What's Going On? September 26th through September 30th

 Thought for the Week

It's Homecoming Week!

Join in the fun and participate in some of the activities going on this week as we celebrate all things North!

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue working with looping structures and variables.  We will also take a closer look at the types of errors that we will encounter while writing computer programs.  We will wrap up the week by examing variables and practice some AP-style multiple choice questions that we might encounter during our AP exam in May.

App Development

This week, students will participate in our first summative end-of-unit app challenge.  This summative is called "Hello World".  Within this app, students will demonstrate their ability to add elements to our storyboard and make connections to our code.  Students will also have the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to work with basic variables within their program.

Programming the Web 1

We will start off this week by wrapping up lesson 3 web assignments that include 3A: Lists and 3B: Black Goose Blog.  After this, students will start learning about how to add links to their web pages.  We will learn how to link to other sites as well as how to link within our own site.  Along with this week, students will read chapter 6 in our textbook while completing the accompanying reading guide (due Wednesday).  Students will have two web assignments to complete throughout the week.  In assignment 4A, students will add a series of links to an existing site for "Jen's Kitchen".  In assignment 4B, students will work with a glossary page and demonstrate their ability to add links within a single page.

What's Going On? September 19th through September 23rd

Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will start off the week by viewing two videos on Collaboration put together by the AP board.  We will then complete some sample AP-style multiple choice questions to prepare for questions on collaboration that may appear on May's exam.  For the rest of the week, we will focus on looping our code and adding in conditional statements.  Through Activities 1.1.4. (Spinning Spirographs) and 1.1.6 (Buggy Image), students will continue to practice writing basic Python programs using the Turtle class.  We will also begin talking about the types of errors that we will encounter as we program and some resources to help us fix them.

App Development

This week, we will focus on how to use variables and constants to store and access information in our apps.  Will learn about four major data types (integers, doubles, Strings, and Boolean) and the type of information that can be saved with them.  Along will this week, students will participate in a demo, complete a code challenge, and summarize their learning through our second technical blog post.

Programming the Web 1

This week, we will dive into our third unit of the semester.  In this unit, students will learn some additional HTML tags that we will use to mark up our text.  Students will learn how to make three different types of lists, add in quotes, and other structural tags.  Along with this week, students will read chapter 5 in our textbook while completing the accompanying reading guide (due Wednesday).  Students will have two web assignments to complete, and we will end the week by completing our lesson 3 review questions.

What's Going On? September 12th through September 16th

 Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

We will start off this week by wrapping up Activity 1.1.2: Planning a Picture.  We will then move on to Activity 1.1.3: Fun with Flowers.  Both of these activities provide students with an introduction to programming in Python using "Turtle".  Students are learning how to create simple drawings using Turtle methods in the Python language.  Students are learning how to create and access variables, as well as get some input from the user.  We will end the week with some introduction to AP Classroom.  Students will start to become familiar with some of the multiple-choice questions they can expect to see on the AP Exam in May.

App Development

For the majority of our week, we will focus on "Actions and Outlets".  Students will spend some time working on implementing Actions and Outlets in our first code challenge.  Students may work together and collaborate as they work or may choose to work independently.  Students will also put what they have learned into words with our first blog post of the year.  We will end the week learning about how to add images to our apps.

Programming the Web 1

This week, we will finally get to make a web page!  We will work within our text editor, Text Edit, in order to create our first web page from scratch using HTML.  Along with this week, students will read chapter 4 in our textbook and complete the accompanying reading guide.  Students will complete two web assignments.  For assignment 2A: Black Goose Bistro, students will follow a step-by-step tutorial to create a sample restaurant home page.  For assignment 2B: Personal Web Page, students will create their own page that features some information about them.  We will wrap up the week by completing our ten multiple-choice questions.

As a reminder, this course is offered in partnership with WCTC.  This means that students who have enrolled in this option and successfully complete the course with a "C" or higher based on the WCTC grading scale will earn free transcripted credit.

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

 Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue our study of the Python programming language with the use of the
Turtle platform.  Through our lessons, will learn about Object-Oriented Programming languages and some other basics of what we can do with the Turtle platform in Python.

App Development

Last week, we started to create our first app, a basic flashlight.  We will start off the week by finishing it up.  Next, we will backtrack and talk a little bit more in detail about how some of the elements of the flashlight app work.  Our focus for this week will be "Actions and Outlets".   Students will do a short reading and learn about the details of these items.  We will also put our learning into practice with a short "hackwich", or coding demo.  

Programming the Web 1

This week, we will focus on the first unit of the year on HTML basics and layouts.  Students will spend Tuesday's class completing our reading jigsaw activity.  We will spend Wednesday's class wrapping up the jigsaw reading activity and completing the lesson 1 reading guide.  We will wrap up the week by completing our lesson 1 summative multiple choice review questions.

Also during this week, students will have the opportunity to enroll in this class to earn FREE transcripted credit through WCTC.  Students who complete the required work and earn a "C" or higher based on the WCTC grading scale can earn FREE credit in Web Design.  Please contact me if you have any questions about this wonderful opportunity.