What's Going On? January 29th through February 2nd

Thought for the Week

Programming for the Web

We will start off this week by wrapping up our first lesson of the semester.  We will go over the reading
guides that went along with our first reading assignment of the semester.  Next, we will complete our 10 multiple-choice questions summative.  Lastly, students will enroll in the course through WCTC.  As a reminder, students who earn a "C" or higher according to the WCTC grading scale will earn free college credit!

Once we wrap up lesson 1, it will be time to dive into the fun stuff.  We will create our first simple web pages.  Students will use a basic text editor, Text Edit, to learn the basic structure of an HTML page.  Students will learn how to add headlines, text, and photos to our pages.  Along with this week, students will read chapter 4 and complete the accompanying reading guide.  Students will also have class time to complete our two web pages assigned for the week.  One is a tutorial-based assignment where students will follow the instructions from the textbook to create the "Black Goose Bistro" web page.  Then student will have a chance to create their own personal page.  We will end the lesson with our 10 multiple-choice questions.

AP Computer Science Principles

At the start of this week, we will talk about our responses from our "game" project that we wrote during
class on Friday.  Students will receive feedback and make corrections to craft their responses in a way that will satisfy the criteria of the rubric set by the AP board.  For the rest of the time this week, we will talk a little bit about cybersecurity.  We will start by examining how to identify threats online.  We will also talk about ways to protect ourselves using good "Cyber Hygiene".  Finally, we will talk about the different types of encryption that can help to protect information shared online.

Welcome to Second Semester! What's Going On? January 23rd through January 26th

Thought for the Week 

Let's start the semester off on the right foot.  I am here to support you and your learning.  Be sure to ADVOCATE for yourself and your needs throughout the semester.

Programming the 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 will talk about the different layout choices web designers can use when creating a website. 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. 

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will finally get a chance to wrap up their "game" programs.  We had a couple of snow days before break and we decided to wrap up this summative as we start the second semester.  Students should wrap up their code by the end of class on Tuesday.  During Wednesday's class, students should devote their time to independently writing their responses.  

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

 Thought for the Week

App Development

We will start off this week by talking about "Property Wrappers".  We will talk about the use of @State, @Binding, and @ObservableObject in order to share data between different screens in our app and within different files.  Once this is complete, students will work on our last app of the year -- Word Play.  This is a "Mad-Libs" style app that prompts our user to enter a word and then enters them into a story.  Once students are finished with our final app, they will have time to learn something new with the "App Feature" final project.  

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will have the first three class days to wrap up their game summatives.  Our summatives are due on Wednesday.  Students are programming a variety of games including Yahtzee, BlackJack, and Uno.  Once students have finished their partner programming, they are responsible for individually analyzing their code to talk about its purpose, function, and more.  During our final days of the semester, we will spend time reviewing for our first semester exam.

Looking Ahead: Exam Schedule

We have a little bit of time left in the semester before our exams, but they are right around the corner.  Check out the schedule below:

What's Going On? January 2nd through January 5th

Thought for the Week

App Development

This week, we will wrap our "Intergalactic Travel" hackwich which allows us to pass data between
different screens in our app.  Once this is complete, we will take some time to examine classes and structs.  These tool allow us to create a template for an object and then reuse the code to make multiple instances of the objects.  

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will work on our "Card Game" project.  Before break, students had a chance to play a
variety of physical games.  Now, it will be their job to code one of them!  Students will have this week to write the code for the game and the following week to write their responses.  Now that we have a better understanding of what the AP board is looking for, we can craft our responses to best convey our understanding of complex computer processes.

Looking Ahead: Exam Schedule

We have a little bit of time left in the semester before our exams, but they are right around the corner.  Check out the schedule below:

What's Going On? December 18th through December 22nd

Thought for the Week

Festive Dress-Up Days

Join in the fun!

App Development

At the start of this week, students will wrap up their summative end-of-until App Challenge called "Tip Calculator.  This app is designed to be used when eating at a restaurant and you would like to leave a tip for the server.

Once this is complete, we will move into our Pre-Unit Hackwich called "Intergalactic Travel".  In this app, students will learn how to create a new Class, create objects of the class, transition to different app screens, and pass data between them.

AP Computer Science Principles

Now that we have wrapped up our "Buzz Feed-style" personality quizzes, it is time to take a closer look at
what the AP board would expect from our responses.  We will spend Monday's class analyzing some projects that have been submitted by other students on the AP board.  We will look closely at rubrics to decide how to best phrase our answers to fully answer all of the prompts that may be presented by the AP board.  Once we have a better grasp of what the AP board is looking for, students will have a chance to take a second look at their responses and make any necessary modifications to best answer the questions.  At the end of the week, students will start our next summative project.  Students will be tasked with creating a program where the user can play a card game.  Students may choose their game from Go Fish, Black Jack, Poker, Old Maid, Uno, and more.

What's Going On? December 11th through 15th

Thought for the Week

App Development

We will start off this week by working on our "Event Coding Challenge".  Within this challenge, students
will write code that will trigger when items are tapped, pressed, and submitted.  Once this is complete, students will work on our summative end-of-unit app challenge called "Tip Calculator".  In this app, students will create a project that is designed to be used when dining out.  The user can enter in the total cost of the bill, select a tip percentage, and calculate the amount to be left for the server.  Additionally, students can extend the app to split the check among several people.

Looking to do more with Apps?  Consider checking out the Swift Student Challenge.  You can find details about the contest here.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will wrap up their "Buzz-Feed" style personality quizzes.  Students have been tasked with writing code in small groups that uses arrays, variables, functions, selection statements, and loops.  This project is aligned with our official AP Create task that students will work on in February to submit to the AP board as part of the AP exam score.

What's Going On? December 4th through December 8th

Thought for the Week

App Development

This week, we will discover how we can create Views, SubViews, and Navigation.    Students will learn about how each screen is made up of views.  We have been working within "ContentView" but now we will be able to define new views and learn how to navigate between them.  Along with this week, students will have a reading, a hackwich demonstration, and a code challenge.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue working on their partner summative project, "Character Quiz".   Students will write their own character quiz.  Once this has been written, students will work on incorporating the important elements of variables, arrays, and functions in order to write an algorithm that will best match the user to the character in their quiz.  Students will work in partners on the program and will individually create a video and answer analysis questions about the code.