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Alfred Thompson's blog about teaching computer science at the K-12 level. Alfred was a high school computer science teacher for 8 years. He has also taught grades K-8 as a computer specialist.
Computer Science and Problem Solving
A very interesting post by Mark Guzdial of Georgia Tech today on the relationship between computer...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/27/2007
XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Refresh
I see on the XNA blog this morning that a refresh (what does that mean in English?) has been...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/24/2007
More Alice Workshops
I found this in my email the other day. I think I have reported on some of them already but having...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/20/2007
Bits & Bytes - Getting the Concepts Down
Among the beginning materials at the Beginner Developer Learning Center are the Bits & Bytes...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/20/2007
FIRST Robotics - Helping to Promote Science, Technology and Engineering
I spent last Thursday through Saturday at the FIRST Robotics Championship in Atlanta GA. It was a...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/19/2007
Are High Schools to Blame for the Downturn in College Computer Science
The New York Times had a very interesting article on the down turn in women in Computer Science. At...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/18/2007
Vote For Me
Sorry but this is a shameless plug. If you like this blog and it has proven useful to you then...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/17/2007
More Teacher Training Opportunities
I've been hearing from more and more people who are offering summer training opportunities for high...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/16/2007
Programming Proverbs 15: Avoid tricks
Tricks are fun. It is often pretty satisfying to add a bit of code that is tricky, difficult or...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/13/2007
Summer Faculty Workshops in .NET
Joe Hummel is running his summer faculty workshop for university and high school faculty again this...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/11/2007
Impressing College Admissions Departments
The New York Times had a fascinating story on college admissions last week. The top universities are...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/10/2007
Programming Proverbs 14: Avoid implementation-dependent features
Implementation-dependent features are features or the the hardware or operating system or other part...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/06/2007
Do We Really Need Computer Applications Classes?
Right now I think we pretty obviously do. In the long run I think we'd be better off without them...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/05/2007
AP Computer Science v AP Latin and other AP Courses
I keep hearing that more students take Advanced Placement Latin than take Advanced Placement...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/03/2007
Girls Will Be Girls
Girls Will Be Girls subtitled "good thing" is on a poster in the office of Microsoft Corporate Vice...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 04/02/2007
Game Camp Canada
Well the Canadian Academic Team are at it again. They've just opened a new site to help people...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/27/2007
Programming Proverbs 13: Do not recompute constants within a loop
This was big in it's time because compilers were pretty dumb back then. If you added one to three...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/26/2007
Learning things the hard way
One of the first things I did when I took over as Technology Coordinator for my last school was to...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/23/2007
AP CS Conversation Follow Up
My post on the AP CS exam gathered a bunch of comments. Some of them on the post itself and some of...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/22/2007
Programming for Kids Who Cannot Read and Write
The Boku project is an interesting research project that lets young children create simple programs...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/21/2007
Programming Proverbs 12: Leave loop variables alone
Another way of expressing this is to use loop as if they were read-only constants. Loop variables...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/19/2007
Advanced Placement Computer Science - Time for a Big Change?
OK let's start with the disclaimer first. These are my personal opinions and only my personal...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/18/2007
Take Part in a National Survey of High School Computer Science
The CSTA (Computer Science Teachers Association) is conducting a survey of the state of high school...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/15/2007
Programming Proverbs 11: Use intermediate variables properly
Intermediate variables are variables that are used to break calculations down into several steps....
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/15/2007
Using the Wii Controller from Windows using C# or VB
Thanks to a link from Dan Fernandez I found out that Coding 4 Fun has information about programming...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/14/2007
Learning to Program in the Wild
Mark Guzdial gives a snapshot look at a research student done by several of his graduate students on...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/14/2007
Summer Computer Science Experience for HS Students
Pace University in New York City is running their Seidenberg Summer Experience program again this...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/13/2007
Creating Vista Gadgets
Are you playing around with Vista yet? If so than you have probably added or edited or at least used...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/12/2007
Programming Proverbs 10: Use good mnemonic names
Mnemonic names are names that make it clear what they are for. I've always viewed mnemonic names as...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/12/2007
Make the Future - A Career in Computer Science
Bernard Oh (a friend of mine from Singapore currently working in Australia) posted an interesting...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/09/2007
Programming Proverb 9: Get the syntax correct now, not later
How often does students say they'll fix the syntax later? They are in such a rush to enter their...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/08/2007
Programming Proverbs 8: Avoid side effects
Side effects are actions that change things outside of a procedure, function or method. Generally...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/08/2007
Programming Proverbs 7: Avoid unnecessary GOTO's
This was quite the controversy when it all started. Today some people go through a whole programming...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/07/2007
Summer Workshops for High School Computer Science Teachers
The following are reprints of announcements that were sent to the Advanced Placement Computer...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/06/2007
Computer Science Podcasts by Women for Women
The Women in Computer Science students at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania have created a...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/06/2007
Halo 2 On a Planetarium Dome
New Hampshire Technical Institute (a community college that is part of New Hampshire's community...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/05/2007
Upcoming Visit to Stevens (NJ) High School CS Conference
Later in March I am heading down to the Stevens Institute of Tecnology in New Jersey to give a...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/02/2007
When Text is No Longer Just Text
Recently I found this wonderful video by Michael Wesch of Kansas State University. Dr. Wesch is...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 03/01/2007
XNA Links
I've been trying to collect some interesting and useful XNA links. Here is what I have so far. XNA...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 02/27/2007
Programming Proverbs 6: Use procedures
The word "procedures" here is a bit of an anachronism I guess. Today we talk mostly of "methods "...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 02/26/2007
Video Game Ideas
Tony over at Computer Science Canada has some ideas for student video game projects. I've had...
Author: Alfred Thompson Date: 02/23/2007