What's Going On? Monday September 28th through Friday October 2, 2020

AP Computer Science A

This week, we will begin our unit 3 area of study where we will focus on "Implementing Classes".  Students will learn how to write their own classes and how to create instances of an object using their self-defined class.  Along with this week, students will have four different practice exercise sets in order to practice coding each day.

AP Registration Information

The deadline to register for the AP exam is November 6, 2020.  (After this date, it is still possible to register for the AP exam, but there is a $40 late fee.). The cost of the exam is $97.  The exam is scheduled for May and, at this time, is currently still scheduled to be a traditional AP exam.  Students will need to click the "Register" button within the AP Classroom website.  The exam can be paid for through this Total Registration link.

You can see the entire letter about the AP exam sent from North High School here.

Programming the Web 1

This week, we will start off the week by working on our Web Assignments 4A and 4B.  With these assignments, students will practice their skills in creating absolute, relative, and fragment links.  Students should turn in their lesson 4 reading guides on Monday.  Tuesday's homework will include preparing our answers for our multiple-choice summative.  Students are considered "on pace" for the class if, by the end of the day on Wednesday, the lesson 4 web assignments have been turned in and the lesson 4 review questions have been completed on Blackboard.  

On Thursday, we will begin our work with lesson 5.  In this lesson, we will switch to work with the industry-standard program "DreamWeaver".  Within this lesson, students will learn how to work with images and image maps.  At the end of the week, students should begin working on their lesson 5 reading guide and have it ready to turn in by Monday, October 5.

App Development 1

This week, students will spend our virtual days working more with variables.  Our activities with variables

will include working with Swift Playgrounds: Learn to Code 2 and working on application analysis through a Swift Variables worksheet.  Our time in class will be devoted to coding our summative end of unit app challenge: Hello World.

What's Going On? Monday September 20th through Friday September 24, 2020

 AP Computer Science A

This week, we will continue with our unit 2 study on introducing classes and defining variables.  Monday's WebEx meeting will be devoted to talking about Graphical Representations in Java.  The rest of the week will be application time for students while we work on Programming Project #2.  We will wrap up the week with our second summative assessment.

Programming the Web 1

We will begin this week during our virtual class on Monday by registering for our transcripted credit through WCTC.  Students who earn a "C" or higher based on the WCTC grading scale will earn FREE transcripted college credit.

Once students are registered we will be wrapping up Unit 3.  In this lesson, students are applying different list style tags and different section tags to create their web pages.  Students should turn in their Unit 3 reading guide on Monday.  We will complete our Unit 3 Summative multiple-choice assessment during our class on Tuesday and our Web Assignments (3a-List Types and 3b-Black Goose News) should be completed and submitted by the end of our class on Wednesday.

On Thursday, we will begin Unit 4 where we will focus on creating links within our webpage.  Along with this lesson, we will read chapter 6, complete the accompanying reading guide (due Monday 9/28), complete our multiple-choice summative assessment, and two web assignments.

App Development

This week, students will focus their attention at the beginning of the week diving into variables and constants.  During our class on Monday, students will participate in a WebEx teams meeting where we will go through our Variables and Constants Hackwich with our iPads.  Students will have the opportunity later in the week to work on a variables code challenge, summarize their thoughts in a technical blog post, and complete a short quiz.  We will wrap up the week by getting started with our first Summative End-Of-Unit App Challenge.  In the "Hello World" app, students will demonstrate their ability to add items to the storyboard of our app as well as make some changes within the code.

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What's Going On? Monday September 14th through Friday September 18, 2020

Please Note: All classes will have a "live" lesson within WebEx teams during our Monday scheduled class time.  Please use the WebEx teams app (available in Self Service on student iPads) to join the lesson!

AP Computer Science A

This week, we will begin our study of Objects, Classes, and Variables.  Students will learn about how to create an object, work with methods in a class, and begin working with variables.  Along with this week, students will have a reading guide to go along with our chapter textbook reading.  Additionally, students will have a couple of practice exercise sets to try out some of the programming skills that we will learn about over the course of the week.

App Development

We will start off this week with a group discussion of UIImage Views.  Students will work with the Swift Playgrounds app on our iPads to go through some code within the UIImageViews.playgroundbook file that will allow students to "play" with some code while we are away from the lab.  When we have time to code in the lab, we will focus on finishing up our "Buttons and Labels" code challenge as well as see how we can apply UIImageViews to our apps.  We will finish up the week by checking out variables and their role in a Swift app.

Programming the Web 1

We will start off this week with our first web page creation assignment.  Students will join in a live lesson on Monday through WebEx Teams to see how to start our Web Assignment 2A: Black Goose Bistro.  Students will use the tutorial in our textbook to work through the coding exercise to add in headlines, paragraphs of text, and images.  Students will also have the opportunity to work a little bit with styling the page using CSS.  Additionally, students will create their own personal web page with Web Assignment 2B.  We will have our lesson 2 summative review questions during class on Wednesday as well as turn in our web assignment.  We will end the week by diving into lesson 3 where we will learn about how to create lists and add additional HTML markup to our web pages.

What's Going On? September 8th through September 11th

 AP Computer Science A

This week, we will wrap our "Introduction to Java" unit.  Students will have Tuesday and Wednesday to complete our first programming assignment. Students will also participate in a variety of review activities prior to Friday's first summative assessment.

App Development 1

This week, students will continue our work within the Swift Programming language.  Students who are learning virtually for the day will focus in on our playground readings for the topic and view a brief video.  Students who are learning face to face for the day will have a hands-on coding activity to complete.  Our topics for the week will include creating actions & outlets.

Programming the Web 1

This week, students will wrap up our work with lesson 1.  We will spend our first face to face class of the week finishing up Project 1A (summative) where we investigate the different layout techniques used in creating web sites.  Toward the beginning of this week, students will be wrapping up our first lesson reading guide and multiple-choice assessment (summative).  Later on, we will move on to our second lesson reading assignment and dive into our first web page creation.

Welcome to the 2020-2021 School Year, Computer Science Students!

Hello Computer Science Students! Welcome to the 2020-2021school year! My name is Mrs. Kamenar and I will be working with you during your computer science class this year. This year, I am starting my 16th year teaching math and computer science at Waukesha North. This year I will be teaching Honors Geometry, App Development 1 & 2, AP Computer Science A, Programming the Web 1 & 2, and Yearbook. In addition to teaching, I am also the head women's cross country coach and yearbook advisor. I hope that everyone was able to find some time to relax this summer. While my family and I weren't able to do some of our usual summer activities, we still found a way to have fun and enjoy each others' company. Our summer included a few camping trips, lots of hiking, and playing with our new dog Ranger.

My goal is to keep you up to date with what's going on in the classroom through this blog. Between the blog and our class schedule of events that will be posted on our BlackBoard class website, it is my hope that all students and parents will be informed about what's going on in the classroom whether we are learning virtually or face-to-face.

Where Can Students Find Everything?

One of the first things to keep in mind is that all of our class material will be found through our Blackboard class website.  When students are learning virtually or are not able to attend class, this is the first place to look.  This site will contain links to our content, assignments, and other resources.

How Is Attendance Taken?

On days that students are face-to-face, the teacher will complete the attendance process.  On days when students are learning virtually, students must check in their own attendance within the timeframe of our class period. To do this, students will need to log in to their accounts on Infinite Campus.  Here is a quick video that shows how to complete the attendance process: https://youtu.be/y2GlGugUjUI?t=346

Students who are assigned to Cohort 1 will meet face to face on Tuesdays and Thursdays and virtually on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  Students who are assigned to Cohort 2 will meet face to face on Wednesdays and Fridays and virtually on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. 

School Schedule

Here is the hybrid schedule that we will follow:  Students are expected to log in virtually during the time frame listed.  

App Development 1

In this class, students will learn how to program for Apple devices using theSwift programming
language. This week, we will take a look at our programming environment and learn a little bit about how we will navigate our learning in the face-to-face and virtual environments.


Web 1

In this class, students will learn the basics of web page design using HTML and CSS. This week, we will take a look at our coding environment and learn a little bit about how we will navigate our learning in the face-to-face and virtual environments. This class is offered in partnership with WCTC, which means that students who enroll in this free program and complete the course successfully are eligible to earn WCTC college credit. We will also talk about the basics of web design.


AP Computer Science A

In this class, students will learn the Java programming language in preparation for the AP exam in May. This week, we will focus on some of the basic Java programming structures as well as some errors that we may encounter along the way.  We will also take a look at our programming environment and learn a little bit about how we will navigate our learning in the face-to-face and virtual environments.


I am really excited to get to work with you this year. I hope we are all able to learn a lot and have some fun along the way! If you have any questions as we move through the year, please don't hesitate to contact me. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail me at kkamenar@waukesha.k12.wi.us. You can also follow me on Twitter: @MrsKamenar.

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

AP Computer Science Principles

The purpose of this week's assignment is to explore a little more about careers related to computer science and IT.  To begin, read Activity 2.2.1 from Project Lead the Way.  Once you have read through the document, choose a career path related to CS / IT to investigate.  Over the course of our final week in school, research the career and record your findings in the provided guiding document on Google Classroom.  This assignment, and any other work you would like to have considered as part of your semester grade, will be due by Thursday, June 4th.  I will be calculating your final semester grade on Friday, June 5th.


Programming the Web 1

The goal for our last week is to complete our final web project.  Students can choose their own topic for their final web site.  It must include a homepage (index.html) as well as three subpages.  Students should highlight their skills learned over the course of the year when designing the pages.  In order to properly format the pages, students must include at least three "div" tags".  A complete list of the web site requirements can be found on Blackboard.  Additionally, students have a 20 multiple-choice question summative.  The questions are selected from the multiple-choice questions we have seen over the course of the semester.  All of the questions, as well as some optional review materials, can be found on Blackboard in the "Final Project" folder.  The final project, the multiple-choice assessment, and any other work you would like to have considered as part of your semester grade, will be due by Thursday, June 4th.  I will be calculating your final semester grade on Friday, June 5th.


Programming the Web 2

The goal of this final assignment is to use JavaScript and CSS to present a 10-question quiz to a user.  Once the quiz is submitted, the results should be displayed.  The web page must include the following:

• At least total 10 questions
• At least 5 questions should be multiple-choice
• At least one button to submit the quiz for grading
• The quiz should be graded and results displayed
• For example, you scored 8 out of 10
• Some sort of notation should be made to reflect the questions that were answered incorrectly
• For example, mark the incorrect answers in red
• A photo should be displayed to reflect the results of the quiz
• For example, a happy face for a passing grade and a sad face for a failing grade
• JavaScript is used to grade the quiz
• JavaScript implements at least two functions
• Proper HTML coding and formatting
• Page has been formatting to look nice using CSS

This assignment, and any other work you would like to have considered as part of your semester grade, will be due by Thursday, June 4th.  I will be calculating your final semester grade on Friday, June 5th.

App Development 2

This week, students will finish up their proposal for an awesome app they would like to create. Within this project, students will think about what the app is supposed to do, discover the frameworks that would allow the app's creation, and design some logos and layouts that could be used in the app's design. The final "Pitch" documentation and video will be due by June 3rd and should be shared with me via email. I would also encourage students to enter the official contest in order to be eligible to earn fabulous prizes! Our final deadline for any other work you would like to have considered as part of your semester grade, will be due by Thursday, June 4th.  I will be calculating your final semester grade on Friday, June 5th.

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

AP Computer Science Principles

URGENT: THE LAST DAY TO SUBMIT THE PERFORMANCE TASKS FOR THE AP EXAM IS TUESDAY MAY 26, 2020 AT 10:59PM. THE ENTIRE AP SCORE FOR APCSP WILL BE DETERMINED BY THE TWO PERFORMANCE TASKS (CREATE AND EXPLORE).

For this week, students will have their choice in assignments. Students can check out the options listed within Google Classroom and choose an assignment. One assignment choice includes reading a chapter from the book "Blown to Bits" to learn about the history of computing and thinking about how it connects to the global world. Another assignment involves exploring the circuitry working behind the scenes in the computer. Students should declare their choice via the question in Google classroom by the end of the day on Tuesday.


Programming the Web 1

The beginning part of the week will be devoted to wrapping up  Lesson 14.  Students will have one web site to create (building on lesson 13), and ten multiple-choice questions to complete.  Students are considered "on pace" for the class if lesson 14 is completed by Thursday, May 29th.

Looking Ahead: The final project for this class is a website that contains at least 4 web pages (the home page and three supporting pages).  For this project, students can choose their own subject matter and show off all they have learned in the class.  We will also have a 20 multiple-choice question summative assessment.  The questions included in this assessment have previously appeared on the other summatives we have seen throughout the semester.





Web 2

This week, students will start exploring some options for how to make a quiz using JavaScript.  During this week, students will view the three posted video tutorials.  During our last week of the school year, students will have a summative project to create their own quiz using JavaScript.




App Dev 2

Now that we have completed our chart related to some of the Swift frameworks and libraries and analyzed an existing app, it is time to pitch our own app! Our curriculum partners, Mobile Makers, will be hosting a different type of contest. Instead of creating an app, students will "Pitch" an app. This week, students will start to think about an awesome app they would like to create. Within this project, students will think about what the app is supposed to do, discover the frameworks that would allow the app's creation, and design some logos and layouts that could be used in the app's design. Students will complete a check-in form at the end of the week to share the progress. The final "Pitch" documentation and video will be due by June 3rd.