Microsoft Belfast - School Technology Innovation Centre (STIC)

As you may (or may not know ), I manage the Northern Ireland Innovative Teachers Network. We currently have over 1100 registered users (Teachers). This year part of my key focus will be to drive usage of the site so Teachers can share best practice and have access to a wide variety of tools and software Microsoft Education makes available. I like to think of it as a “One Stop Shop” for Educators. If you look through this blog site, you will see some of the applications I’ve been showcasing and talking about for the past few years.

The Innovative Teachers Network Worldwide publishers a Newsletter and if you haven’t signed up yet, you really should.

As an example of what you’ll see in the latest edition, registered Teachers would be able to download a free copy of Microsoft Collage.

I just downloaded it (HERE) with my credentials and very quickly created a collage of the Innovative Teachers Forum Awards in Hong Kong

You would also find out about:

And there’s lots more, so don’t wait or put it off. Sign up for the Innovative Teachers Newsletter today !!!!

I have finally come across a decent video on the Microsoft Surface and how it can be used by students in the classroom. I came across it in a Newsletter from my counterpart in Brussels, Jacques Denies-STIC Manager. He is collaborating with the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands on Surface. Both organizations will exchange resources on the usage of Surface in education. The Zeeuwse Bibliotheek (Zeeland Library) asked the company Onwijs to create applications.

I will keep you posted on any additional Educational applications as they become available. Hopefully, I’ll get a Microsoft Surface for the new Innovation Centre in Belfast (more details on that in the coming weeks-BIG NEWS ).

Think of the impact this technology can bring to the classroom!!

I haven’t had a chance to blog this week because I was attending a series of events that were all worthwhile and exciting.

On Tuesday, I took part in the Business in the Community (BITC) programme called “Seeing is Believing”. This is an initiative from The Prince of Wales and is run across the United Kingdom. As noted on the website: “The Prince's Seeing is Believing Programme gives senior business leaders the opportunity to experience social issues taking place in the communities that their businesses operate in. It also gives them an opportunity to explore how business can play a role in improving these problems. Each event involves a morning's visit to a number of community projects, voluntary groups, or schools and is hosted by a senior business leader on behalf of HRH The Prince of Wales.”

We had the opportunity to visit two schools in different areas of deprivation of Belfast. The working group was made up of Government Officials (Permanent Secretary for Education Will Hare and others from the Department of Education), Universities , Prof. Gerry McCormack of the Vice Chancellor’s Office of QUB, Industry leaders (such as Paul Rooney of PWC) and many more.

we went to Knocknagoney Primary School in East Belfast where we were inspired and challenged by their Principal, Miss White. The work she and her staff are doing in the most difficult of circumstances is humbling and making a real difference in students, teachers and parents lives. We then headed over to Belfast Boys’ Model in North Belfast and met with their Principal, Mr Keith, the Careers Teacher, Mrs. Black, and a group of students. They talked about how their engagement through visits and internships really make a difference in their focus and career options and choices for the future. They want to have much more direct engagement with business and industry to continue these programmes.

It was a great day and a programme that I will try and get more involved in this year

On Wednesday, I was generously invited to attend the Regional Training Unit (RTU) and General Teaching Council (GTC) Conference on Leading Reflective Practice in Schools. The invited attendees were Principals and Head Teachers from throughout Northern Ireland, both Primary and Post Primary Schools. At the conference the GTC launched the report: Teaching:The Reflective Profession. There were keynotes from Mr Stanley Gould, the Chief Inspector for the Department of Education, Mr Eddie McArdle, Chief Registrar GTC NI, and Dr Tom Hesketh, Director of RTU. Dr Debbie Galanouli from Queens University and Dr Aidan Hamill from LaSalle Boys HS also spoke and compared. 

There was also a series of presentation from Teachers and Principals about the work their doing in their respective schools with their Teachers and Students. David Stinson, the MS ITF winner in Vienna, presented his work on the Pupil ePortfolio and created a real buzz. Lots of great work and evidence and I want to thank the folks at GTC for inviting me along.

Yesterday, I visited with one of my favourite schools, St Mary's College in Derry/Londonderry, and had a terrific session showing 30 of their Teachers the Northern Ireland Innovative Teacher’s site and doing a training session on Microsoft OneNote. Thanks to Paul Wade and Lena and the rest of the staff for being fully engaged and excited about all we discussed.

Register for the Microsoft Ireland Faculty Summit Now!!

The summit is for faculty currently teaching Microsoft technologies or planning to teach Microsoft technologies. The event will provide practical advice, lecture notes, tutorials and demonstrations from educators and industrial experts. This is the first year of the Microsoft Faculty Summit which we hope will become an annual event.

Want to learn more about current and future Microsoft technologies?

Want to meet other lecturers from Irish colleges / universities a

Want to see some cool demo’s of Microsoft Surface and use Microsoft Surface

The Microsoft Ireland Faculty Summit : will be held at Microsoft Ireland Building 2, Thursday week 18-June from 9am to 5pm.

Agenda will be:

8.30am                 Registration

9am                       Opening keynote :  Irish Software Industry Needs: What the Third Level Institutions can do: Giuseppe De Francesco from IEEE Computer Society

9.30am                 Microsoft Ireland European Development Centre (EDC) Overview : Glen Poor Director Microsoft Ireland EDC

10am                    F# 101 : How to program in F# : Antonio Cisternino University Pisa

11am                     Windows 7.0 new features & Virtualisation with Windows Server 2008 R2 : Dave Northey IT PRO Evangelist

12am                     The Ongoing Democratization of Robotics Development With Robotics Studio : Diego Colombo &  Garth Hunter

1pm                       FREE HOT Lunch in Microsoft Canteen and Microsoft Surface demo’s

2pm                       How to build creative web-sites with Expression & Silverlight : Flavien Charlon Software Development Engineer

3pm                       A platform for the Future : (SAS) Software As A Service /  Cloud Computing / Microsoft Azure : Cormac Keogh Architect Evangelist

4pm                       What are the cool new features in Visual Studio 2010 & . NET Framework 4.0 &  : Jamie Plenderleith -Softwaredujour.com

5pm                       Conference close : Draw for FREE XBOX 360 Elite & some games

Speaker Biographies:=

Giuseppe De Francesco from IEEE Computer Society 

Glen Poor : Director Microsoft Ireland Development Centre

Antonio Cisternino Co-author of Expert F# book : More details HERE and HERE 

Dave Northey, Principal Systems Engineer, Developer & Platform Group, (Microsoft Ireland) Dave Northey has been working for Microsoft Ireland for the last thirteen years. He has worked in both consulting and technical pre-sales and now works in the Developer and Platform group as an IT Pro Evangelist (someone who gets to learn new stuff : and talk to people about it). Dave has been working in the IT industry and specialising in Infrastructure and Networking for "a long time" (longer than he'd care to admit)!

Diego Colombo was a Senior Software Engineer in Realtime Worlds in Scotland working on an unannounced project. Before that he worked on the game engine for SBK and MotoGP titles in Milestone. Back at University of Pisa he taught courses on game design and game engine programming while carrying his research on meta programming for dynamic generation of game components. Now he works in Microsoft Ireland Research.

Flavien Charlon Software Development Engineer at Microsoft Ireland in Dublin. Flavien works in the Global Product Development Europe team and has developed advanced visualization components for Microsoft AdCenter using Silverlight and ASP.NET. Flavien worked on a WPF graphical interface for a Tablet PC software helping users to learn about the history and famous places of a city while they visit it for Imagine Cup 2007 and won third place.

Cormac Keogh Architect Evangelist @ Microsoft Ireland

Jamie Plenderleith  Runs Software du Jour, a successful development company in Ireland, using the latest technologies from Microsoft. He received the Microsoft MVP Award for Visual Basic in 2005, and is a member of Mensa. In spare time currently working on a Embedded / Micro .Net framework self-flying helicopter project

Registration is now open HERE and we have a limitation of 100 places for the inaugural Microsoft Ireland Faculty Summit : Sign up quickly while places still available...

For those who are frequent visitors to this site  you’ll know that Microsoft Ireland has a terrific working relationship with Classroom 2000 (C2k). As part of that ongoing trusted relationship, C2k chose to undertake an IT Architecture and Planning (ITAP) practice. This is part of Microsoft Services. 

You can see the case study HERE. A quote from Tim Matchett, Technical Manager C2k:

“We used Platform Rationalization to identify benefits all around, indicating that schools could potentially make substantial energy savings and, as a result, significantly reduce their associated costs.”

You can listen to Tim’s full audio podcast on the site. Well worth 3 minutes of your day!!

Well done to the Microsoft Ireland Services Team, especially Barry Hughes and Stephanie Conville, MS NI Education Business Manager.

I’m just back from attending the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) Northern Ireland Skills Conference 2009 held in W5 of the Odyssey Arena.

The centre piece of the agenda was to explore the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) to the Northern Ireland economy and consider how we develop these skills in our workforce. The speakers were:

• Sir Reg Empey- Minister for Employment and Learning
• Prof. Damian McDonnell- Chair of the Matrix Panel
• Richard Noble- Director of the Bloodhound SSC Project
• Bill McGinnis- NI Adviser on Employment and Skills
• Aideen McGinley- Permanent Secretary at the Department for Employment and Learning

It was educational, informative and reassuring to know that STEM is on the minds of so many people including Government Ministers. There was a wide and varied group of attendees from Government, Educators and Industry and the passion was very evident that this is an area that needs to and will be addressed.

I was especially impressed with the keynote from Richard Noble. His group was responsible for breaking the land speed record (and the sound barrier!!)  in 1997 with Thrust SSC. The record at 763.035 mph (1221 km/h) or Mach 1.02.

His latest project is Bloodhound SSC where he and his team are attempting to break their own world record and achieve a speed of 1000 mph!!!

He refers to it as an “Engineering Adventure” which I thought was a terrific way to position it. They are learning as they go along from their experience, mistakes and the community which assists them. Teachers and Students can join them on “their adventure”. Teachers can register their schools HERE and Students as young as 5 and 6 can join in on this journey by joining the Primary Bloodhound SSC Project. They can find additional resources on the Primary Bloodhound website.

Overall, a really well spent and thought provoking morning.

Are you teaching a gaming course in September-2009 in your college / University?

Are you planning to teach XNA?

Would you like course materials to teach XNA for a full semester?

The Microsoft XNA Academic Summit (XNAFEST 2009) will be held at the University of Ulster, Magee Campus on the 28th-29^th May 2009. The summit is for academics currently using or considering using XNA as part of a video games course and the event will provide practical advice, tutorials and demonstrations from educators and industrial experts in this area.

We have an International line up of speakers from United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and Ireland speaking at the event. The speakers have a wealth of industry and educational experience using XNA which they will share over the 2 days. 2 of the key speakers are Diego Colombo (Italy) and Riemer Grootjans (Belgium).

Diego Colombo worked on the game engine for SBK and MotoGP titles in Milestone. He has always been attracted by game technology and worked on XNA first prototype in 2006. Back at University of Pisa he taught courses on game design and game engine programming while carrying his research on meta programming for dynamic generation of game components. Now he works in Microsoft Ireland Research.

Riemer Grootjans received his degree in electronic engineering with a specialization in informatics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels, Belgium. Riemer maintains a website with tutorials for DirectX and XNA. In July 2007, he received the Microsoft MVP Award for his contributions to XNA community. Currently employed by Optrima - Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Riemer is the author of the book XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach.

To see the detailed schedule for the 2 day XNAFEST please visit XNAFEST or see the attached PDF...

If interested in attending please register HERE as places are filling up quickly and we have set a limitation at 100 academics for the XNAFEST.

I just received this feed from my RSS link to BBC Education and it shows what kind of relevant and exciting tools that are out there for students today.

Have you ever wondered where to even begin to create News Reports from your school by your students and Teachers? Well, the BBC has put together a terrific resource to do just that.

Just go to the BBC NEWS SCHOOL REPORT site and they take you through it step by step. I count 13 schools in Northern Ireland doing this already.

Here’s one from Ashfield Girl’s School in Belfast

Why not take a look and see if you can join the group. Good luck.

I have long been a huge fan of RSS feeds. What is RSS or Really Simple Syndication? Well, rather than try and explain it, Commoncraft has already done the hard work to make it simple in layman’s language.

Prior to using Microsoft Office 2007, I had to get a free aggregate service to pull down my feeds and then go into them through that application. I had used RSS Bandit, but there are tons of them available. You can find a directory of them on  Wikipedia HERE.

One of great things about Microsoft 2007 is the RSS aggregator is built into Outlook, so you can get your feeds sent directly into your mailbox.

This way as you find sites that have the RSS feed link icon  you can click on it and then add it to your feeds. Couldn’t be easier.

Now I just look at my Unread Mail. My new feeds are in there and I can see a quick snapshot of what the item is about and the click on the link if I want to see the full article. For example, from my Microsoft colleagues Dominic Watts and Ray Fleming:

Now the articles and news that is important and interesting to me,FIND ME rather me having to FIND THEM  !!!!!! It makes life a lot easier and not to mention MORE PRODUCTIVE.

Besides the 2 above, some examples of feeds I received in the last few days:

• Learn Programming with XNA: Curriculum Available Now – from Alfred Thompson-The Computer Science Teacher

• Math and equations in Office- from Dan Fay

• Create your own eLearning- from Stuart Ball of the UK Innovative Teachers site

• An Overview of Recent Updates to Windows Live- from Brandon LeBlanc

• Add Translation Capabilities to Office- from sarahintampa

Any many more. I hope you take the time to set up your feeds and get the real-time benefits from this terrific new (to some- ) technology.

Today, I’ll be at Trinity College in Dublin for the Irish Finals of Imagine Cup 2009.

From Liam Cronin, Microsoft Ireland Academic Engagement Manager:

Twelve teams, whittled down from 550, will go head to head next Thursday, 30^th of April, to see who will represent Ireland at the global finals of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup in Egypt this summer.   The finals will take place from 9am in the Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin and the top three teams in the Irish finals will be announced at 1pm. Following this they will present their projects to an open audience – after which the winning team who will compete in Egypt will be announced. The 12 finalist teams are as follows:=

1. Dundalk IT – Team Mob- Racism, bigotry and Prejudice educational game / web-site.

2. Griffith College – FRoute- Offline route planner / traffic management system.

3. IADT Dunlaoighaire – ECO Stroll –Social networking site, to promote healthy forms of transport, such as walking or cycling.

4. IADT Dunlaoighaire – HealthText – Provide simple medical information to parents and children via mobile phones.

5. IT Carlow – Infinite Loop – A game to educate people on the environmental impacts of expanding cities.

6. IT Carlow – Neurosynergy –  A neuroscientifically innovative brain fitness (IQ-EQ) game to enhance intellectual ('IQ') and emotional ('EQ') performance. 

7. IT Sligo – Amazed – A game to address the learning needs of young children through building and problem solving.

8. IT Sligo – Mediknight - Allow experienced medical professionals in the developed world to link to medical staff working in under-developed regions.

9. Limerick IT – 357 /// Games - Multi-faceted, multi-platform educational-gaming framework.

10. NUI Galway – Health4U - Provide control of malnutrition and under-nourishment functions in a restaurant to help eating habits.

11. NUI Maynooth – Engine Media - internal school network which connects to schools worldwide. 

12. Trinity College – Trinity Sight – Designing and building a simulator for Eye Surgical Training.

Before the announcement of the winning Irish Imagine cup team going to Cairo, a “Dragons Den” style event will take place with four of the candidates from last year’s Imagine Cup. After the Irish Imagine cup 2008 finals, the judges picked these 4 teams as they felt their ideas had commercial potential. The teams are from Sligo IT, Dundalk IT, NUI Maynooth and Carlow IT. The teams have attended training sessions in Microsoft Ireland, to help build out their business plan and will present next Thursday to 4 Business angels Kevin Dillon Atlantic Bridge Ventures, Tony Kilduff CMYpitch, Mick Fealty Slugger O’ Toole and Aaron Jackson Lightwell Ltd to see advise and funding to commercialise their solution.

Wish them all luck. Winners will be up tomorrow.