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.