What's Going On? March 22nd through March 26th

 Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science A

This week, we will start our last unit leading up to the AP Exam.  This unit is all about recursion, searching, and sorting.  This week, we will focus on recursion, or how a method can call itself.  Along with this week, students will participate in some notes, some code activities, a practice exercise set, and a review exercise set.  Students should also begin our final notes template for the year to go along with our textbook reading.  This notes template will be due after spring break at a date to be determined later.  

App Dev 2

We will spend the first part of this week focused on finishing up our assignment notebook app.  While creating this app, students will demonstrate their knowledge of how to display data in a TableView as well as how to store data between app openings.  We will end the week by viewing the film "Coded Bias".  This documentary focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) and the world of computer science.  

Programming the Web 2

This week, we will start our study of JavaScript.  Adding JavaScript into our programs will allow us to add some interactivity and automaticity to our web pages.  We will end the week by viewing the film "Coded Bias".  This documentary focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) and the world of computer science.  

What's Going On? March 15th through March 19th

 Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science A

At the beginning of this week, we will work on wrapping up our "Data" lab.  On Monday, we will work with pulling data from a weather website and write some java code to do some simple analysis.  During class on Tuesday, students will have the chance to work with data related to their own interests and do some simple analysis, based on our discussion from earlier this week.  On Wednesday and Thursday, we will begin work on our final unit for the year on searching, sorting, and recursion.  Our focus will be on "recursion", or how a method can call itself.

App Development 2

We will start off this week by wrapping up our "Persistence Code Challenge".  In this challenge, students will work with ways to save different types of data.  The remainder of the week will be devoted to our summative app challenge: Assignment Notebook.  Students will create an assignment notebook app to keep track of assignments and their due dates.

Programming the Web 2

The majority of this week will be spent on our summative forms and tables assignment: St. Mary's Site.  Students will design a form designed to get information from the user and focus on formatting items with the use of tables to get items to line up nicely.  This form will serve as the basis for a future assignment once we learn a little bit of JavaScript.  On Friday, we will begin our JavaScript unit.  Students will learn how to create and process variables.

What's Going On? March 8th through March 12th

 Thought for the Week

Modified Schedule for the Week 

Our sophomores and juniors will take the ACT on Tuesday, March 9th.  Because of this, we will run a modified schedule.  Monday will be a "Tuesday-style" schedule.  On Tuesday, only sophomores and juniors will report to school.  Freshmen and Seniors will have the day off.  The rest of the week, will run as normal.

AP Computer Science A

We will start off this week with our summative assessment on unit 8: Designing Classes, Inheritance, and Interfaces.  Students will also have their summative programming project #8 due on this day.  For the rest of the week, students will investigate our second lab of the year.  The "Data Lab" will allow students to learn about the importance of data in making decisions.  Students will also learn how to setup and use a third-party library and how to use the data once it has been read in a program.  

App Development 2

This week, we will finish our discussion on Table Views and learn how to modify and delete contents within the view.  After this, we will learn about "persistence" in data.  This means that we will learn about how we can save some basic information and recall it the next time the app runs.

Programming the Web 2

This week, we will spend some time applying our newly-learned knowledge on how to organize information into a basic table.  Students will spend Monday's class creating a table using some of the techniques we learned about last week.  At the end of the week, we will dive into forms.  Forms provide a way for us to get information from a computer user.  (Think: entering your information when you want to purchase a product from a website).  Students will have the opportunity to put their skills to the test on Friday when they create a basic 10-question survey.

What's Going On? March 1st through March 5th

Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science A

Now that we have learned about the basics of Class Design, Inheritance, and Interfaces, it is time to put our knowledge to the test!  This week, students will be working on our summative programming project #8 where we will put our unit knowledge into practice.  We will end the week by reviewing the unit in preparation for Monday's summative assessment.

App Dev 2

This week, we will continue on with our "Assignment Notebook" unit.  We will focus on writing classes, delegation, and how to use a TableView to display data.  All of these items will help students in creating their summative app, Assignment Notebook.

Programming the Web 2

We will start off this week by finishing up our second summative for the semester.  For this summative, students will add a second page to their portfolio website to demonstrate some of the techniques that can be used to display images in an image gallery.  During the second half of the week, students will learn how to display data using a table.

What's Going On? February 22nd through February 25th

Thought for the Week

Modified Schedule This Week

This week, students will have a shortened day on Thursday and no school on Friday.  Because of this, the rest of the week will see a modified schedule.  This means that Monday will be a "Tuesday-style" schedule, Tuesday will be a "Wednesday-style" schedule, Wednesday will be a "Thursday-style" schedule and Thursday will be a shortened "Friday-style" schedule.

AP Computer Science A

We will start off our shortened week by talking about Interfaces and how we can implement an interface to make sure that all of our classes are implementing the correct methods.  Tuesday's class will be focused on the Comparable Interface, and we will end the week by talking about Event Handlers and Mouse Events.

App Development 2

We will start off the week by wrapping up our "Rock, Paper, Scissor" summative app.  After that, we will spend the rest of the week working on the "Shopping List" Pre-Unit hackwich which will get us acquainted with some of the tools we will be using in the next unit.

Programming the Web 2

The focus of this short week will be our image gallery and learning to implement some techniques to format images. We will spend Monday's class learning about some techniques and the rest of the week will be devoted to student work time to format their own 10-picture image gallery to include within their portfolio site.

What's Going On? February 15th through February 19th

 Thought for the Week

Conferences this Wednesday

I still have a few open spots available for conferences this Wednesday.  Conferences will take place via our video conferencing software, WebEx.  If you would be interested in scheduling a conference, please sign up for one of the available time spots.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PVqdDaJLI7XJ2IXpV093zrFDLZE4IJkjOVWa1-bOqMI/edit?usp=sharing

AP Computer Science A

This week, we will start our 8th unit of the year.  This week, we will focus on what makes a good class and how we can make sure that we are designing our classes with programming best practices in mind.  At the end of the week, we will focus on the use of Interfaces to make sure that our classes are aligned with proper programming protocol.

App Development 2

At the beginning of this week, we will spend some time exploring how to incorporate Safari Services and the camera within our apps.  At the end of the week, students will dive into our first summative app project of the semester, Rock, Paper, Scissors.  Students will create the game to play against the computer and have the ability to customize the game to make it more user-interactive.

Programming the Web 2

For the majority of this week, students will work on wrapping up their portfolio home page.  Monday's class will give students the opportunity to show off their pages and get feedback from other students.  On Tuesday, students will make final adjustments before we host our pages online during Thursday's class.  We will wrap up the week by looking at some techniques for formatting images for our "Image Gallery" unit.

What's Going On? February 8th through February 12th

 Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science A

This week, students will work on our first lab of the year.  This 'Consumer Review Lab' will give students a chance to examine and work within a larger body of code.  Students will spend some time figuring out how to interpret the code and will have the opportunity to add their own!  The focus of this lab is to use programming to examine the words written in a consumer review that someone might post on a site like Yelp or Trip Advisor.  At the end of the week, we will start our 8th unit on Classes, Interfaces, and Inheritance.

App Dev 2

This week, students will spend some time working with loops.  Loops allow us to repeat a portion of code and will also allow us to examine all of the elements within a collection.  We will spend Monday's class reading about loops and completing our class-led 'hackwich'.  Students will work with our lab on Tuesday and on the Code Challenge (formative) during class on Wednesday and Thursday.  We will end the week with a short multiple-choice formative within our Blackboard site.

Programming the Web 2

We will start off this week wrapping up Friday's lesson on navigation techniques.  We will spend time on Tuesday talking about how to design a logo for our portfolio site that we will use to highlight our work throughout the semester.  The rest of the week will be used by students to design and create their portfolio site home page.