Microspotting and uses for recruiting
Its about that time of year when our students start thinking about what courses they are going to take next year. As CS teachers that means we are bringing out our recruiting tools and looking to find new ways to encourage students to take CS.
I found a blog today called Microspotting. The blog is written about Microsoft employees and the things that they do both at Microsoft and outside. Here are some interesting recent profiles that you could share with your students:
Environmental Technologist Mark Aggar - today’s youth are just as concerned as the adult population about saving the environment. Read about Mark and his work not only to reduce computing’s footprint, but more importantly in what software can do to help the environment. Consider modifying one of your assignments with data structures to be car pool matching. (given a street address of start and end for each commuter and a lookup table for distances - find groups of people that start and end within some small distance of each other) - Maybe I’ll write that up if I have time after exams 
There are lots of other great profiles, and looking at what people are interested in and working on in industry is always a good way to get inspiration for new program assignments and just anecdotes to tell during class and recruiting times.
If you find any inspiration, post it somewhere, let me know about it and definitely share it with the CSTA repository!