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

AP Computer Science Principles

This is it!  What we have been working toward all year!  Our AP exam will occur on Friday, May 11th at noon.  Be sure to bring in two wooden #2 pencils and leave your smartwatches/fitbits and phones at home.  Students will participate in the two hour, 74 question multiple choice exam on Friday afternoon.  During our week leading up to the exam, we will take a practice exam, analyze any errors, and go over any last minute questions.  We have been going through some review materials in class, and all of our resources can be found on our BlackBoard class website under the "review" tab.


App Development 1

This week, students will be working on our "Word Play" app.  For this app, students will work with multiple view controllers and practice passing data between them.  Students will create and manipulate a short sentence through the app.

App Development 2

This week, students should be in full swing of the "Brick Breaker" app.  Students will be working with Swift GameScene in order to create the classic game that involves a paddle, a ball, and at least 4 bricks.  The challenge comes in the physics that will allow the ball to bounce off of other objects and eliminate the bricks.

Programming the Web 2

This week, students will be diving into some of the features of HTML5 Canvas.  Students will draw a face using the functions of canvas, including drawing lines, circles, and adding text using a coordinate system.

What's Going On? April 30th through May 4th

AP Computer Science Principles

MONDAY APRIL 30th IS THE FINAL DEADLINE FOR THE AP COMPUTER SCIENCE PRINCIPLES PERFORMANCE TASKS!  ALL WORK MUST BE SUBMITTED AS "FINAL" ON MONDAY.  LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED!

At this point, we still have a large number of students who have not submitted the final versions of their performance tasks.  PLEASE do not wait until the last minute!  If something unexpected happens such as you get sick, a website is not accessible, you have trouble with technology, etc., you may not be able to meet the deadline.  The performance tasks account for 40% of the total AP score, so be sure to get your submissions in on time!

For the rest of the week, we will go through some of the topics selected for review including "internet" and "binary and hexadecimal numbering systems".  Our AP exam will take place during the afternoon of May 11th (starting at noon).  We have until this time to get any last minute questions answered.


App Development 1

This week, we will continue our look at segues and alert controllers.  We will complete our hackwich "Intergallactic Travel" before students move into our final app challenge "Word Play".

App Development 2

We will spend Monday's class finishing up our "Ninja" hackwich.  This was our first exploration into the "Game" mode in Swift.  Once this is complete, students will start work on our end of unit app challenge "Brick Breaker".

Programming the Web 2

This week, students will be investigating a few more items in JavaScript.  We will explore some further topics in JavaScript,  take a look at HTML5 canvas and start talking about our final projects for the semester.

What's Going On? April 23rd through April 27th

App Development 1

This week, students will learn how to incorporate multiple screens into our apps.  We will learn how to embed in a navigation controller that allows us to travel between screens.  We will also learn how to create an "alert controller" that allows us to display a pop-up message.

App Development 2

This week, we will continue to look at creating our Ninja game using "Sprite Kit".  By the end of the week, students should have a working "Ninja" app.  This will set us up for our end of unit app challenge: Brick Breaker.

AP Computer Science Principles

We will start off the week by analyzing the work from our practice AP multiple choice exam.  Students will create small study groups to analyze their mistakes so that we can prevent making them on the AP exam.  I will also lead a review to take us through some of the most commonly missed items from the test.During class on Wednesday, students should be submitting their final versions of the AP Performance Tasks.  The official AP Performance Task due date is quickly approaching and late work will not be accepted.  As a reminder, the performance tasks account for 40% of the overall AP score.

Throughout the rest of the week, we will spend some time talking about cybersecurity, the internet, and reviewing some important vocabulary.

Programming the Web 2

This week, students will be working to incorporate JavaScript into a form that we made earlier in the semester.  Students will add code to our form that will automatically add today's date and validate user input.

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

App Development 1

Students need a little bit more time to work on "Tip Calculator", so Monday will be a work day.  When we are finished with the "Tip Calculator" App, we will move into our "Word Play" app.  For this unit, students will learn how to use Arrays and how to navigate between two different view controllers.  Along with this week, students will have the "Arrays Challenge" and an "Arrays Formative".

App Development 2

The "Za Hunter" app has proven to be a challenge, so we will spend class time on Monday and Tuesday to finish up the app.  Upon completion of the "Za Hunter" App, we will move into our last teacher-directed app for the semester: Breakout.  In order to create this app, students will need to become familiar with "Sprite Kit".  This will allow us to create an animation within our app.  Students will be introduced to this topic by creating a "Ninja" app.

Programming the Web 2

This week, we will continue our study of JavaScript.  Students will be introduced to techniques that will allow us to finish up their Mad-Lib-style story based on user input.  We will also learn how to create a slideshow using JavaScript.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will spend some more time talking about cybersecurity and the internet.  Students will work on completing assignment 2.3.2, which focuses on the use of prime numbers for encryption.  Once this is complete, students will take a practice AP multiple choice exam.  We will analyze our results to determine which concepts we need to review before heading into our AP written exam.  

Students should have uploaded the draft versions of their performance tasks during class on Friday.  I would encourage students to take one last look through their work to make sure everything is included.  Students will be submitting their performance tasks by Wednesday, April 25th.

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

Welcome Back!

I hope everyone had a restful spring break and we are rested up.  It is time to hit the ground running!  We have nine weeks until the end of the school year.  What does that mean?  If you are not happy with your current standing in the class, NOW is the time to act!  I would be more than happy to work with you and answer questions so you can end the year satisfied with your end results!


 App Development 1

This week, students will be working on the end of app challenge, "Tip Calculator".  Students will create an app that will calculate the 15% tip a diner should leave at a restaurant.  To build onto this, students can add features to calculate a 10%, 20%, and 25% tip.  Students can also build on a feature that would tell how much each person should contribute if the bill is split evenly among several people.

App Development 2

This week, students will be working on the end of app challenge, "Za Hunter".  For this app, students will use location services to find the location of different pizza places on a map.  Students can also add features to include the restaurant's logo, a phone number and website.

Programming the Web 2

This week, students will move ahead with our study of JavaScript.  We will talk about how we can implement arrays and do a more in-depth look at variables.  Along with this week's study, students will take a look at the "MadLibs" website assignment.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will have class time to wrap up the "Create" performance task.  Ideally, students should spend class time on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday answer the response questions.  Students must check the rubric carefully to make sure that they are clearly identifying all of the required points.  Please check out some of the sample responses that have been released on AP Central's website.  (A link to this can be found on BlackBoard).  During class on Friday, we will be uploading draft versions of the "Explore" and "Create" performance tasks.  This will give students the ability to check their work over one final time before they hit "submit".  Once the "submit" button is pressed, there is no way to change the submission documents. 

Mandatory AP Testing Meetings

All students who are registered to take one or more AP exams this coming May are required to attend an AP Testing Meeting.  There are two meetings coming up after spring break and all AP students are expected to attend ONE of these meetings.  The schedule is listed below.  Please bring a regular #2 pencil and a folder or notebook to write on.  The meetings are divided by last name, however, if you have a conflict with your assigned meeting you can attend the other meeting.

AP Testing Meeting (students with last names starting with A-L)

Wednesday, April 11th

North Auditorium from 7:30 - 8:15 a.m.

AP Testing Meeting (students with last names starting with M-Z)

Thursday, April 12th

North Auditorium from 7:30 - 8:15 a.m.

What's Going On? March 26th through March 29th

It's a Short Week!
This is just a reminder that this week is a shortened week where we will not have school on Friday and students have an early release day on Thursday.  This means that Monday will have a "Tuesday-style" schedule, Tuesday, will have a "Wednesday-style" schedule, Wednesday will have a "Thursday-style" schedule, and Thursday will have a modified "Friday-style" schedule.  Our third quarter grades will also be posted on Thursday afternoon.



Programming the Web 2


This week, we will continue our study of JavaScript.  We will investigate how JavaScript can be used to change features on an image and how we can use JavaScript to create a slideshow.





App Development 1

This week, students will take a look at "gesture recognizers" in Swift.  That is, how we can design our app to respond to different touches on the screen.  Once we are finished with this, students will start our end of unit app challenge: Tip Calculator.






App Development 2

This week, students will finish up our Mobile Mapper "Hackwich" where we are learning to use GPS location services and add locations to our map with a pin.  This is our lead-in activity to our end of unit app challenge: 'Za Hunter.





AP Computer Science Principles

Students will have all three class days this week to work on our "Create" performance task.  Students will be on pace to finish within the 12 hours of provided class time if the app portion is complete by the end of class on Tuesday.  This will give students the remaining class periods to work on creating the one minute video highlighting the app's features and writing responses to the writing prompts.  The majority of the score for the AP "Create" task is found in the written responses.

All AP Performance tasks (Explore and Create), will need to be uploaded to AP Central on April 15th.  The performance tasks account for 40% of the overall AP exam score.  Please look through the scoring rubric as well as the code.org survival guides BEFORE uploading to the AP Central website.


Summer Camps

I recently came across two summer camps in STEM and I thought I would pass along the information.


Game Development Camp @ UW-Whitewater

For more information, check out the link:
https://www.uww.edu/ce/camps/additional/game-development










MSOE Week-Long STEM CAMP

For more information, check out the link:

https://www.msoe.edu/academics/high-school-programs/summer-programs-at-msoe/

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

App Development 1

Last week, students should have finished up our introduction to working with functions.  We will start off this week with a short formative assessment to check our current level of understanding.  This week, students will spend some time working with conditionals.  Students will participate in some class notes with examples and will complete a "Conditionals Challenge".





App Development 2

This week, we will spend some time learning about "modal segues".  This allows a new View Controller window to appear on top of the currently running window.  Once this is dismissed, the control is transferred back to where the code left off.  We will also take some time to look at incorporating GPS into our apps.  We will learn how to make a map appear in the app, how to center on a specific location, how to find the user's current location, and how to mark other locations on the map.

Programming the Web 2

This week, we will continue our investigation of JavaScript.  We will continue to look at how we can declare and use variables and we will also learn how to define functions.  Students will have some time this week to work on our "Menu" website that will automatically display a restaurant's daily special that will automatically update depending on the current day of the week.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue their 12 hours of class time to work on the AP "Create" task.  This performance task will account for 24% of the AP score.  Students should be prepared to upload their "Explore" and "Create" performance tasks by April 15th.