Links and Resources: January 27th, 2008

• What not to do with PowerPoint - Electrical engineer turned stand-up comedian Don McMillian will you help your students avoid major PowerPoint errors in this short, hilarious video clip.
• AACU 2008 Business Leader Survey - Association of American Colleges and Universities surveyed business leaders and found, among other things, that projects and internships were a better way to assess learning than multiple choice tests (well, duh). The web site Inside Higher Ed offers additional commentary here.
• Is there an IT skills shortage? - The January 12th edition of InformationWeek featured a debate between believers and the skeptics. CIO Insight weighed in on the believers side. I am on the side of the believers, if only because I believe there is going to be a skills shortage in all fields as baby boomer retirements start rising.
• Computer knowledge undervalued in UK - Microsoft seems concerned that a poll of 500 UK business managers put IT skills #7 in a list of top business skills. I'm not so sure that IT skills deserves to be any higher, the first six are pretty important.
• CSTA Podcasts - The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is an organization of K-12 computer science and computing instructors sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). They just released a collection of podcast where leaders, students and practitioners talk about their passions in IT.