What's Going On? January 30th through February 3rd

Programming the Web 2

This week students will work on finishing up our review of HTML and CSS techniques through the codecademy.com website.  Once we have reviewed the basics, students will work on designing the home page for their Web 2 portfolio that will be used to showcase what we will learn throughout the course of the semester.  Students will have a lot of creative control over how their final page looks, ensuring that the final product has a professional feel.

Fundamentals of Programming

We had a great first week that included a short introduction to computer science basics and a little time working with XCode Swift Playgrounds.  Over the weekend, students should be reading selections from the "Basics" chapter in our Swift programming book that we downloaded to the iBooks app or can be accessed by clicking here.

This week we will continue our study of the different variable types and how to create them in the Swift programming language.  We will have a short formative assessment during class on Wednesday to make sure that we have a firm understanding of how to create variables.

Next, we will take a look at the HelloWorld program that we started last week.  We will learn how we can add a few elements to our Storyboard in order to design our app interface.  We will explore adding UILables, UIButtons, and UIImageViews.  We will apply these items to our first app, Hello World.

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

Finishing Up Lesson 13 and Working on the Final Project

This week students will have lots of work time.  Students will have Monday's class to finish up our lesson 13 web assignment and complete our 10 multiple choice review questions.  After this, students will have the rest of the semester to work on our final project.  For this project, students must create a website that contains a minimum of four web pages.  Students must use appropriate images and keep in mind copyright laws as they create their sites.  Students will have the choice about the topic for their final project.  In the past, students have created an online resume, a website for a local business, a website for the school's coffee shop and paired up their final project with a project for another course.  Students must use html and css in order to create an aesthetically pleasing design that ahears to the rules and practices accepted by HTML5 web designers.  Each page must include appropriate images, clearly written text, a working horizontal or vertical navigational bar, and at least three major div sections.

Exam Week

During January 18th-January 20th, Waukesha North will have a different schedule.  We will be holding 2-3 exams per day in which students can show how much they have learned.  Please note that each morning students can get some extra help, work in the lab, or just find a quiet place to study from 7:35-9:30 each day.  The first exam begins at 9:30 and late students will not be permitted to enter an exam room.  In other words, DON'T BE LATE!  Our exam period for this class will be used for students to take the 20 multiple choice questions (sorry, this one is not open note) and finishing up any required work for the course.  I will be at school starting at 7am each morning, so students are welcome to come in early for some additional lab time.

Please make sure that you have taken care of all responsibilities as a student prior to coming into the exam.  In order to successfully complete the Programming the Web 1 course, students must successfully complete the midterm project, the final project and earn a passing grade for the course.  Additionally, students who are enrolled in the WCTC transcripted credit program who earn a "C" or higher in the course will receive WCTC credit.

I would be more than happy to work with any and all students leading up to exam time.  Please feel free to come in to get some extra help!

Happy Studying!

What's Going On? January 3rd through January 6th

Finishing Up Lesson 12 and Starting Lesson 13

On our first day of class for the week, students will be finishing up our lesson 12 website.

After this is complete, we will dive into our last lesson for the semester.  For this lesson, students will have 10 review questions and our lesson 13 web assignment.  There will not be a reading assignment for this week.

With lesson 13, students will be adding on three content pages to our lesson 12 page.  Students can choose their own image and write their own sentence or two describing the photo.  The difficult work has already been done once lesson 12 is complete with the homepage.  Once this layout has been completed, it is simply a matter of replacing the content and adding a few links.  This assignment and review questions will be due on Monday, January 9th.

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

School Schedule for the Week
Since this is a four day week leading up to our winter break, our schedule will look a little different.  We will not run a traditional "Monday Schedule".  Instead, we will run our typical "Tuesday schedule" on Monday, our "Wednesday schedule" on Tuesday, our "Thursday schedule" on Wednesday and our "Friday schedule" on Thursday.  We will also have a modified schedule on Thursday with a pep assembly at the end of the day.

Programming the Web Schedule for the Week

This week, students will continue to work on the lesson 12a assignment.  Going into the weekend, students should have completed formatting our photos and should have written the code for the basic overall structure for the page.  Based on our productivity level on this project and the progress made, we will set our goal due date.  Students will learn about our due date during class on Wednesday.   

Winter Break

Winter break is Friday, December 23rd through January 2nd.  School will resume on Tuesday, January 3rd.  I hope everyone enjoys this break and has time to relax and spend time with family and friends!  Stay warm!

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

Unit 12: Web-Based Graphics

This week students will be working on unit 12: Web-Based Graphics.  Along with this unit, students will read chapters 21 and 22 in the textbook, complete the accompanying reading guide, our weekly review questions, and web assignment 12a.


In this unit, students will work a little bit with Photoshop in order to optimize pictures for the internet.  Students will learn how to set the resolution for a photo to 72dpi, resize photos, and the best extension for images (gif, jpg, png).

Once we have talked about and practice formatting images, students will then have the opportunity to work on our web assignment 12a.  For this assignment, students will create their own layout and apply image formatting techniques in order to create a home page for a website that we will be working on through unit 12 and 13.

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

Lesson 11: CSS Techniques

This week we will be looking at some HTML techniques and how to apply new CSS techniques in order to create responsive web sites.  We will look at how we can use one set of HTML rules in order to create a site optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and desktop computers.  During this week, students will need to read chapter 18 in the textbook, complete the reading guide, and work on web assignments 11a and 11b.




Throughout the week, we will investigate an image replacement technique, known as the Phark method.  This will allow us to replace text with an image.  

We will also take some time to look into how to create a table using html.  A table is a useful technique for organizing data.

Interested in Computer Science? Try An Hour of Code!

December 5th through 9th is Computer Science Education Week and people all around the country and world are participating in the "Hour of Code".  Tens of millions of people in over 180 countries have participated in an "Hour of Code" event.  North will be hosting an "Hour of Code" event on Thursday, December 8th after school from 3:15-4:15 in computer lab 300.  If you would like to learn a little bit more about computer programming, please join us!  Please see me if you have any questions.

What's Going On? November 28th through December 2nd

Lesson 10: Page Layout with CSS

This week we will move on to lesson 10 where we will gain more experience with designing page layouts with CSS.  Along with this week's lesson, students will need to read chapter 16 in the textbook, complete the accompanying reading guide, and answer the ten multiple choice lesson review questions.  Students will also have two web assignments to complete.  With the first, students will work with floats to achieve our desired layout.  For assignment 10A, students will apply what we have learned to create a layout of three columns.

For assignment 10B, students will work with negative margins.  We will complete this assignment as a group to show students how negative margins and floats could be used together in order to create a similar three column layout.