What's Going On? December 21 and 22nd

Winter Break is Coming Soon!
This is just a reminder that we will follow a "Monday-style" schedule on Monday and Tuesday this week.  On Tuesday we will have a winter pep assembly, so we will be following a modified schedule.  You can check it out here.


Final Exam Schedule
For those of you who like to plan ahead, you can check out the final exam schedule for the week of January 18th here.

Fundamentals of Programming
This week students should make sure that their portfolios are up to date and they should complete the tutorial for the "Presidential Quiz" app.  When we return from winter break we will talk about the different components that went into creating the app as well as adding some customization elements to it.




Programming the Web 1
Students should have web assignment 12A complete and uploaded to Google Drive.  Students who
finish this assignment early can continue on with assignment 13 where we add the three supporting pages to this website.  Once we return from winter break, students will finish our lesson 13 assignment and begin work on the final web assignment.  Please remember that students who signed up for WCTC transcripted credit class need to pass the class with a "C" or higher in order to earn college credit.

Programming the Web 2
Students have just finished a very quick crash course in JavaScript.  This week, students should complete the JavaScript portion of the St Mary's Neonatal Website and upload it to Google Drive.  Students need to make sure that their portfolios are up to date before leaving for winter break.

Have a great break!  

What's Going On? December 14-18th

Hour of Code

Thank you to all of the students that participated in last week's Hour of Code event.  As I write this blog post, over 166 million students from 180+ countries participated in this worldwide Hour of Code event.  If you were not able to join us or you would like to find out more about computer programming, you can check out the code.org website or the Hour of Code website that I used for our event.






Fundamentals of Programming

This week students will be working with lists and images in order to create the "Presidential Quiz" app.  Students will learn how to work through items in a list and to incorporate a timing element into the app.  By the end of the week, students will have created the basic app and added some customized elements to it.






Programming the Web 1


This week students will be working on lesson 12.  For this week, we will focus on how to format
images for a website using tools in Photoshop.  We will also focus on creating a layout.  Students will have the lesson 12 reading guide, the lesson 12 review questions, and web assignment 12A to complete for the week.  We are winding down in the semester and we only have one more formal lesson week for the course.  Soon students will be working on their final web page assignments which will be due during the last week of the semester.  

Programming the Web 2

This week students will dive into JavaScript.  Students will learn how to add an interactive piece to their web pages.  One of the first assignments we will work on for the week involves creating a web page for a restaurant that will automatically show the daily specials.  We will also work on a "Countdown" web page that will automatically calculate and display the number of days until winter break.

What's Going On? November 30-December 4th

Fundamentals of Programming

Students have been working on their creative projects using animation.  This project will continue into this week and should wrap up by the end of class on Tuesday.  After this time, students will then move onto our next unit.  We will talk about lists and how to create permanent data storage so that we don't have to recreate data each time we open the app.  Students will then work on the "No Texting While Driving" app that would automatically read text message aloud and send a message back letting the person know that they will text them back later because they are driving.




Programming the Web 1

This week students will finish up with our tenth unit.  Students were able to learn about the different types of layouts that can be used to set up a website.  We have created a bunch of templates that students might choose to expand upon once it is time to work on our final project.

Students should have the lesson 10 reading guide completed by the beginning of class on Wednesday. We will also complete our lesson review questions during class this day.  On Monday students will work on completing assignment 10A, where student use floats to arrange their web page.  On Wednesday we will complete assignment 10B as a class and talk about how layouts can be created using negative margins.  Students are considered "on pace" if they have completed the lesson 10 assignments by the end of class on Wednesday.

During class on Thursday and Friday, students will begin work on lesson 11 where we will learn about some additional CSS techniques.

Programming the Web 2

This week Web 2 students should complete their form formative assignment where we create a form that could be used for a neonatal study at a hospital.  It is very important that students successfully complete this assignment so that we are ready to add an interactive piece with JavaScript once we move into our next unit.  Students should aim to have this assignment completed by the end of class on Wednesday.

Once this formative assignment is complete, students will work on creating a simple form (with table alignment) to include with their portfolio page.  Students will wrap up with our CSS unit by Friday.

What's Going On? November 23 and 24th

Thanksgiving Week
This is just a reminder that we have a shortened week this week.  Since we will only be in school on Monday and Tuesday of this week we will be running a "Monday" style schedule on both days.

Fundamentals of Programming
This week students will be working on their "creative projects" for animation. Students have the opportunity to work on their own or with a partner to create a project that uses several of the animation components we have discussed so far.  So far some of the students have been creating some amazing apps: from Thomas' agar.io app, to Bill's treasure hunting app, to Ben and Mike's "breakout"-style game students have been busy creating some nice animations.  Students will have both class days this week to continue work on the creative project.

Programming the Web 1
This week we will start our study of lesson 10.  This week we will talk about different ways to set up a website including using a fixed width layout and a liquid layout. We will talk about the advantages of different layout styles and we will try to create some templates.  During this lesson students will be introduced to negative margins.  Students will need to read chapter 16 in the textbook, complete our reading guide, our weekly lesson review questions and web assignments 10A and 10B.  Since this is a short week, we will continue will this lesson after we return from Thanksgiving break.

Programming the Web 2

This week students will continue their work on their formative assessment form for the St. Mary's Neonatal page.  Once this form is complete, students will work on a form to include within the online portfolio site.

What's Going On? November 16-20th

Fundamentals of Programming

At the end of last week students completed a summative assessment on some of the basic properties of animation.  Based on the results of the assessments, students will be broken up into a couple of groups.  Students who have shown understanding of the basic concepts will be moving on to complete our "Animation Creative Project". Students who are struggling with some of the underlying concepts will be participating in some different activities to help fill in the gaps in our understanding.  Once students have shown understanding of the basic concepts, they will move onto the creative project.


Programming the Web 1

Students complete their midterm multiple choice exam and project last week.  At the beginning of the week students will receive the results of the assessment.  Students who are struggling with some of the underlying concepts need to make sure to get their questions answered as we will continue to build on the basic concepts learned so far during the first half of the semester.

This week we will move on to lesson 9 where students will learn more about floating and positioning elements.  Basically, we are going to learn how to place objects in specific places.  Students will have our reading guide, our lesson review questions and web assignments 9A, 9B, 9C, and 9D to complete over the course of the week.  The four web assignments are all tutorial assignments directed in the textbook.  Students are considered "on pace" if the lesson 9 materials have been uploaded to Google Drive by the end of the week.


Programming the Web 2

The Web 2 class was on a bit of a hiatus last week due to the absence of half of the students due to the band field trip.  Hopefully everyone will be in class and ready to proceed this week.  On Tuesday of this week we will continue to to work on our form assignment.  Students will investigate more about radio button, text areas, and the different buttons that can be added to the page.  We will also talk about ways to format the form so that our input boxes are lined up nicely on the screen.  We will achieve this through the use of tables.  Students will use the features built into DreamWeaver to help us code this structure.

What's Going On? November 9-13th

Fundamentals of Programming

This week students will be finishing up our "Pong" app. Once this is complete, we will review some of the underlying principles that allow the app to function. Students will demonstrate their knowledge of the important programming concepts with a short formative assessment.  Then, students will have the opportunity to get their creative juices flowing with our second "creative project". Students have will design and create an app with the following components:

• objects that move over time (e.g., a spaceship flying across the screen)
• objects who move or are transformed in reaction to end-user activities (e.g., OrientationSensor to control movement)
• objects that (dis-)appear in reaction to end-user activities (e.g., an asteroid disappearing when shot)
• use of conditional (if) blocks
• use of collidedWith and edgeReached blocks

Programming the Web 1

Students will have the entire week to complete our WCTC midterm exam and project. On Wednesday, students will complete a 20 question multiple choice assessment based on the review questions that we have seen throughout the semester so far. This assessment will not be open-book and open-note. However, students have access to the list of all questions we have seen in the student handout posted on our BlackBoard class website.  

In addition to the multiple choice assessment, students will be creating a website based off of several photos. Students will be given the final look of the site and will need to duplicate the look.  The website will consist of four web pages. Students will be provided with the text and photos, the main objective is to demonstrate how HTML and CSS work together to create a final layout.  The midterm project must be uploaded to Google Drive by the end of class on Friday.

Programming the Web 2

The portfolio home page and image gallery have taken a little longer than anticipated to complete, so this week we will finally move on to our form assignment. Students will create a short survey to try out the different elements that can be included in a form.

What's Going On? November 2nd-6th

Fundamentals of Programming


This week in Fundamentals we'll be working on finishing up our pong app and adding it to our portfolio site.  We will do a formative check to see if we understand the basic principles behind our app.  We want to make sure we understand how the canvas, the ball, the timer, and image sprites all work together in order to get ready for our second "Creative Project".  For this project, students will have the opportunity to design their own app using the principles of animation.  More details about the project will be coming soon!




Programming the Web 1

This will be the final week leading up to our midterm exam.  This week we'll be taking care of lesson 8 where students will learn about the "box model" and how to add space around the elements in our web page.  This week we'll read chapter 14 in our textbook, take the lesson 8 review question assessment, and complete project 8A.  Students need to be caught up with everything through lesson 8 by the end of the week in order to be ready for our midterm exam.




Programming the Web 2

This week students will be working with "form" elements in order to create a more interactive part to our portfolio page.  Students will create a sample form formative assessment to practice all of the elements.  We will then embed a form into our portfolio website by the end of the week.

What's Going On? October 19th-23rd

Fundamentals of Programming

Last week we were working on their "Android Mash" apps which is similar to "whack-a-mole".  Students have been doing a great job creating a customizing their apps.  Students need to make sure that they are answering the reflection questions and are posting them to their portfolio sites.  I want to make sure that students understand the underlying computer science principles that allow our apps to function.  If we truly understand the underlying concepts, students will be able to create much more robust and interesting apps when it comes time to design and implement their own ideas.

This week we will check in with a formative assessment to gauge our current level of understanding of the basic programming principles running behind the scenes of our apps.  We will look at control statements (if..else), events (clicking a button), and time.  Once we make sure that we have a solid foundation, we will turn our focus to animation and complete some challenge problems.

Programming the Web 1

This week students will be finishing up lesson 6 where we started to focus on adding style to our pages with CSS.  Students should have their lesson 6 reading guides completed by Monday's class.  We will take the lesson review question assessment during class on Wednesday.  Please keep in mind that these questions are open book, open note, and open internet.  The questions are posted and I encourage you to plan your answers before you get to the assessment.  We should be seeing perfect scores!  If you don't know the answer to a question, PLEASE ASK!  I can help point you in the right direction.

Students are considered "on pace" for the class if they have completed lesson 6 by the end of class on Wednesday.  This includes the reading guide, lesson review questions, and projects 6A, 6B, and 6C.  Please make sure that you are keeping up with the work as our midterm project is coming up soon!  We will complete the midterm after lesson 8.  If you need some additional time in the lab, please let me know.


Programming the Web 2

Last week students learned how to add a "button click" feature to links.  Students were considered "on pace" in this class if they have uploaded our portfolio home page, completed the "button click" web assignment 2 formative assessment, and added this feature to their portfolio site.

This week we will explore how to create an image gallery.  Students will then add a page to their portfolio that highlights this new skill.

What's Going On? October 12-16th

Fundamentals of Programming

During our last week of class we were introduced to some powerful programming concepts including how to update variables and properties and how to add a time component to our apps.  Students have been working on the "Android Mash" app, which is similar to "Whack-a-Mole", in order to try out these new concepts.

At the beginning of the week, students will have the opportunity to customize their Android Mash app as well as finish up the portfolio page.  We will check in mid-week with a formative assessment to gauge our current level of understanding for properties, variables, and time.  At the end of the week, we will begin our "Pong" app.


Programming the Web 1

This week we will starting our sixth unit which will target our understanding of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).  Students will read chapters 11 and 12 in our textbook and complete the reading guide.  We will also have our lesson 6 review questions to complete.

There will be three web assignments this week: 6A, 6B, and 6C which are all tutorials that can be found in the textbook.  Students are considered "on pace" in the class if lesson 6 is completed by the end of the week.


Programming the Web 2

This week we will learn some more advanced CSS concepts and add them to our portfolio pages.  Students will add a more advanced hover feature to the links on the home page.  Students will also work with transitions and timing and complete a formative assessment.  At the end of the week, students will be introduced to forms which allows the website user to interact with the web content.

What's Going On? October 5th-October 9th

Fundamentals of Programming


Last week students finished up their Soundboard App projects and PaintPot apps.  I was really excited to see such creativity with the soundboard projects.  I can't wait to see what you create next!

This week we will do a formative check-in to make sure we understand why our programs work.  In class on Friday students completed a worksheet to further investigate parameters, properties, and variables.  We will review the worksheet on Monday and prepare for a formative assessment.

Later in the week students will talk about how our apps can incorporate updating variables and timing.  Students will have the opportunity to test these skills when we create the "Mole Mash" app.

Students are considered "on pace" if they have updated their portfolios through the "PaintPot" app and have completed the "Mole Mash" app by the end of the week.


Programming the Web 1

Last week students finished up lesson 4 where we learned how to incorporate links into our web pages.  This week students will learn how to properly link images and create "Image Maps".

This week students will also be introduced to the industry-standard program "DreamWeaver".  This is a program that a professional web designer may use to design and build websites.  Up until this point we have been using a text-based editor.  Now we will be introduced to this state of the art software that will allow us to add more features to our pages.

Students will be considered "on pace" for the course if they have completed the lesson 5 reading guide, the lesson 5 review questions, and projects 5A, 5B, and 5C by the end of class on Friday.


Programming the Web 2

This week students should be putting the finishing touches on their portfolio home pages.  Students should upload the page to a shared folder on Google Drive.  Once the home page is complete, we will investigate some more advanced CSS tricks to add to our pages.  We will try out a "button press" concept together in class and then we will add the feature to our home page.

What's Going On? September 28-October 2

Fundamentals of Programming

Last week students created their own media soundboard apps.  Students came up with some pretty great creations including animal sound and instrument tuning apps.  It was great to see students take initiative and get creative when it came time to design their own app.

This week students will complete the "Paint Pot" app tutorial.  Students will be introduced to a drawing canvas as well as to the coordinate system ingrained on the screen.  Students will also be introduced to the concept of a "variable" which is a very powerful tool when creating programs in App Inventor and other programming languages.  At the end of the week students should expect an individual formative assessment so we can get a gauge of our current level of understanding of these important programming concepts.


Web 1

On Friday we started our study of links.  Students will learn how to define paths in order to create links to external websites, other pages within our site, as well as internal site links.

This week students will need to read chapter 6 in our textbook while completing the reading guide.  As usual, students will have a 10 question multiple choice quiz to test their knowledge on some of the key concepts from the chapter.  Students are encouraged to view the questions before we take our assessment and plan out the responses.  The quiz is open book, open note, and open internet so I would expect to see high scores on this assessment.

We will also complete web assignments 4a, 4b, and 4c.  Students will have the opportunity to practice creating links as well as build on our personal web pages.  Students are considered "on pace" for the course if lesson 4 is completed by the end of class on Thursday.

Web 2

Students have been hard at work creating their personal portfolios.  Students have been working to design the home page for the site that will highlight our work of the semester.  Home pages should be completed and uploaded to Google Drive by the end of class on Friday.

What's Going On? September 21st-25th

Fundamentals of Programming

Last week in class we had a change in plans. Rather than proceeding to the "Paint Pot" app, students were introduced to the "Soundboard App".  This project gives students the opportunity to work with a partner in order to create their own app.  The requirements of this project include:

• a complex user interface 
• at least four media clips
• some decision making (if)

Students will continue to work on the project throughout this week.  We will also review some key terms such as events, event handlers, function calls, and parameters.

Programming the Web 1

This week we will continue our study of lesson three.  For this lesson, students will need to read chapter 5 in their textbooks and complete the reading guide by Monday's class.  On Monday we will talk about some strategies for understanding the key concepts of web design as well as strategies for completing the lesson three review questions.  

Students will also have the opportunity to finish up our lesson 3 web page projects.  Lesson three focuses on adding lists and other HTML structure to our web pages. Students are considered "on pace" in this class if they have completed lesson 3 by the start of class on Thursday.

Programming the Web 2

Students should have completed the codecademy.com online tutorial which refreshed our memories of basic HTML and CSS techniques.  This week Web 2 students will work to create their web page portfolios that will serve as the backbone for the course.  Students may choose to create an online portfolio for a resume, they can create a website for a local business, or create a website that will work to display the project for another class.

What's Going On? September 14th - 18th

Fundamentals of Programming

This week we will be finishing up our "I Have A Dream" apps and analyzing the structures involved.  So far we have been introduced to some very powerful programming concepts and we didn't even realize it!  We have talked about events, event handlers, and if...else statements.  These properties are very powerful and will be utilized heavily throughout the course.

Once we finish analyzing the "I Have A Dream" app, we will move into the "Paint Pot" app where students will be introduced to the "canvas" tool.


Web 1

Early this week students will finish up their lesson 2 web assignments and complete the lesson 2 review questions.  All lesson review questions are open book and open note.  The questions are also available online so I encourage students to plan their answers BEFORE we take the assessment.

Later in the week we will move on to lesson 3 where students will learn some more HTML techniques.  Students will learn how to write code for lists, quotes, and address tags.  Also this week, students will read chapter 5 in the textbook and complete the lesson 3 review questions.


Web 2

Students will continue to work on reviewing HTML and CSS by completing the codecademy.com online tutorial.  Students are expected to have a 100% completion of the tutorial by the end of the week.  Once we have been reminded of some important HTML and CSS concepts, students will begin to plan their online portfolio site that will serve as the backbone for the course.

What's Going On? September 8th through 11th

Programming the Web 1

This week in Web 1 we will complete our first unit.  Students should have read chapters 1-3 in our textbook.  In order to help with the reading, I created a "reading guide" to help point out some of the important information and concepts.  Students should have the reading guide completed in time for Wednesday's class.  We will begin class on Wednesday with our lesson one review questions.  The questions have been posted on BlackBoard.  Students will complete the assessment on BlackBoard and may use notes and the textbook.

Once the lesson one review questions are complete, we will dive right into lesson two.  This week, students will be introduced to some basic HTML coding tags.  We will learn how to create a page and how to add some simple elements to it.  We will use "Notepad" in order to create a web page.  Later on in the semester, students will be able to use the industry-standard program, DreamWeaver, in order to create web sites.

For this lesson, students will need to read chapter 4 in the textbook and complete three web assignments.  Two assignments are presented as a tutorial in our textbook.  For the last assignment, students will begin to build their own personal web site that we will build on in the coming weeks.


Programming the Web 2

This week in Web 2 students will continue to brush up on their HTML and CSS skills by working through Codecademy's tutorial.  Once students have reviewed their web design skills they will begin to build a portfolio site that will house some of the work we will complete this semester.  By the end of the week, students should have designed and started to complete the home page for their personal portfolio site.


Fundamentals of Programming

Our Android tablets have arrived!  This week, we will work on testing our "Hello Purr" app to make sure everything is in working order.  We will also analyze our program and talk about some important programming concepts such as properties, events, and event handlers.  Students will post their "Hello Purr" apps and reflections to their online portfolios.