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.