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

 Thought for the Week

Programming the Web 1

During our class on Tuesday, students will spend some time reviewing what we have learned during the first half of the semester.  Starting on Thursday, students will have 4 class periods to complete our midterm.  For the midterm, students will have the opportunity to show off their skills by recreating a site.  To complete this assignment, students will need to show they can place text and images on a webpage.  Students will also show off their ability to add style changes via a CSS style sheet.

AP Computer Science Principles

On our return from break, students will spend some time learning about the exciting world of copyright! 
Students will learn the difference between the different types of Creative Commons licenses and learn when it is ok to use someone else's work and when it is not.  We will also receive our "5 Steps to a 5" books this week, so we can start a more targeted process for preparing for our AP Exam.

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

Thought for the Week

Programming the Web 1

At the start of this week, students will work on applying font changes to our web pages using CSS.  On Monday, students will turn in their lesson 6 reading guide, and on Tuesday, students will complete our multiple-choice assessment.  We will be working on three book-based tutorials to apply CSS styles to our pages.  For the rest of the week, students will learn about the different ways to apply color styles to our pages using HEX values.  We will also learn how we can apply different link colors using pseudoselectors.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, we will continue with learning about how data is transmitted in a computer.  We will talk about the binary and hexadecimal number systems that can be used to store information on a computer.  We will also talk about how text is encoded in ASCII and how to convert between ASCII and binary numbering systems.  At the end of the week, students will learn about how data is transmitted over the Internet.  We will talk about how a message is broken down into packets and then routed from one place to the next.

What's Going On? March 4th though March 8th

 Thought for the Week

Programming the Web 1

We will start off this week with some work days where students can work to complete our lesson 5
assignments: 5A - Black Goose and 5B - Allco Services.  At the end of this week, students will learn about how to apply more styles of our web pages using CSS.  Students will learn how to add colors, font changes, and more to enhance the look of our pages.  Along with lesson 6, students will have a reading assignment, a reading guide, and 10 multiple-choice questions.  Additionally, students will demonstrate their ability to add style changes to our web pages through three tutorial-based web assignments.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will have the remainder of their class time to complete their official Create performance tasks.  By the end of class on Wednesday, students should have their code completed, or nearly completed, to submit to the AP board.  During class on Wednesday, I will lead students through the official submission process.  This will include submitting the program code, video, and personal project reference sheet.  All of these items must be uploaded to the AP portfolio site before April 30th at 11:00pm.  As I have been telling students, PLEASE do not wait until the last possible moment to submit the project!  

Once we have wrapped up our class project time, we will move on to learning about data.  We will explore the different types of numbering systems used by the computer, including binary, hexadecimal, and ASCII.

Looking Ahead

In preparation for the new block schedule next year, we will do a trial run.  Students will participate in the block schedule experience during the week of spring break.  See the schedule below to know what you can expect.

What's Going On? February 26th through March 1st

 Thought for the Week

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Programming the Web 1

Monday's class will be dedicated as a work day for students to wrap up our lesson 4 web assignments.  Once this is complete, we will take on Lesson 5.  This means that we will also get to work with the industry-standard program, DreamWeaver.  Students will learn how to use this powerful software to enhance the look of our web pages.  It will also ease our workload but providing some built-in tools to proofread our work.  Along with this lesson, students will read chapters 7 and 10 from the textbook and complete the accompanying reading guide (due Thursday).  Students will also have two web assignments where we will show off how to work with images and turn them into links.  We will conclude the week by completing our lesson 5 review questions.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will continue their work on their AP Create performance task.  Students have a total of
9 class hours to complete their project but may work on their code outside of class.  That being said, the majority of the project should be done in class.  At the start of the week, students will have just over 6 hours of class time left to work on the project.

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

 Thought for the Week

 

Programming for the Web 1

This week, students will focus on how to create links.  We will learn how to create absolute links or links to other websites such as Google.  We will learn how to create relative links or links to other pages within our website.  Lastly, we will learn how to create link fragments that link to other parts within a web page.  Along with this week, students will read chapter 6 in our textbook and complete the accompanying reading guide.  We will also create two web projects.  In project 4A, students will create links for the "Jen's Kitchen" website.  In project 4B, students will create link fragments that link letters at the top of the web page to the alphabetical section of the site.  Students will complete our weekly multiply choice questions at the start of class on Friday.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will begin our 9 hours of class time to work on our official AP "Create Task" that will
be submitted to the AP board as part of our AP exam grade.  Monday's class was devoted to getting organized for the task ahead.  The rest of the week, and next week, will be work time for the project.  Students must submit their AP projects to the AP board by April 30th.  Late work is not accepted by the AP board. 

What's Going On? February 12th through 15th

 Thought for the Week

Modified Schedule for Our Short Week:  This week, our schedule will look a little different.  On Monday, we will run a FRIDAY schedule.  The rest of the week will run as normal.  However, on Thursday, we will have a shortened schedule due to our early release day.  All students will have a day off on Friday.  Enjoy your February break!

Programming the Web 1

This week, students will work on our lesson 3 web assignments.  Students will turn in our lesson 3 reading guide on Monday and complete our weekly multiple-choice questions on Tuesday.  To go along with lesson 3, students will complete two different web page assignments.  In 3A, students will demonstrate their ability to mark up ordered lists, unordered lists, and description lists.  In assignment 3B, students will work with structural tags to mark up a document.  We have already worked with heading tags and paragraph tags, so students will get some further practice with these.  Additionally, students will learn how to code special characters, such as the copyright symbol, and add additional structure to our page using the "section" and "article" tags.  

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will get started on their official "Create" performance tasks that we will submit to the AP board as part of our AP exam score.  We will spend Monday's class brainstorming, talking about the project requirements, choosing groups, and deciding on a topic.  The rest of the week will be devoted to student work time to get started on the project.  Students will get 8 hours of class time to work on the project that will be submitted to the AP board.  On the exam day in May, students will answer questions related to their code as well as answer 70 multiple-choice questions.

What's Going On? February 5th through February 9th

Thought for the Week

Programming for the Web 1

We will start off this week by wrapping up our second lesson of the semester.  In this lesson, students have learned some of the basics of creating a web page.  Once this is wrapped up, students will start to add some more elements to our pages, including "lists", "quotes", "sections", and more.  This week, students will read Chapter 5 in our textbook, complete the accompanying reading guide, and our 10 multiple-choice questions.  Students will also show off how to incorporate lists and other elements in some sample web pages.

AP Computer Science Principles

This week, students will spend a little bit of time talking about the characteristics of a "strong" password.  Students will work on creating a short program to "hack" and guess a user's password based on a dictionary of possible words.  At the end of the week, students will work with the TKInter platform to learn a new way to create a graphic display for a python program.