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

 Thought for the Week

 

Winter Spirit Week Dress-Up Days

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will start by taking a look at activity 2.1.5: Securing Sloppy Code.  Within this activity, we
will take another look at the types of errors that may occur in our code.  We will also talk about ways to avoid errors by verifying user input and combining our logic statements using boolean opearators.  Once we have finished with this, students will partner up to work through a Tic-Tac-Toe tutorial to get a little more experience working with GUI (graphical user interface).  Looking ahead: the following week, students will beging their work on the AP Create Task that will be submitted to the AP board as part of our exam score.  Students who have not signed up for the AP exam will still complete the project and will submit it to me for grading.

App Development 1

This week, our focus will be on "Actions and Outlets".  Students will continue our practice of creating labels and buttons and connecting them to our code.  We will practice using and event, like tapping a button, to make something happen.  This week, students will participate in a code demo, a code challenge, and we will summarize our learning in our first technical blog post.

App Development 2

We spent our first week checking out the new version of Swift: SwiftUI.  Now it is time to switch gears
and check out the legacy language of Swift that includes designing with Storyboard.  Our first task in our new unit will be our first pre-unit hackwich: Three Letter Word.  In this project, students will learn how to cycle through a list of letters, will revisit how to add a tap guesture recognizer, and how to create an alert.  Once this is complete, we will take a closer look at Collections, Arrays, and Dictionaries. 

What's Going On? January 24th through January 27th

Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

As we begin our second semester, we will continue on with our study of "Data Diligence".  This week's
focus will be on incorporating graphic elements into our Python code using a platform called Tkinter.  We will also take a look at some ways to make our code a little more robust.  For example, if we write a program where the user is required to enter a number, and then enter a letter, we can catch that error and address it rather than allowing our program to crash and end.  Along with this week, students will tackle the formative work with Activity 2.1.4: Design the User Experience and Activity 2.1.5: Securing Sloppy Code.

App Development 1

Welcome to the exciting world of App Development!  In this class, students learn how to create apps for
Apple Devices using the Swift programming language.  This is an introductory class where students get to start coding right away!  We will use the XCode platform in order to create our apps. Students will get to try their hand at design as well as programming when we tell the program what it needs to do and how to do it.  One of the first apps that we will tackle is a basic flashlight app.  Through this app, students will become familiar with some of the tools available in our XCode platform.

App Development 2

Welcome back, App Developers!  This class is the follow-up course to App Development 1.  

In this second semester class, we will tackle more advanced topics such as TableViews, Maps, and some gaming elements.  There are some exciting things happening in the world of Swift and a new implementation of the language is coming onto the scene.  SwiftUI is a new way to take a look at the coding language.  We will start off this week by dabbling a little bit with some introductory topics to get students working together and communicating as we start off the semester.

What's Going On? Exam Week

 Thought for the Week

Exam Schedule

AP Computer Science Principles

During Tuesday's class, we will play a short review game as well as go through questions from the exam study guide.  During our exam period on Wednesday, students will complete a multiple-choice summative that is in a similar style of what they will see on the AP Exam in May.  Students who need additional time or need to catch up on missing work are invited to come in during our review/conferencing time.

App Development

This week is devoted to our final project.  For the project, students are tasked with learning something new!  Students will learn via a website or a video to implement a Swift feature of their choice.  Then, students will create a video that is 7 minutes or less to show off what they have learned.  Students will be assessed on their code execution as well as the explanation within the video.  Students also have the option to enter their project into the Mobile Makers Winter Contest for a chance to earn prizes such as mentorship with a computer professional, t-shirts, and gift cards.  Click here to see the entire contest rules.  Students who need additional time or need to catch up on missing work are invited to come in during our review/conferencing time.

Programming the Web 1

On Tuesday, students will complete a 20-question multiple choice assessment about a variety of HTML and CSS tools.  In order to prepare for this, students can study from their packet of possible questions that we have been working through over the course of the semester.  Once this is complete, students will spend the remaining time finishing up their final web projects.  Students have been tasked with creating a four-page website about the topic of their choosing.  While creating the project, students should highlight many of the HTML and CSS tools we have learned about during our semester together.

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

Thought for the Week

Semester Exam Schedule

AP Computer Science A

At the beginning of this week, students will put their "hacking" skills to the test and use "brute force" in order to determine a user's password.  We will talk about password strength and some of the reasons that multi-factor authentication is needed in order for tech users to access their accounts.  Once we wrap this up, we will focus on our semester exam preparations.

 

App Development

Students will spend the first part of the week wrapping up our "Word Play" end of unit app challenge.  This is a "Mad-Libs"-style app that will allow users to enter in their own chosen words and enter them into a fun story.  Once we finish this, students will work on their final Swift Screencast project.  Click here to find out more details of the project as well as the contest students may enter.

Programming the Web 1

Students will continue work on their final web assignment project.  Students are tasked with creating their own site that consists of four web pages.  Students will highlight all that they have learned over the course of the semester, including proper HTML markup and using CSS style to make our pages look great!

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

Thought for the Week

Looking Ahead: Exam Week

While it may not be on our radar quite yet, here is our plan for exam week.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will dive into the world of Cybersecurity.  For these lessons, we will head back to the PLTW website to learn about how to detect and avoid scams, phishing, and other types of attacks.  We will also take a look at what companies can do to protect their data and the data of their customers.  For this, we will look at some methods of encryption and decryption.  With the help of Python, we will write messages, encode them, and send them to our classmates.  Our classmates will receive the message and decode it to read the secret message.  We will learn about Caesar Cyphers, Brute-Force Encryption, as well as Public Key Encryption.

App Development

This week, we will take a closer look at "Strings", or in other words, "text".  We will learn how to keep track of Strings and make changes to them.  Once we wrap this up, we will take a look at "Alerts", or those pop-ups that show up on our phones.  Once we wrap up these topics, students will move into our summative "Word Play" app.

Programming the Web 1

Now that we are back from break, students will turn their full attention to their final projects.  Students will be creating a website that consists of four web pages.  Students will choose their own (school-appropriate) topic, design the look of all of the pages, and provide the content and images.  The goal of this assignment is to highlight many of the great web design tools that we have learned about over the course of the semester.  As a reminder, students who are enrolled in the WCTC transcripted credit class option and who earn a "C" or higher based on the WCTC scale will earn free college credit!

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

Thought for the Week

Join in the Fun for Our Dress-Up Days!

AP Computer Science Principles

We will start off this week by wrapping up our card game assessment.  After further discussion in class, it seems like this project is best if we value it as a summative.  For this assessment, students will be graded under two major learning targets: Writing Code and Analyzing Code via our responses.  This card game project serves as our final practice attempt for the AP Create Performance task that students will be submitting to the AP board and will account for 30% of the AP score.  During the last part of the week, we will finish up the diagnostic test from our "5 Steps to a 5" book to see what knowledge we have gained and help us to pinpoint areas for further study.

App Development

During this week, students will investigate segues and navigation controllers a little further.  Students will also have some time to experiment with our Tello Drones.  Students will program via block-based code in order to demonstrate their understanding of variables, functions, and loops.

Programming the Web

This week, students make sure that they have correctly hosted their "Clear Reflections Photography" sites.  After we check to make sure that our sites are live and visible to all online, students will start thinking about their final project.  For our final, students will get to choose their topic and layout design.  Students will plan what will appear on all four pages of their website and choose their design features.  Students will think about how to best highlight what they have learned over the course of the semester as it relates to HTML tags and CSS design features.

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

 Thought for the Week

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will spend their time working on creating a simple card game using the Python programming language.  Students should aim to complete the coding for this project by the end of class on Wednesday to give themselves time to work on the written responses for the task.  This task serves as a practice performance task that will be completed as submitted to the AP board as part of the AP exam score.

App Development

This week, students will take a break from our normal coding routine and experiment with our Tello Drones.  Students will take some time to fly our drones as well as complete some simple programming with them.  Students will demonstrate their ability to program conditionals (if statements) while flying their drones.

Programming the Web 1

This week, students will learn how to host their pages live online for the world to see!  Students will learn about the different types of hosting available, and some of the features, and then put their learning into practice.  Students will wrap up their "Clear Reflections Photography" website and then host it online.  Along with this assignment, students will also have 10 multiple-choice questions to complete.