points ......
First of all, you should go to this site to read about the ten reasons you should learn and use web standards. Next, you should travel to DNNCreative website to read an article by Stuart Colville entitled Become a better Standardista. Finally, you should travel to the Wrox site to read the Wrox Blox that Cuong Dang wrote on DotNetNuke and Web Standards. Many companies need to sell to upper management why they should have a DotNetNuke site and web standards often comes up in this conversation. Cuong ......
So I just spent an hour attending the DotNetNuke Corporation Webinar entitled DotNetNuke Demonstration. Needless to say, I'm a fan of DotNetNuke and I can't get enough knowledge of the product. Nik began the session by defining what the product DotNetNuke is and how easy it was to design a site. He then gave a brief explanation of the community and professional version of DotNetNuke. Next, he spoke briefly of the technology used which consisted of DotNetNuke, ASP.NET, .NET. IIS, a Windows Server ......
Will Strohl was able to get Joe Brinkman from the DotNetNuke Corporation to do the Keynote at the Day of DotNetNuke to be held next month in Tampa, FL. Joe Brinkman Joe Brinkman (MVP) is a co-founder and the VP of Core Technology of DotNetNuke Corp. With over 22 years of IT experience and a Computer Science degree from the United States Naval Academy, he brings broad experience in a variety of software and hardware architectures. Joe was the CTO for DataSource Inc. where he led the development of ......
DNN Leader and co author of Professional DotNetNuke 5, Shaun Walker will be speaking at the Ajax World Conference in June. Here's his session: Revolutionary Web Platforms - DotNetNuke and ASP.NET Shaun Walker - Creator & Maintainer, DotNetNuke This session will discuss how DotNetNuke leverages cutting edge Microsoft web technology to create rich, interactive, enterprise web solutions. Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke, Shaun Walker ......
Here's some free curriculum to use for training which is not that bad to use but interesting that it would use a product that they discontinued as part of the training. Unlimited Potential Community Learning Curriculum The Unlimited Potential Community Learning Curriculum provides the foundation for teaching basic to intermediate technology skills in a hands-on manner. Designed to be used in community technology centers (CTCs) or telecenters, the curriculum provides quality content focused on real-world ......
Here's what's happening: Attendees: 428 Sessions: 73 Speakers: 49 Tracks: 15 Sessions: ASP.NET Make your Data Dance with ASP.NET Dynamic Databy Shawn Weisfeld + Show Description ASP.NET Dynamic Data is a framework that lets you create data-driven ASP.NET Web applications easily. It does this by automatically discovering data-model metadata at run time and deriving UI behavior from it. A scaffolding framework provides a functional Web site for viewing and editing data. You can easily customize the ......
A petaflop is a measure of a computer's processing speed and can be expressed as a thousand trillion floating point operations per second. FLOPS are floating-point operations per second. Floating-point is considered to be a method of encoding real numbers within the limits of finite precision available on computers. Using floating-point encoding, extremely long numbers can be handled relatively easily. A floating-point number is expressed as a basic number, an exponent, and a number base which is ......
Will Strohl did a great job hosting the Orlando DotNetNuke User Group meeting last night at ABC Fine Wines & Spirits Office in Orlando, FL. I left early for the meeting because I had no clue how long it would take to get across town during rush hour. I managed to get lost and called Will for help. I hate getting lost! In any event, it was a great meeting. David Bayer who is a search engine guru spoke about how he was using DotNetNuke with his clients.He spoke about innovative uses of the DNN ......
I've been so busy with writing my chapters for the DotNetNuke 5 book that I missed the last meeting. I'll be there tonight! David Bayer will speak about innovative uses of the DNN technology and share his story of how to leverage rapid site deployment and skinning to build a network of owned and operated sites, and how DNN is ideal for this. There may also be some discussion around implementing search friendly architecture and url structure within the DNN framework. Hope to see you there ......
The Omaha Nebraska school system uses open source DotNetNuke for all of their school portals and for the district as well. Their technology site lists who the staff is along with help on using DotNetNuke modules and they list outstanding websites that are used in the district as well. I was quite impressed with how school were using DotNetNuke to create their web portals. I was equally impressed with the support these schools get with their Tech Department. Way to go Omaha! Technorati Tags: open ......
If you are concerned about your child's future employment, then check out this information: Computer Jobs Hit Record High CIO Insight (07/07/08) Chabrow, Eric U.S. information technology employment is approaching an all-time high as nearly 4 million workers are now employed in IT-related jobs, according to a CIO Insight analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The IT unemployment rate increased one-tenth of a percentage point last quarter to reach 2.3 percent, but it is still near historic ......
At the Marriott Hotel in San Antonio, TX, there were close to 200 teachers from across the world attending the annual Computer Science Teachers Association Symposium. I have been fortunate to attend this event in the past as an attendee and as a speaker and I always look forward to it every year. I enjoy meeting new teachers and talking to them about what they are doing in the class. I also enjoy seeing old friends and the opportunity to learn something new at this event. My presentation was on Web ......
Love him or hate him, Bill Gates officially retires from Microsoft Corporation today. It is both a sad day and a happy one as well. We all know he had a vision of the way technology should be used and we were always interested in learning more. We criticized him and the company when products were not released on time or when they didn't work right. He started a company that made a big impact in the world. Although he never graduated from college, he was a brilliant man who knew how to run a big company. ......
On Saturday, I'll be speaking to a group of teachers about how I use the open source portal DotNetNuke in my class. The event takes place in San Antonio and is sponsored by the Computer Science Teachers Association. The Computer Science & Information Technology Symposium provides professional development opportunities for high school and middle school computer science and computer applications teachers who need practical, relevant information to help them prepare their students for the future. ......
Joe Healy from Microsoft saw an opportunity to have a local event in Orlando, FL during the weekend of Tech Ed. This event is going to be big! It's being held at the Orlando Convention Center near the airport and all the local attractions. It's jam packed with technology events in just 2 days and best of all it's FREE. Joe asked me to head up the DotNetNuke track for Sunday, June 8th and I was able to get some great local speakers for the event. Mike Webb from DNNSPIRED.com volunteered to host the ......
The Communications magazine that is published by ACM had an article based on a survey that listed a top ten Technology Influencers list. Intel organized a panel of experts to vote for the 45 most influential figures in technology over the last 150 years. Yes, that's not a typo, 150 years! Top ten: 1. Tim Berners-Lee (www) 2. Sergey Brin (Google) 3. Larry Page (Google) 4. Gugliemo Marconi (radiotelegraph) 5. Jack Kilby (integrated circuit and calculator) 6. Gordon Moore (Intel) 7. Alan Turing ( Pioneer ......
I'll be teaming up with Mike Webb from www.cybreze.com to train users on DotNetNuke® this summer in Orlando, FL. Michael Webb has been building websites for large corporations, small businesses and individuals using DotNetNuke® since the beginning. His corporate experience spans over 24 years in sales and marketing with a focus on technology integration to allow businesses to provide top quality customer service and empower employees with the tools necessary to perform their tasks within their respective ......
I'm sure that Alfred Thompson from Microsoft will be blogging more about this free giveaway. Great news if you are a college student you can get Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition, Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, Expression Studio, XNA Game Studio 2.0 with a free year-long subscription to the XNA Creators Club, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. When Windows Server 2008 is released to MSDN, it will be available to students as well. Bill Gates ......
The NY times has an interesting article today of an AP Physics class using wireless hand held devices called clickers to answer questions given to them by their teacher. The response is real time and charted on the screen so the teacher can review if students are learning. The clicker is getting very popular as an educational technology tool and is used in both middle school and colleges as well. As a matter of fact, Ohio State University has dedicated several pages on its website describing the ......
Over the summer, I blogged about Intel supporting the One Laptop Per Child Program and today I learn that they have stopped supporting the program. Doesn't make sense to me why you would agree and then less than six months later you pull out all together. The mission of this non-profit association is to develop a low-cost laptop—the "$100 Laptop"—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. The goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, ......
Five years ago is when our school had the first Tech Night. It seems like yesterday. Tech night was sponsored by the US Computer Science Department and it was a night to discuss technology. Microsoft has always sponsored the event and sent lots of swag to give out to students and family. An XBOX was donated and given out as a door prize. This year we have scheduled our Tech night for Thursday, January 24th from 6:30 to 8:30 pm on our campus in Orlando, FL. The speakers will include: Dan Waters from ......
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) says he will introduce legislation that calls for providing free college tuition for math and science majors. The bill, the Education Competitiveness Act, is a $25 billion education incentives package that also provides help for rural teachers and more money for pre-kindergarten programs. Baucus says the goal is to better prepare children for school and to get more children into college, ultimately to make the United States more competitive, particularly with countries such ......
Intel Corporation has agreed to donate their cpu chip to the One Laptop per Child Program. The program has been around for four decades and has tried to get corporations to donate to their cause. Intel has been criticized in the past for not getting involved with this venture. There are now 11 companies involved with the project including Red Hat and Google. The mission of this non-profit association is to develop a low-cost laptop—the "$100 Laptop"—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate ......
Yesterday I attended the Computer Science & Information Technology Symposium that was held at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. For the past several years, I've been a speaker at this event and this was the second time that I've attended as a registrant. I always look forward to this event because it gives me a chance to see some old friends and to meet new friends as well. In addition, it helps me learn new ways to teach computer science education. I attended sessions on robotics, the Grid ......
As a kid, I always had fond memories of my Dad throwing me a popfly ball and catching it. That was fun! Even with my own kids, I enjoyed throwing a popfly ball to them and smiled when they caught it. So, when I was invited to join up with Microsoft Popfly, I had a hunch it would be fun and it is. Popfly Space is a social network designed to connect the millions of non-professional creators in the world who work on everything from mashups to game development to hardware hacks. Users can build and ......
Recently, I blogged about Alice and since then I've been exploring the different books that you can get to use while teaching Alice. The book that I'll be using with my students is called Learning to Program with Alice by Wanda Dunn, Stephen Cooper, and Randy Pausch. ISBN 0-13-187289-3 Pearson Prentice Hall. The book comes with instructor resources and sample syllabi which I found to be very helpful. The book is broken down into 4 parts. Part 1 is an Introduction to Alice; Part 2 Object-Oriented ......
If you're a member of the Computer Science Teachers Association and you voted me as a Board Member I want to take this opportunity to thank you. The Computer Science Teachers Association is a national board that supports and promotes the teaching of computer science and other computing disciplines. CSTA provides opportunities for K-12 teachers and students to better understand the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and learn. The purpose of the organization ......
For 25 years, the Princeton Review was the resource that many college bound seniors and parents used to compare colleges and universities when they were doing research to select the best college to go to. This year, PC magazine partnered with the Princeton Review in search of the most wired college/university. The magazine surveyed the best 362 colleges from the Princeton Review and asked questions which covered technology and connectivity that they had on campus. Included in the survey were questions ......
I finally put the finishing touches on the course that I'll be teaching next school year on game programming. This will be an 18 week course for students who are experienced at programming and have taken our Honors level Programming course. I plan on using the online book The Art of Computer Game Design by Chris Crawford. The book is a short read but covers some key points such as: What is a Game? Why do People Play Games A Taxonomy of Computer Games The Computer as a Game Technology The Game Design ......
If you are a golfer, did you know that out of 85 golfers only 15% could accurately aim at a hole from six feet away. Now I don't feel so bad when I'm out on the links trying to guess will it go this way or that way. I caught this interesting read from the Boston Globe today. A hundred golf pros, gadget makers, golfers, and scientists filed into MIT's Wong Auditorium yesterday for the second annual Better Golf Through Technology conference. While the university hosts a multitude of lectures and conferences ......
Today, I'll blog about Multipoint which was demonstrated at the Emerging Technologies session at the MVP Summit. As everyone knows, students love to use technology. Notice the keyword everyone! However, not all schools in different countries can afford to have a computer for every child so they have to share. As a classroom teacher, I remember the days of sharing pc's and I was like a traffic cop getting kids equal time on the computer. I did my best to make sure each student was able to use the ......
Autonet Mobile, start-up wireless technology company in San Francisco, is expected to announce that it has reached agreement with Avis Rent A Car System to provide rolling Wi-Fi hotspot to Avis customers by March; for $10.95 per day. I can see it now.... someone driving down the highway reading the newspaper, checking the makeup, eating a sandwich, talking on the cell, and now checking e-mail on the laptop. Do you seriously need to have Wi-Fi in your rental? What do you think ......
(O)rlando Elec(tron)ic (I)nteractive Entertainment (Con)vention will be at the Orlando Science Center for ten days. OTRONICON brings together the entertaining world of consumer video games with a behind-the-scenes view of the art, technology and science that form the foundation and the future of both the videogame and simulation industries. Families and individuals of all ages will have a tremendous range of places and opportunities to explore. There will be old school games and new ones displayed ......
I'm planning on taking 25 programming students to the Microsoft America Launch Event that will be coming to Orlando, FL on Thursday, January 25th. It's just a coincindence that our school is sponsoring our annual technology night that evening so it will be a busy day indeed! Several years ago, I took my AP students to an evening event that Microsoft sponsored which was on mobile commuting and the students enjoyed it a great deal so I made my decision to take them to this event as soon as I heard ......
USA TODAY reports that Computer server and software maker Sun Microsystems Inc. said Monday that it had begun to make its Java technology an open-source software project available for free on the Internet. The announcement represents one of the largest additions of computer code to the open-source community — and it marks a major shift for a company that had once fiercely protected the source code used in 3.8 billion cellphones, supercomputers, medical devices and other gadgets. I wonder if other ......
Yesterday I lectured to my web design students about web programming with Visual Web Developer and Visual Basic .NET. None of these students have ever programmed a computer to do anything before this class. I emphasize that point because I firmly believe that all students should be exposed to programming during their academic life to fully appreciate how the technology they use on a day to day basis was created. The students were using Visual Web Developer with the creation of the Comps Sci High ......
What is it about new things that aren’t out yet and you want to talk about them anyways? I’ve been thinking about the new features in Vista and how students can use them. I’ve also been thinking about school’s technology departments and how they will like or dislike Vista. Students will like the new interface. Who wouldn’t? They will also like the photo gallery to keep their pictures organized. It’s amazing how many pictures teenagers take! Many already use Flickr ......
There are several high school programming contest in the state of Florida that my students can participate in. There is one in November sponsored by the ACM student chapter of Stetson University in Deland, FL. Stetson is a small private school located north of Orlando, FL and they will be celebrating their tenth year of sponsoring the contest. Kudos to the students and faculty who put in the time to sponsor these types of events because the high school students really like going. For those of you ......
As I was walking past our school library this week I noticed that it’s Latin week. During the school year at Lake Highland Preparatory School we celebrate many events that has to do with different disciplines and I’m sure your school must as well. Days like Cinco De Mayo, Chinese New Year, etc. so I was thinking that we should do something school wide to celebrate Computer Science Education. As a member of the Faculty Advisory Board for Microsoft Corporation, my first thought was to send the group ......
I'm passing this along to anyone interested. Students, this one's for you. Every month, Sun's new Student Connection e-zine delivers the hottest tech tools, the coolest coding tips, and one-click access to the premier collection of student developer resources and training opportunities on the planet. Don't miss an issue! Get your FREE Student Connection subscription now and let Sun do the cramming for you. Each month, our team assembles content aimed at your unique interests — and at driving innovation ......
I read with great interest in the ACM Communication magazine, a letter from the President David A. Patterson. The article is entitled “Computer Science Education in the 21st Century.” His letter is based on his position statement for a workshop on the preparation of IT graduates for 2010 and beyond. His opening paragraph starts off by admitting that in the past we created obstacles to reduce the number of CS majors and he states” we should take advantage of reduced pressures from ......
I took a virtual lab today on What's New with Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0. This type of training is ideal for classroom teachers who want to introduce new concepts to their students without having to install the software in their lab. Many teachers that I've talked to always tell me that they would love to train their students on new technology but their computers are slow or the technology department will not allow them to install new software in the lab for some reason. These frustrated ......
Everyone knows what the criteria is to get in to a good college. High gpa, high SAT scores, active in high school, community service hours etc. However, there is no documentation that I have found that will list the technology skills that are required for high school students to be successful in college. In addition, high school students have no clue as to what technology will be used in their college classes. I know that it depends on the students major and the college that they choose to go to ......
The Orlando Science Center is sponsoring a10-day event that will celebrate the science, art, careers, culture and fun of videogames and simulation through games, competitions, workshops, seminars, displays and much more. There will be opportunities for families, adults, kids and teens. The event is called Otronicon and for $14.95 which is considerably cheaper than I local theme parks, you can do any of the following: Play on more than 100 gaming stations, including Playstation 2, Game Cube and XBox. ......
Well I thought I'd share the results of the 20 teachers who responded to my poll about their technology skills. Here's some background about our school at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando FL as far as technology tools that teachers use. First of all, every teacher has a computer in the class to use for classroom management which incudes e-mail,internet access, attendance reporting, and grading. Most teachers have their computers attached to a smartboard which allows them to project on ......
Laura Turner from THE JOURNAL put together a nice list of technologies that present day teachers should know. As we all know, technology in the past 15 years has changed rapidly and Laura put together some nice links to check out for teachers to learn more about technologies that they don't know. Here's the list: Here are 20 basic technology skills that all educators should now have: Word Processing Skills Spreadsheets Skills Database Skills Electronic Presentation Skills Web Navigation Skills Web ......
LEARNING HOW TO CREATE PORTALS USING DOTNETNUKE Brian Scarbeau Brian.Scarbeau@gmail.com The future of internet applications is based on the creation of portals to deliver web based services. Organizations that have a great deal of information are centralizing their applications by an information portal. More specifically they are solving their problem by creating an Enterprise Information portal to share information on databases over the web using applications that are created with object oriented ......
The Boston Globe website has an article entitled In computer science, a growing gender gap Women shunning a field once seen as welcoming. As a computer science educator and father of two daughters I read these type of articles with great interest and wonder if everyone in this industry does their part to make females feel welcome in their class or at work. Are courses too male oriented that females feel unwelcome and leave? Do they get the same jobs as males or do they get the jobs that males don't ......
The final week of the semester is finally here. This semester has been a good one so far and my web design students have learned a great deal about web design. I hope they continue studying about web design and take my advanced class where we learn about portals and work with dotnentuke. I will be working on web services for this final week. Some of the advanced students will complete all of the lessons in the CurliQue curriculum and some are only three or four lesson behind. I will introduce my ......
Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) which was held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. This convention is not open to the general public and over 250 high school students from Central Florida were invited to attend along with their teacher as chaperones. The last time I attended this event was four years ago and lots of technology has changed as you know in that time period. Some of my students ......
Well, its been three days since I've had my web design class thanks to Hurricane Wilma so I'm hoping that my students remembered what we worked on the other day. Day 2 is when I need to review the basics of putting controls on the design screen and then adding code to events. Some of my students will get bored because they already know what's going on and this review is for those who might have forgotten. As we get going with these lessons I will always have my advanced students go ahead and work ......
I'm a high school computer science teacher that teaches programming, web design and digital imaging to interested students who want to learn at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando FL. In addition to teaching for over 25 years, my career included working as Director of Educational Programs for the Printing Industry of New England, selling personal computers in a computer store (Apple, IBM, and Kaypro), Director of Computer Services for a large CPA firm, Network Manager for a chain of Title ......