What's Going On? September 18th through September 22nd

Programming the Web 1

This week, we will dive into our third lesson of the year.  In this lesson, we will learn about some more ways to mark up text using HTML tags.  Students will learn how to mark up quotes, about the different types of lists, about how to mark up large sections of text using "div" tags, and some other elements. 

Along with this week, students will read chapter 5 in the textbook and complete the accompanying reading guide.  Students will complete three different web assignments this week.  One assignment allows students to practice making lists, while the second and third assignments allow students to view a website and make decisions about appropriate HTML usage to mark up text.  We will finish the week with 10 multiple choice questions about the lesson.  Students are welcome and encouraged to view the multiple choice questions before the assessment and plan their answers.  Students are considered "on pace" for the class if they have completed all elements from lesson 3 by the end of class on Friday.

App Development 1

This week, students will finish up their "Variables Challenge" formative assignment.  For this assignment, students can choose to work alone or in pairs to work with a provided app framework.  Students create variables and use them within the app to display text on our app's storyboard.

Once this is complete, students will work on their first summative app assignment: "Hello World".  For this assignment, students will work to produce their own working app.  For this app, students will practice adding buttons, labels, and pictures.  For an extension, students can work with adding a new slider feature, adding some pictures, and modifying some of the elements programmatically (through the code).


AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will have all four class days to work on our "Scratch" final project.  For this assignment, students can use their creativity to create a game or a story that adheres to the app's requirements.  You can view a sample Scratch story project here.  In order to practice for the AP requirements of the performance tasks, students will create a quick video and write a short summary of their app.  Later on in the year, students will be given a minimum of 12 hours of class time to complete this "Create" task, which includes creating an app, making a short video highlighting the best features of the app, and writing up a few summary responses.  While students are working on the "Create" task, I am not allowed to give feedback on specific student work.  During the practice task this week, I will focus on giving feedback in order to help students prepare for their best work for this critical performance task.