What's Going On? April 27 through May 1, 2020

New Virtual Learning Schedule

As you probably heard, starting on Monday we will follow a new schedule.  We will no longer hold a "Monday"-style schedule during a typical week.  Instead, Monday will be a Tuesday-style schedule, Tuesday will be a Wednesday-style schedule, Wednesday will be a Thursday-style schedule, and Thursday will be a Friday-style schedule.  Friday will be a day to get caught up on work for both students and teachers. 

Changes to Attendance

There will also be changes to attendance that come with this new schedule.  The good news is that you will no longer have to fill out a daily attendance form.  Instead, attendance will be taken based on work completion. If I see evidence of progress, you will be marked as "present" for the day.  I have usually been taking attendance at around 3pm each day.  This means that moving forward, I will check for work completion around this time.  If an assignment been completed for the day, I will mark you "present".  If not, you will be marked absent.  For assignments that span a couple of days, I will mark you "present" for all class days if the work is turned in at the end or "absent" if it is not.  Please note: THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT HOMEWORK MUST BE COMPLETE BY 3PM.  I understand that different people have very different schedules at this time.  If you complete the homework later in the day, I can alter your attendance the next day.  In fact, as long as the work is completed by Friday, I will adjust your attendance for the day earlier in the week.



Programming the Web 1

We will begin this week by working within Lesson 10 on Flexbox.  Students should work within the

Flexbox Froggy website to learn about Flexbox and have the lesson 10A assignment completed.  At the end of the week, students should begin work on Lesson 11 where we will focus on more page layout controls, including negative margins.





Programming the Web 2

This week, we will continue to work with HTML5 Canvas.  We will begin the week by working with a bouncing ball tutorial.  We will end the week by starting a Pacman animation tutorial.




App Dev 2

This week, we will step back from the repl.it platform and again work within the Swift Playgrounds
app.  To begin the week, students will need to download the "Blink Challenge" from Playgrounds and experiment with the code.  We will then use our Swift software to model the spread of viruses, specifically the Corona Virus.  We saw in the Code Break talk last week about how programmers can use software to program simulations.  This week, we will explore some of those simulations.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue working in the repl.it environment with Tkinter to create Python GUI programs.  Students will start off the week by working on a drawing assignment.  We will then investigate more features of Tkinter.

What's Going On? April 20th through April 24th

Web 1

For the first two days of the week, students will be working on wrapping up unit 9 on "floating and
positioning".  Students should have viewed our lesson 9 video, starting the reading and reading guide, and started our web assignments 9A and 9B last week.  The goal for the beginning of the week is to wrap up these assignments and complete the lesson 9 review questions on Blackboard.  The last two class periods of the week will be devoted to starting lesson 10.  I will provide a lesson video and students will also have a "flexbox froggy" website to work through to get introduced to the concept of "Flexbox".  When this is completed, students will start their work on re-creating a HTML Card website.  Students can either follow along with my step-by-step video or follow the written tutorial instructions. 



Web 2

Monday and Tuesday's class of this week will be devoted to finishing up our HTML5 Canvas "Face" assignment and catching up on any old assignments that still need to be submitted.  At the end of the week, students will have a video lesson on a few more elements in HTML5 Canvas, including gradients and adding images.  Students will then be tasked with checking out and playing with other Canvas references.

On Thursday, students will watch a class presented by code.org.  This week's "Code Break" episode will feature Bill Gates.  The live class is scheduled for 10am on Wednesday, so if students would like to participate in the live class, they can complete this assignment a day early for the class.  Students who are not able to log in at this time can watch the recorded version of the class for Thursday's assignment.




AP Computer Science Principles

To start off this week, students will have a short assignment to show off the use of several of the GUI
items available in Tkinter such as adding labels, images, and entry boxes.  Once this is complete, students will have a new video lesson to learn about some additional features available within the Tkinter platform.  On Wednesday, students are invited to participate in a class through code.org.  This week's "Code Break" episode will feature Bill Gates.  The live class is scheduled for 10am.  Students who are not able to log in at this time will watch the recorded version of the class.




App Dev 2

This week, students will focus on Swift Classes.  Monday's assignment is to view the video lesson on
how to write a class.  The assignment for the remainder of the week will be to write and use a Bank Account class.  On Wednesday, students are invited to participate in a class through code.org.  This week's "Code Break" episode will feature Bill Gates.  The live class is scheduled for 10am.  Students who are not able to log in at this time will watch the recorded version of the class as our Wednesday assignment.

What's Going On? April 14th through April 17th

Modified Schedule This Week

This is a reminder that we do not have school on Monday.  The rest of the week will follow along with our traditional Tuesday through Friday schedule.




Programming the Web 1


Due to student request, we will have Tuesday's class to wrap up the midterm project.  We don't have Web 1 class on Wednesday, so we will start up with unit 9 on Thursday.  Thursday's agenda will include watching our video lesson on Floats.  I will also be available on Thursday at 9am for a live lesson if anyone wants to work through the content together.  Friday's class will be focused on working on Web Assignments 9A and 9B which are tutorials from the textbook.  Looking ahead, our lesson 9 reading guide will be due on Monday.  We will wrap up lesson 9 on Tuesday by submitting our 9A and 9B web assignments and completing our ten multiple-choice questions.




Programming the Web 2

Due to student request, we will have Tuesday's class to wrap up the St. Mary's Form Validation assignment.  We don't have Web 2 class on Wednesday, so we will start up with HTML5 Canvas on Thursday.  Thursday's agenda will include watching our video lesson on an intro to HTML5 Canvas.  I will also be available on Thursday at 11am for a live lesson if anyone wants to work through the content together.  Friday's class will be focused on using some of the drawing elements of HTML5 Canvas to create a face.


App Dev 2


Tuesday's class will be used to wrap up our work on the Magic 8 Ball and High-Low Guessing Game
Assignment.  For the rest of the week, students will have a choice in their next project.  Students will program a new game of their choice.  Students can choose from Rock, Paper, Scissors, Tic-Tac-Toe, a Madlib, or something of their own invention.  Many of these assignments have already been completed earlier in the course in the full XCode App. Completing these assignments in repl.it will allow us to refamiliarize ourselves with the coding concepts as well as get more comfortable with this online platform.

AP Computer Science Principles

Tuesday's class will be our introduction to Python GUI (Graphical User Interface) using TKInter.  We
will be using the website repl.it in order to code in this environment.  I will provide a video lesson for Tuesday and will also be available at 9am to go through a live lesson.  Wednesday and Thursday's class will be used to complete an investigation assignment. 

What's Going On? April 6th through April 9th

Modified Schedule This Week


This week, classes will be held Monday through Thursday.  This means that we will follow a modified schedule this week with Monday as a "Tuesdsay-style" schedule, Tuesday as a "Wednesday-style" schedule, Wednesday as a "Thursday-style" schedule and Thursday as a "Friday-style" schedule.  There is no school on Friday, April 10th or Monday, April 13th.



Staying Organized

If anyone is looking for a way to stay organized, I made a template for keeping track of your daily virtual learning agenda as well as long-range goal planning. Feel free to use it if you would find it to be helpful. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YG3KCSbR3fieR6RE7IOiMYz5SSQsKEph-0RTJ0WpKd8/copy


Web 1

All this week, you will be working on your midterm assignment.  I have provided all of the photos and text that you will need to incorporate within your website.  I have also provided screenshots of what your finished product should look like.  Throughout the week, you will be expected to work on this assignment and come up with the best replica of the site that you can.

The midterm is designed to be open-resource.  This means that if you don't know how to do something, look it up!  If you get really stuck, you can ask me for a hint.  However, all work that you turn in must be your own.

All work for the midterm is due by the end of the day on Thursday, April 9, 2020.  I will also offer a "live" session via WebEx Teams at 9:00am on Monday if anyone would like to talk through the project requirements in real-time.

Web 2

This week, we will continue our study of JavaScript.  We will turn our focus to form validation.  There will be a short video lesson to be viewed on Monday.  I will also offer a "live" session via WebEx Teams at 9:30am on Monday if anyone would like to work through the lesson together in real-time.  Along with the rest of the week, students will have an assignment on form validation to apply to our old "St. Mary's" website.  

App Dev 2

This week, we will try to dive back into some Swift coding.  There is a website called repl.it that will allow us to do some work with the Swift platform, similar to what we have done in Playgrounds.  We can write some classes and code, but can't write the entire app.  I will post a video lesson for Monday and I will also be available for a "live" session via WebEx Teams at 11am on Monday if anyone would like to work through the lesson together in real-time. We will then have two mini formative projects to work on for our lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday to get used to the repl.it platform.

AP Computer Science Principles

The vast majority of students in the APCSP class requested to have one more week to focus on the AP Performance Tasks.  Since the entire AP score will be determined by these tasks, I feel it is necessary to give you the requested time. For those of you who are ready to move, I will provide some enrichment materials for you to check out.