What's Going On? January 2nd through January 5th

Thought for the Week

App Development

This week, we will wrap our "Intergalactic Travel" hackwich which allows us to pass data between
different screens in our app.  Once this is complete, we will take some time to examine classes and structs.  These tool allow us to create a template for an object and then reuse the code to make multiple instances of the objects.  

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will work on our "Card Game" project.  Before break, students had a chance to play a
variety of physical games.  Now, it will be their job to code one of them!  Students will have this week to write the code for the game and the following week to write their responses.  Now that we have a better understanding of what the AP board is looking for, we can craft our responses to best convey our understanding of complex computer processes.

Looking Ahead: Exam Schedule

We have a little bit of time left in the semester before our exams, but they are right around the corner.  Check out the schedule below:

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

Thought for the Week

Festive Dress-Up Days

Join in the fun!

App Development

At the start of this week, students will wrap up their summative end-of-until App Challenge called "Tip Calculator.  This app is designed to be used when eating at a restaurant and you would like to leave a tip for the server.

Once this is complete, we will move into our Pre-Unit Hackwich called "Intergalactic Travel".  In this app, students will learn how to create a new Class, create objects of the class, transition to different app screens, and pass data between them.

AP Computer Science Principles

Now that we have wrapped up our "Buzz Feed-style" personality quizzes, it is time to take a closer look at
what the AP board would expect from our responses.  We will spend Monday's class analyzing some projects that have been submitted by other students on the AP board.  We will look closely at rubrics to decide how to best phrase our answers to fully answer all of the prompts that may be presented by the AP board.  Once we have a better grasp of what the AP board is looking for, students will have a chance to take a second look at their responses and make any necessary modifications to best answer the questions.  At the end of the week, students will start our next summative project.  Students will be tasked with creating a program where the user can play a card game.  Students may choose their game from Go Fish, Black Jack, Poker, Old Maid, Uno, and more.

What's Going On? December 11th through 15th

Thought for the Week

App Development

We will start off this week by working on our "Event Coding Challenge".  Within this challenge, students
will write code that will trigger when items are tapped, pressed, and submitted.  Once this is complete, students will work on our summative end-of-unit app challenge called "Tip Calculator".  In this app, students will create a project that is designed to be used when dining out.  The user can enter in the total cost of the bill, select a tip percentage, and calculate the amount to be left for the server.  Additionally, students can extend the app to split the check among several people.

Looking to do more with Apps?  Consider checking out the Swift Student Challenge.  You can find details about the contest here.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will wrap up their "Buzz-Feed" style personality quizzes.  Students have been tasked with writing code in small groups that uses arrays, variables, functions, selection statements, and loops.  This project is aligned with our official AP Create task that students will work on in February to submit to the AP board as part of the AP exam score.

What's Going On? December 4th through December 8th

Thought for the Week

App Development

This week, we will discover how we can create Views, SubViews, and Navigation.    Students will learn about how each screen is made up of views.  We have been working within "ContentView" but now we will be able to define new views and learn how to navigate between them.  Along with this week, students will have a reading, a hackwich demonstration, and a code challenge.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue working on their partner summative project, "Character Quiz".   Students will write their own character quiz.  Once this has been written, students will work on incorporating the important elements of variables, arrays, and functions in order to write an algorithm that will best match the user to the character in their quiz.  Students will work in partners on the program and will individually create a video and answer analysis questions about the code.

What's Going On? November 20th and November 21st

 Thought for the Week 

Modified Schedule This Week

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we will hold school on Monday and Tuesday this week.  This means that we will have a Monday-style schedule on both Monday and Tuesday, so we will see all classes.  Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your break!

App Development

This week, we will explore "conditionals".  We will take a look at how we can make decisions while our code is running through the use of if...else statements.  During class on Monday, we will work on some coding examples where we practice writing if...else if...else statements.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will work to complete the "Apple Avalanche" project.  Students will work with "key presses" in order to trigger different events in the program.  While working on this project, students will get more experience writing and calling custom functions.

What's Going On? November 27th through December 1st

 Thought for the Week

 

App Development

This week, we will work with conditionals.  We will learn how we can use if...else if...else statements to help us make decisions within our program.  Students also have the opportunity to explore "switch" statements as an alternate method to achieve very similar results.  Along with this week, students will complete a reading and note assignment, complete a class-lead hackwich, and a conditionals code challenge.

AP Computer Science Principles

We will start off this week by wrapping up "Apple Avalanche".  In this activity, students work on creating random objects (apples) and placing them around the screen.  We are using the "keypress" event in order to direct specific apples to fall from the tree.  Once this activity is complete, students will partner up to write a "Buzz Feed - style" character quiz.  Students will ask a series of multiple-choice questions, and based on the answers, determine which character they are most like.

What's Going On? November 13th through November 17th

 Thought for the Week

App Development

This week, we will take a closer look at functions.  We will learn how to use some of the build-in functions that are built into the Swift programming language.  We will also learn how to create and use our own custom functions.  Functions are great if we find ourselves repeating the same code segments over and over.  They are also great if we would like to share our functions between different programs.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will focus on more event-drive programming.  This time, we will trigger different events by touching a key on our keyboard.  Students will work with this through our next partner program, "Apple Avalanche".

What's Going On? November 6th through November 10th

 Thought for the Week

App Development

Our first objective for the week will be for students to complete their second summative end-of-unit app project called "Multiply".  For this project, students will demonstrate their ability to create buttons and textfields in order to get and display data for the user in the form of a simple calculator.  Once we have wrapped this up, we will move on to our third unit of the year where we will explore topics such as functions and conditionals.  We will start off this unit with our pre-unit hackwich called "Commission Pay".

AP Computer Science Principles: DEADLINE APPROACHING NOVEMBER 8th!!!!!

AP Exam Information

Please check out this link to find out more information on how to register for the AP Exam.  To avoid a late fee, students must register for all exams by 11:59 p.m. on November 8, 2023.

This week, our focus will be on wrapping up our Activity 1.2.2 "Catch a Turtle Leaderboard".  In this project, students will learn to work with multiple Python files in order to further manage the complexity of our program.  Students will also learn how to read from and write to a text file in order to maintain a record of our game's high scores.

What's Going On? October 30th through November 3rd

Thought for the Week

Our first quarter will end on November 3rd.  Please keep the following quote in mind as you look to finish the first part of the year and make goals for the next. I am here to help support you in achieving your goals!

App Development

This week, students will take on the "TextField Code Challenge".  Students will have the opportunity to work on their own, with support from me and their coding partners, to create a variety of TextFields and process the information entered into them by our app user.  Once we finish this, students will move into their second End-Of-Unit-App-Challenge for the year.  Students will create an app called "Multiply" which will serve as a simple calculator.  Students will be able to extend their knowledge by implementing "conditional" statements to make decisions within our running app.  Students will also have a chance to place more emphasis on the design of their project.

AP Computer Science Principles: DEADLINE APPROACHING!!!!!

AP Exam Information

Please check out this link to find out more information on how to register for the AP Exam.  To avoid a late fee, students must register for all exams by 11:59 p.m. on November 8, 2023.

This week, our first focus will be on wrapping up our Activity 1.2.1 "Catch a Turtle".  In this project, students have been introduced to the concept of functions in order to manage the complexity of our programs.  The concept of hiding the details of our program to make it more understandable is known as "Abstraction".

Once we wrap up this activity and have a working game, we will move on to the second phase: creating a leaderboard.  Students will learn to work with multiple Python files in order to further manage the complexity of our program.  Students will also learn how to read from and write to a text file in order to maintain a record of our game's high scores.

What's Going On? October 23rd through October 25th

 Thought for the Week

Modified Schedule This Week

This week, we will have school Monday-Wednesday, with Wednesday as an early release day.  On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we will see all eight classes.

App Development

During this shortened week, after their study on buttons, students will dive into "text fields".  This element will help us to get input from the user.  We will take a look at how to access text entered into the text field by the user.  We will also learn how to work with that accessed text and make decisions within our program.  We will also learn how to access numerical values entered by the user and do some mathematical calculations.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue their work with Activity 1.2.1: Catch a Turtle.  For this project, students will start to think about game elements associated with a project.  Last week, we created our turtle objects and completed some of the setup.  This week, we will get the turtle to "jump" around the screen and add a scoring element.  With this project, students will be introduced to the concept of "functions".

AP Exam Information

Please check out this link to find out more information on how to register for the AP Exam.  To avoid a late fee, students must register for all exams by 11:59 p.m. on November 8, 2023.

What's Going On? October 16th through October 20th

Thought for the Week

 

App Development

We will start this week by taking a look at Buttons.  We have learned how to add a button to our view, but it hasn't done much yet.  This week, we will learn how to trigger events and make things happen when we press the button.  Additionally, we will spend some time considering the design of a button and learn how to add many modifiers to enhance their look.

AP Computer Science Principles

For the first part of the week, students will work on their first summative projects for the year.  For this
project, students must demonstrate their ability to use variables, loops, and conditionals while using the Python Turtle drawing tools to create a colorful, animated piece of art.  This assignment is very closely related to what students will be expected to create for our AP "Performance Task".  For this assignment, students will create a functional program and then answer some analysis questions about their code.  All summative projects are due by Wednesday.

Once we have wrapped up our first summative, students will start investigating the concept of "abstraction".  We will spend some time looking at code and learning how to make it more efficient through the addition of "functions".

AP Exam Information

Please check out this link to find out more information on how to register for the AP Exam.  To avoid a late fee, students must register for all exams by 11:59 p.m. on November 8, 2023.

What's Going On? October 9th through October 13th

 Thought for the Week

App Development

At the start of this week, we will continue our study of variables, constants, and data types.  Once we complete our group demonstration, students will work more independently on the "Variables Code Challenge".  In this assignment, students will work on creating, modifying, and combining variables to be presented as output in our programs.  Once we have a firm grasp on how to create single variables, we will start using them to perform calculations using some basic computer science operators.  Our operators include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  We will also learn about the "modulus" operator which is used to calculate the remainder after division.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will continue working with the Turtle class in our "Turtles in Traffic" project.  Once this is complete, students will move into our first summative for the semester.  During this summative, students will use the Turtle class in order to program and create a drawing animation of their own design.  Within this summative, students will code using variables, loops, conditionals, and arrays.  Students will also reflect on their program creation by answering some questions about their code.  This is the first look at what students might be expected to create for the AP Performance task that will be submitted to the AP board in May.

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

Thought for the Week

Homecoming Events

Check out the plan for our Homecoming events for the week.

App Development

This week, we will dive into our second unit of the year: Multiply.  To start off this week, we will complete our pre-unit app called "Repeat After Me".  In this app, students will experiment with variables, textfields, buttons, and more.  This app will serve as the foundation for our unit.  Once we complete this app, we will spend some time talking about design, (including Apple's specific HIGS), where to get help interpreting Apple's documentation, and how to create an algorithm to solve a problem.

AP Computer Science Principles

To start off this week, we will take a look at Activity 1.1.7: Traversing Turtles.  Students will be introduced to the concept of an "array" as a way to manage some of the complexity of our program.  At the end of the week, we will work on Activity 1.1.8: Turtles in Traffic.  In this example, students will compare the position of different turtle objects and determine when they collide using "if...else" statements.  

What's Going On? September 25th through September 29th

Thought for the Week

 

App Development

This week, students will wrap up our study of "Images" with a code challenge.  Once this is complete, students will move into our first summative end-of-unit app challenge for the year.  In this "Hello World / About Me" app, students will demonstrate their ability to add text, images, and style elements to an app.  Students will be assessed on their ability to code the app as well as their ability to design an aesthetically appealing app.  We want all of our apps to look good and function well!

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will continue our study of the Python programming language.  We will spend some time
implementing different types of loops: for loops and while loops while we complete Activity 1.1.4: Spinning Spirographs.  Next, we will investigate and classify different types of errors that programmers can expect to encounter while writing code.  We will discuss syntax errors, runtime errors, and logical errors.  We will also talk about the importance of creating comments and documentation in order to communicate with ourselves, our programming team, and our end-user.

AP Exam Information

Please check out this link to find out more information on how to register for the AP Exam.  To avoid a late fee, students must register for all exams by 11:59 p.m. on November 8, 2023.

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

 Thought for the Week

App Development

This week, we will continue with our practice of the basics of designing in Swift UI.  We will spend Monday and Tuesday's classes talking about Stack Views.  This includes how to arrange items horizontally, vertically, and how to layer items.  Towards the end of the week, we will shift our focus to adding images to our projects.

AP  Computer Science Principles

This week, we will continue our study of the Python language.  We will spend the first part of the week focused on loops.  The use of loops will allow us to repeat sections of code a specified number of times.  We will spend the second part of the week focused on 'conditional' statements. The use of conditionals will allow us to pick and choose which sections of code are executed based on what is happening in the program.

AP Exam Information

Please check out this link to find out more information on how to register for the AP Exam.  To avoid a late fee, students must register for all exams by 11:59 p.m. on November 8, 2023.