12 May 2010
"Bay Area Java User Group Roundup"
Oracle hosted this gathering of all the Java users' groups in the Bay Area. Oracle pledged their support for the Java language and its thriving community of users. This is important, since SUN Microsystems was the steward of the Java language, until Oracle bought SUN Microsystems recently. Now we must rely on Oracle to keep Java current and open.

18-20 May 2010
"Google IO Conference"
at Moscone Center San Francisco
Caching of Google Maps data on your phone is not allowed. I did a little research and found that IPhone has an app called "offmaps" and Android has an app called "mapdroyd" that do make maps available for you when you are offline. Android does have gps without a cell plan.

Keynote introduced Google TV. Eric Schmidt brought onto the stage the CEOs of: Sony, Best Buy, Intel, Dish Network, Adobe, Logitch, NBA (basketball!) Google TV will be selling in time for Christmas 2010.

Bootcamp: For newbies to Android programming.
-We downloaded code with parts commented out and they led us through uncommenting the code, which forced us to read the code.
-Every Android app has androidmanifest.xml, which defines screens, services, events and content.
-Intents bind components. Apps communicate with each other by providing and consuming intents.
-Each phone also has a location manager and an accelerometer.

24-28 May 2010
"Pacific Region Learning Summit"
at Leeward Community College, Pearl City, HI
http://sites.google.com/a/hawaii.edu/prls2010/
I was the lead instructor for a 4 ½ day workshop on creating and using scenarios.

We had a guest instructor named Caron Newman from Oracle come in to talk about facilitating teams, especially online teams. I would like to record here what I learned from her, in the hopes that I implement it in my classes next quarter:
-> Hold a team kick-off planning meeting to decide on:
communication, roles, timeline, tools, skills analysis, reporting, escalation strategy, where/when to meet, agenda, time limit.
-> Enforce a 2 minute rule where noone can talk for more then 2 minutes at a time.
-> Have the team make a rubric and then evaluate each other based on it
-> Roles: leader, time keeper, recorder, presentation generator, presenter, contributor, researcher
-> Jing is a tool that lets you record what you are doing on your computer and share it with others. http://www.jingproject.com/

Leanne Chun also had useful tips about facilitating teams in the classroom:
-> Give 10% of a team project grade based on individual participation.
-> Team building exercises contribute to team success.
-> Assign roles to team members.
-> Address team problems early.
-> Instructor should praise the team in public and criticize any individual in private.
Instructor must be facilitator, bundary setter, traffc cop and chief cheerleader.

21-25 June 2010
"MPICT Professional Development Week"
at City College of San Francisco
http://www.appinventor.org/
David Wolber, professor of computer science at USF, taught a 4 ½ day workshop on AppInventor, a great development tool for making apps for the Android smartphones. Made at MIT and then Google by a group headed by Hal Ableson, David taught us how to use AppInventor to teach beginning programming students.


7 July 2010
"HTML 5"
Hosted by The Silicon Valley Google Technology User Group (SV GTUG)
at the Googleplex

Seth Ladd: http://www.HTML5rocks.com
This new spec has both bitmap and scalable vector graphics.
Also: local storage, google fonts api, web sql database.
Canvas and video work together, and work with all other tags.
Find compatibility tables at: http://caniuse.com/
HTML 5 also has a better JavaScript API.

Nathan Naze: http://code.google.com/p/closure-library
This is the second time I have heard Naze speak about the Closure Library (see 14 April 2010 in this blog). He had a slightly different treatment here.
The closure library is for large teams of programmers who are working collaboratively. It helps with type checking, unit testing, code reuse, etc.