What's Going On? February 28th through March 4th

Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue to work on their AP CSP "Create" performance task.  Students will be given a total of 12 hours of class time to complete this project.  Ideally, students will be wrapping up the coding portion of the project by the end of this week/beginning of next week.  This will allow students ample time to work on the written responses required for the project.

App Development

This week, we will continue with our second major unit of the year.  We will start off the week by checking out some principles of design and talking about some of the required elements of Apple Apps.  We will then talk about Algorithmic Thinking and the importance of planning out our apps before we start coding them.  We will end the week by learning about how the Swift programming language works with operators (think: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and logic.

  

Programming the Web 1

This week, students will have a chance to work within DreamWeaver.  Our objective for the week is to learn how to properly add images to our projects and turn them into links.  Students will also have the opportunity to work with Image Maps.  Students should complete their lesson 5 reading guides for class on Monday.  We will also have our Project 5A (Black Goose Bistro Gallery) and Project 5B (Allco Image Map) to work with.  Students will complete their 10 multiple choice question assessment at the beginning of class on Wednesday.

As a reminder, students who need additional time in the computer lab are encouraged to come in during JIT before school and/or during lunch.

What's Going On? February 21st through February 25th

Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will begin their work for the **official** APCSP "Create" performance task.  Students who have registered to take the AP Exam in May will submit this project to the AP Board by May 2nd at 10:59PM.  The project will account for 30% of the overall AP score. Students who are not registered to complete the AP Exam will submit their projects to me. The project will be scored as a summative.  Per the AP instructions, students will have a total of 12 hours of class time to complete their program code, create a 1-minute video, and complete their written responses.  

App Development

During the first half of the week, students will have class time to complete their first summative end-of-unit app challenge, "Hello World".  In this app, students will demonstrate their ability to add elements to our story board to design the app as well as write some code.  At the second half the week, we will complete our pre-unit hackwich called "Display a Number" and take a look at some of the design features included in Apple apps.

Programming the Web 1

We will spend the first part of the week focused on creating links within our web pages.  For the second part of the week, students will be introduced to the program DreamWeaver.  This high-powered program will allow us to create web pages more easily.  While learning about DreamWeaver, students will learn how to apply links to images as well as create an image map.  Students will need to complete their lesson 4 reading guide by Monday (2/21).  Our lesson 4 multiple-choice review questions will take place at the beginning of class on Tuesday.  By the end of class on Tuesday, students should turn in our projects 4A (Jen's Kitchen) and 4B (Glossary).  Students who need additional time to work are strongly encouraged to attend a JIT session before school and/or during lunch Monday-Thursday.

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

  Thought for the Week

It's a Short Week!

We will have an early release day on Thursday and NO SCHOOL on Friday.  Due to this shortened week, our schedule will look a bit different.  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 shorted Friday-style schedule.

Parent-Teacher Conferences: Wednesday, February 16th

Our last Parent-Teacher Conference of the 2021-2022 school year will be held on 2/16/22 from 5:00-7:00 PM. The results of a parent survey indicated our families preferred scheduled conferences. Please visit this link to sign up for a time to meet!  You can find my sign-up under the "Math" tab.

AP Computer Science A

This week, students will complete their practice "Create" tasks.  All tasks are due on Wednesday.  After tasks are submitted, I will give specific feedback based on the AP Create Task rubric.  This should give students guidance on how to craft their official Create task that will be submitted to the AP board.  The Create Performance Task will account for 30% of the overall AP score.

App Development

This week we will wrap up our primary work with variables and data types.  Students will complete their variables code challenge (formative - application development) and summarize their learning on the topic through a blog post (formative - application analysis).  We will end the week by starting our first summative end-of-unit app challenge called "Hello World".  For this assignment, students will demonstrate what they have learned about setting up a storyboard, making connections to the code, as well as variables.

Programming the Web 1

We will start off the week by wrapping up our lesson 3 assignments.  Students will start the class by completing their lesson 3 review questions and will submit their 3A (Lists) and 3B (Black Goose News) projects to Google classroom.  For the rest of the week, we will talk about how to add links to our web pages.  Students will learn how to create absolute, relative, email, and fragment links to a site.  To go along with this unit, students will read chapters 7 and 10 from the textbook, complete the accompanying reading guide (due Monday 2/21), complete two projects (4a: Jen's Kitchen and 4B: Glossary), and complete our lesson 4 review questions (Tuesday 2/22).  Students who need some additional time in the lab are encouraged to come in during JIT before school and during the end of our lunch period.

What's Going On? February 7th through February 11th

 Thought of the Week

Winter Spirit Week

Show your Northstar spirit and participate in the dress-up days this week!

Parent-Teacher Conferences: Wednesday, February 16th

Our last Parent-Teacher Conference of the 2021-2022 school year will be held on 2/16/22 from 5:00-7:00 PM. The results of a parent survey indicated our families preferred scheduled conferences. Please visit this link to sign up for a time to meet!  You can find my sign-up under the "Math" tab.

Free Coding Opportunity: Data Science Workshop

AP Computer Science Principles

This week we will be completing some prep-work as we prepare to work on our official AP Create Performance Task.  Students who are taking the AP CSP exam in May will need to complete this "Create" project and submit it to the AP Board for review. This performance task will be counted as 30% of the overall AP score.  Students who are not completing the AP exam will have this assignment counted as a summative score.

On Monday, we will analyze some of the Create Tasks that have been submitted to the AP Board in the past.  We will look at the sample responses and critique the work based on the AP rubric.  This will help students when they write their responses for their own tasks: learning what to include and what to avoid in the written responses.

For the rest of the week, students will work on the practice Create task.  Students may not include any portion of the practice task for submission to the AP board.  However, I am able to provide specific feedback and tips that should prove to be helpful when students are working on the official task.

App Development

During class on Monday, students will take some time to summarize our learning from last week.  Students will share what they have learned about Actions and Outlets.  The summary will include descriptions of each and an explanation about how they interact in our code.  On Tuesday, we will talk about how to add a picture to an app.  We will wrap up the week by learning about variables.

Programming the Web 1

During class on Monday, students will wrap up their work for lesson 2.  This will include completing our lesson 2 multiple choice questions and submitting projects 2A (Black Goose Bistro) and 2B (Personal Web Page).  We will also take some time to register for this class through WCTC for students who would like to earn transcripted credit through WCTC.  During the rest of the week, we will focus on lesson 3.  In this lesson, we will learn about additional HTML tags, including ways to mark up lists, quotes, and other sections.  Along with lesson 3, students will read chapter 5 and complete the reading guide (due Thursday), complete the lesson 3 multiple-choice questions (Monday 2/14), and create two web pages (3A: Lists, 3B: Black Goose Blog).  The web assignments will be turned in on Monday, February 14th.  

Students who need some additional time or assistance to keep on pace with our classwork are encouraged to come in during our JIT time before school and/or during lunch.