I'm Ed Donahue. Sometimes I put words together to make sentences.

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This Tuesday, Dec 13th there will bea special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers.  It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides.  Attend the event either by watching it streamed LIVE online, or by attending in person (on the Microsoft Redmond Campus).  Both options are completely FREE.

Learn Windows Azure Event

During the Learn Windows Azure event attendees will learn how to start building great cloud based applications using Windows Azure.

Scott Guthrie will be kicking off the day with a 90 minute keynote that will provide an overview of Windows Azure, during which he’ll explain the concepts behind it and the core features and benefits it provides.  He’ll also walkthrough how to build applications for it using .NET, Visual Studio and the Windows Azure SDK (with lots of demos of it in action).

The rest of the day will be spent drilling into more depth on Cloud Data and Storage, how to use the Visual Studio Windows Azure Tools, how to Build Scalable Cloud Applications, and close off with an Q&A panel with Scott, Dave Campbell and Mark Russinovich.

Register Now for Free

The free Learn Windows Azure event will start at 9am (PST) on Dec 13th.  Watch the entire event live on Channel9 or attend it in person.  Both options are completely FREE.

• Register now to watch online or attend the event in person for FREE

Does your bot have what it takes to win? There is one more week to try and find out, now through December 16th, 2011. Visit the Rock Paper Azure Challenge site to learn more about the contest and get started.

Remember, there are two ways to win:

Sweepstakes

To enter the sweepstakes all you have to do is enter a bot, any bot – even the pre-coded ones we provide – into the game between now and 6 p.m. ET on Dec. 16th. No ninja coding skills need – heck, you don’t even need Visual Studio or a Windows machine to participate!

At 6 pm ET on Friday, December 16, 2011 the “Fall Sweepstakes” round will be closed and no new entries will be accepted. Shortly thereafter, four bots will be drawn at random for the Grand Prize (trip to Cancun, Mexico), First Prize (Acer Aspire S3 laptop), Second Prize (Windows Phone), and Third Prize (XBox w/Kinect bundle).

Competition

For the type-A folks, we’re keen on making this a competitive effort as well, so each week – beginning Nov. 25th and ending Dec. 16th – the top FIVE bots on the leaderboard will win a $50 Best Buy Gift card. If your bot is good enough to be in the top five on successive weeks, you’ll take home a gift card each of those weeks too. Of course, since you’ve entered a bot, you’re automatically in the sweepstakes as well!

Note: As with past iterations of the challenge, even though you can iterate and upload updated bots for the competition, you will only be entered into the sweepstakes one time.

You know what they say… you gotta be in it to win it! Good luck to all players in week #4!

Just a reminder to folks in the contest, be sure to catch Scott Guthrie, Dave Campbell, and Mark Russinovich live online Tuesday, 12/13/2011, for the Learn Windows Azure event!

“The Edublog Awards is a community based incentive started in 2004 in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learner and teacher blog sites for educational purposes.
The purpose of the Edublog awards is promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media.
The best aspects include that it creates a fabulous resource for educators to use for ideas on how social media is used in different contexts, with a range of different learners.”

Because Edublog Awards are community based, that means the community gets to nominate people! This is my first year nominating a blogger, but I’m sure it won’t be my last.  : )

Best Ed Tech/Resource Sharing Blog

Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson: If you’re a computer science teacher for high school or a beginning programming class, you should definitely subscribe to Alfred’s blog. If you’re a motivated student looking to learn more, it might benefit you to subscribe as well. Alfred does great posts about teaching computer science, challenges that arise and projects and sample code teachers can use in class.

Do you have someone you want to nominate for an Edublog Award? Anyone can nominate their favorite blogs and sites in a wide range of categories.

To nominate you need to:

1. Post your nominations on your blog, link to them and link to the Edublog Awards site (You can nominate blogs more than once, in fact it’s encourages. So make sure your favorites make it to the finals and feel free to re-use this blog post!)
2. Use the form at the bottom of the Nominations page to send us a link to your nominations

You can find more detailed information on how to nominate on Nominations page!

WebMatrix is a nifty tool from Microsoft that allows to start web development in just a few clicks. This preview release has added some asked-for features from users:

• Helpful links from applications like WordPress, Joomla!, and Umbraco in WebMatrix
• Code completions and suggestions for HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, JavaScript, and PHP
• Inline color picker for color-based CSS properties
• Create a publishing profile that saves your settings and makes publishing your site a breeze

Check out WebMatrix 2 Beta and start creating for the web!

Hi there! I’m Ed.

I’m the newest member of the East Region Academic Developer Evangelist (ADE) team. I cover Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. If you’re in any of these areas, please drop me a line by clicking the “Email the Author” link on the right side; I’d love to hear from you!

I’m so excited to be joining the ADE team. As an ADE, I get to work with students and faculty in higher education. I feel like I get the best of both industry and academia.

One of my favorite parts of being an ADE is that I get the opportunity to encourage students, faculty, and industry mentors to become involved with the Imagine Cup. Having participated in the Imagine Cup, I know how beneficial it is for students. As semesters begin at colleges and universities in my area, I’ll be giving Imagine Cup Workshops. These workshops introduce students to the Imagine Cup and take them from brainstorming a solution through to putting together a project plan for a Round 1 submission. If you’re interested in having an Imagine Cup workshop at your school, please let me know!

If you’re looking for me online, you can find me on Twitter, @creepyed, and on Ed & Ashley’s 5 Minute Show.