What's Going On? January 2nd through January 6th

Thought for the Week

Looking Ahead: Exam Week

While it may not be on our radar quite yet, here is our plan for exam week.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will dive into the world of Cybersecurity.  For these lessons, we will head back to the PLTW website to learn about how to detect and avoid scams, phishing, and other types of attacks.  We will also take a look at what companies can do to protect their data and the data of their customers.  For this, we will look at some methods of encryption and decryption.  With the help of Python, we will write messages, encode them, and send them to our classmates.  Our classmates will receive the message and decode it to read the secret message.  We will learn about Caesar Cyphers, Brute-Force Encryption, as well as Public Key Encryption.

App Development

This week, we will take a closer look at "Strings", or in other words, "text".  We will learn how to keep track of Strings and make changes to them.  Once we wrap this up, we will take a look at "Alerts", or those pop-ups that show up on our phones.  Once we wrap up these topics, students will move into our summative "Word Play" app.

Programming the Web 1

Now that we are back from break, students will turn their full attention to their final projects.  Students will be creating a website that consists of four web pages.  Students will choose their own (school-appropriate) topic, design the look of all of the pages, and provide the content and images.  The goal of this assignment is to highlight many of the great web design tools that we have learned about over the course of the semester.  As a reminder, students who are enrolled in the WCTC transcripted credit class option and who earn a "C" or higher based on the WCTC scale will earn free college credit!

What's Going On? December 19th through December 22nd

Thought for the Week

Join in the Fun for Our Dress-Up Days!

AP Computer Science Principles

We will start off this week by wrapping up our card game assessment.  After further discussion in class, it seems like this project is best if we value it as a summative.  For this assessment, students will be graded under two major learning targets: Writing Code and Analyzing Code via our responses.  This card game project serves as our final practice attempt for the AP Create Performance task that students will be submitting to the AP board and will account for 30% of the AP score.  During the last part of the week, we will finish up the diagnostic test from our "5 Steps to a 5" book to see what knowledge we have gained and help us to pinpoint areas for further study.

App Development

During this week, students will investigate segues and navigation controllers a little further.  Students will also have some time to experiment with our Tello Drones.  Students will program via block-based code in order to demonstrate their understanding of variables, functions, and loops.

Programming the Web

This week, students make sure that they have correctly hosted their "Clear Reflections Photography" sites.  After we check to make sure that our sites are live and visible to all online, students will start thinking about their final project.  For our final, students will get to choose their topic and layout design.  Students will plan what will appear on all four pages of their website and choose their design features.  Students will think about how to best highlight what they have learned over the course of the semester as it relates to HTML tags and CSS design features.

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

 Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will spend their time working on creating a simple card game using the Python programming language.  Students should aim to complete the coding for this project by the end of class on Wednesday to give themselves time to work on the written responses for the task.  This task serves as a practice performance task that will be completed as submitted to the AP board as part of the AP exam score.

App Development

This week, students will take a break from our normal coding routine and experiment with our Tello Drones.  Students will take some time to fly our drones as well as complete some simple programming with them.  Students will demonstrate their ability to program conditionals (if statements) while flying their drones.

Programming the Web 1

This week, students will learn how to host their pages live online for the world to see!  Students will learn about the different types of hosting available, and some of the features, and then put their learning into practice.  Students will wrap up their "Clear Reflections Photography" website and then host it online.  Along with this assignment, students will also have 10 multiple-choice questions to complete.

What's Going On? December 5th through December 9th

Thought for the Week

Happy Computer Science Education Week!

In celebration of this year's Computer Science Education Week, Waukesha North will host an HOUR OF CODE session during JIT B on December 7th.  JOIN US!

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will continue examining sample student work that has been submitted for the AP Computer Science Principles Create Task.  Students will analyze submitted work to learn how to craft an appropriate response.  We will learn about mistakes to avoid and language to include when writing our responses. 

After this, we will then work on our second Create Task project.  Students will be tasked with creating a simple card game.  The game can be played with two human players or with a human versus a computer.  Within the program, students will again work with creating lists, writing algorithms, and creating functions.  We will also spend time analyzing and explaining our work with the AP Create task prompts.

App Development

This week, students will work on our summative end-of-unit app project called "Tip Calculator".  Students will design and program an app that a person could use when going out to eat.  The app will calculate the tip to leave for the server and can also add in functionality to split the check between friends.

Programming the Web

This week, students will dive into the world of Photoshop.  Students will learn how to properly format images for the web so that they load quickly and still look good.  Students will learn about different image formats and learn how to convert files.  Along with this week, students will complete our last reading guide of the semester while completing our final reading assignment.  Additionally, students will complete a set of lesson review questions.  Lastly, students will complete the "Clear Reflections" home page.  This home page will serve as the basis for our week 14 assignment.