Week of June 14th - 18th, 2021

Here is the review sheet for the final exam.

Monday:
Everyone working their final project.  I will expect a journal entry for each project today.

Tuesday:
Everyone working their final project.  I will expect a journal entry for each project today.

Wednesday:

Review for final exam.

Slides for review.

Thursday:

Final exam. . . 

Final projects due:

- 5:00 PM code submitted via CMU website,  journals submitted via Google Classroom
- 7:00 PM. individual reflection submitted via Google Classroom

Friday:

1) We will demo everyone's final project for the class

2) Steve Jobs Stanford graduation speech video.  Well worth watching.  Seriously!

Here are some closing words:

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

- from "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver 

Adios!

Week of June 7th - 11th, 2021

Monday:
Rutgers testing -- all students remote today.

Flip day, period 2 then Rutgers, so only my regular 2nd period students will have PCT today.  I am taking a personal day, you will be expected to work on your design.

Note: code for your final project will go into CMU Section 8.2. If you are working by yourself, use the first project, labelled 'Create Performance Task'.  If you are working with a partner, use the second project, labelled 'Collaborative Create Performance Task'

Tuesday:
Final project design due by 6:00 PM today.

Here again is the link to the spreadsheet with the groups and projects.

Wednesday:

Everyone working on project -- you'll need to have a journal entry by the end of the day.

What is Rubber Duck Debugging?

Thursday:

Rutgers testing -- all students remote today.

Only my regular 1st period students will have PCT today.

Friday:
Everyone working on project --  you'll need to have a journal entry by the end of the day.  Remember that the final exam is next Thursday.  Here is the review sheet.

What's this a graph of?

May 31st - June 4th, 2021

Monday:
Memorial Day holiday, no school

Tuesday:

Introduce images and sounds, functions that return values.  Here are the slides.

Practice functions that return values with CodingBat

Wednesday:

Review for Unit 7 quiz.  Here's the review sheet.

Last class time to work on Unit 7 problems

Thursday:
Unit 7 quiz (45 minutes max)
Introduce final project. 

This video might give you some ideas.

Here is the spreadsheet to edit to indicate who (if anyone) you plan to work with, to provide a link to the journal you'll be keeping, and to indicate what you plan to make.

Friday:
Everyone working on final project design

(I will grade the Unit 7 problems at 5 PM today.)

Here is a review sheet for the final exam, which will be on Thursday, June 17th.

May 24th - 28th, 2021

Monday:

All-virtual day.  Everyone working on CMU Unit 7.

Please note that to be consistent with the first semester, I won't be giving any extra credit points for problems in this unit.

 The Unit 7 quiz will be on June 3rd.

Congratulations to Demetra for taking second place in the CMU CS Academy May Creative Task Challenge, in the CS Principles division!  Here is her winning entry.  Here is the first place entry, if you're curious about the competition.

Tuesday:

End hybrid instruction!  Cohorts A and B together at last. . .

Here are the Unit 7 slides.  We'll probably review some of them every day. 

Congratulations to Demetra for taking second place in the CMU CS Academy May Creative Task Challenge, in the CS Principles division!

Wednesday:

Everyone working on Unit 7. To stay on track, you should have finished 7.1 and 7.2 by this morning.

Thursday:

Your Machine Learning paper is due at 7:30 AM today, both on Google Classroom and turnitin.  Remember that the late penalty is 1% per day after this morning, until Tuesday morning at 7:30 AM, when it jump up to the district standard of 8% per day.  So a paper submitted at 7:29 AM Tuesday will be penalized 5%, and a paper submitted two minutes later will be penalized 13%. Don't tempt fate, get it done early!

Everyone working on Unit 7. To stay on track, you should have finished 7.3 by the end of today's class.

Friday:
Memorial Day, no school.  Take some time to thank a vet.

Week of May 17th - 21st, 2021

Monday:
Personal day for Mr. J.
Students who have completed problems in 5.4 and 5.5 can work on Machine Learning paper, due May 27th at 7:30 AM.

Here is a list of stuff you should know for the quiz tomorrow.

Here is the reference sheet for Unit 5. Paper copies were given to Cohorts A and B.  You can refer to it while taking the quiz.

Here are the slides from class.

Tuesday:
Unit 5.4 and 5.5 due at 7:30 AM
Quiz on Unit 5

Cohort A students can take a look at a computer motherboard after the quiz.

Wednesday:

Remember that the Machine Learning paper is due on Thursday, May 27th, at 7:30 AM.  Also remember that it was assigned about a month ago. . . don't wait, chip away at it now, and make yours one that you will be proud of.  This might provide some inspiration. (13:56)

Cohort B students can take a look at a computer motherboard while watching the videos,

Overview of computer history:

Early Computing: Crash Course Computer Science #1 (11:52) Overview of computing up until the early 1900s

How an 1803 Jacquard Loom Led to Computer Technology (1:56)

The greatest machine that never was (12:14) Babbage, Lovelace, and Turing
Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine #2 (5:47) shows the Difference Engine #2 in action

Thursday:

More computer history:
Electronic Computing: Crash Course Computer Science #2 (10:43) From about 1900 to the beginning of the transistor era

The Queen of Code (16:30) Grace Hopper was a serious badass.
ENIAC (0:38)
SAGE (just watch up to 6:55, the stuff after that is fairly irrelevant)

Friday:

How Computers Work:

Now we've learned a little about the early days of computing, from the abacus and Charles Babbage's analytical engine to the WW2 era Mark-I and ENIAC, and the gigantic SAGE computers built using vacuum tubes.  How do you get from that to a smartphone in your pocket?  The answer is the transistor, and the integrated circuit that combines millions or billions of transistors into a smallish chip.  Here is a circuit board that has several chips on it -- those black square things:

Grind the top off one of those chips and it looks like this:

Take a closer look at the little square in the middle with the tiny wires:

Zoom in:

Zoom in more with an electron microscope (not the same chip as above):

So, how do you make something like this?  It's built up in many layers using a very complex technique called photolithograpy.  This gives a pretty good picture:
Integrated Circuits and Moore's Law: Crash Course in Computer Science (12:40 + promo at the end)
How do they make silicon wafers and computer chips? (8:53)
50 Years of Moore's Law (2:03)
Zoom into a microchip (3:40)

Zoom in on the chip in your cell phone  (0:32)

So, how does all this actually work?  Let me try to explain . . .
Here is a copy of the slides I'll be going through (updated).
Demo the Visible Computer.

Begin CMU Unit 7 in remaining time.

Week of May 10th - 14th, 2021

Note: I will be out next Monday May 17th.  Problems from Unit 5.4 and 5.5 will not be graded until Tuesday morning at 7:30 AM.  The Unit 5 quiz will be on Tuesday, rather than Monday.

Monday:

Review 5.3 concepts: iterating through lists, indexing into lists,  using % and len(), using range() with one parameter

Continue to work on CMU Unit 5.3.

Tuesday:

Review 5.3 concepts: list methods append(), insert(), remove(),  pop()

Continue to work on CMU Unit 5.3

Wednesday:

5.3 problems due at 7:30 AM today.

Begin working on Unit 5.4

Note -- I think the 'juicer' problem in 5.5 is way too tricky for one lousy point.  Here's a hint:

 if powerButton.hits(mouseX, mouseY):

   for nxt in app.fruitsToBlend:

     Rect(175, 210, 65, 90, fill=nxt.color, opacity=100/(1+len(app.fruitsToBlend)))

     nxt.visible = False

Thursday:

Review concepts from Unit 5.4: types and type errors,  input() and app.getTextInput(), int() and str(), strings, concatenation, looping, and indexing strings

Friday:

Review for quiz Tuesday.  Here are the slides I presented in class. Here is a list of stuff you should know.  Here is the reference sheet for Unit 5. Paper copies were given to Cohorts A and B.  You can refer to it while taking the quiz.

Remainder of Unit (5.4 and 5.5 problems) due at 7:30 AM Tuesday.

CMU Kahoots from their CS1 course - some different material

CS1, Unit 4

CS1, Unit 6 (includes some stuff we haven't discussed yet)

CS1, Unit 7 (again, includes some stuff we haven't discussed)

Week of May 3rd - 7th, 2021

Monday:

Working on CMU Unit 5.2 - finish problems from 5.2 by Tuesday morning

Please skim this paper before our video conference on Thursday.  It's by an Allied grad who's now an MD, talking about how they apply machine learning to medicine.  You don't have to read it in detail, but look it over enough to get the main idea. It's challenging, but if you spend some time on it, you could use it as one of the examples in your machine learning paper.

Tuesday:
'Gallery Walk' of Unit 4 Creative Tasks

Finish problems from 5.2.2 and 5.2.4 by 7:30 AM today

Begin CMU Unit 5.3. Problems from 5.3 will be due next Tuesday May 11th at 7:30 AM

Wednesday:
Videos and discussion: data, medicine, and machine learning

Continue working with CMU Unit 5.3 problems.

Here is a review sheet for unit 5, which may be helpful as a reference for list methods.  Students who are in school can get a paper copy.

Thursday:
Continue working with CMU Unit 5.3 problems.

Video conference with Dr. Matt MacLean 8:30 - 9:30

Friday:

Personal day for Mr. J.

'Getting Started with Machine Learning' due 7:30 AM

Remember that the actual paper is due Thursday, May 27th at 7:30.

Week of April 26th - 30th, 2021

Monday:
Quiz on CMU Unit 4.  Here's the review sheet.

Here are the Kahoots we used in class on Friday:

          Unit 2.  Unit 3.  Unit 4.

Work on 'Getting Started with Machine Learning Paper' or Creative Task in remaining time.
Creative task and reflection due 5:00 PM today. 

Tuesday:
Introduce Unit 5 concepts: lists and loops (first six slides only, for now. .  .)

Begin work on Unit 5

Wednesday:
Everyone working on Unit 5 problems

Thursday:
Everyone working on Unit 5 problems

Finish problems from 5.1.2 and 5.1.4 by 7:30 AM Friday

Friday:

Finish problems from 5.1.2 and 5.1.4 by 7:30 AM today.

Finish problems from 5.2.2 and 5.2.4 by 7:30 AM Tuesday May 4th 

Remember that 'Getting Started with Machine Learning' project is due next Friday May 7th at 7:30 AM.

Week of April 19th - 23rd, 2021

Monday:

Everyone working on Creative Task

Tuesday:

Begin discussion of AI:
Smartest Machine On Earth  (49:08 - via Edpuzzle - there are two places where I call your attention to what they're about to discuss, at 19:28 and 28:00)

Discuss: Strong vs Weak AI, Turing Test

Mitsuku chatbot

Google Duplex - haircut appointment (2:10)
Google Duplex - restaurant reservation (0:54)

AI vs AI, Two Chatbots Talking to Each Other (1:24)

Introduce Machine Learning Paper and Getting Started with Machine Learning Paper assignments

Wednesday:

Watch 'Coded Bias' movie

Thursday:

Continue with AI discussion, focus on social impacts:

Finish 'Coded Bias'

Humans Need Not Apply (15:00)

The Surveillance State (20:01 - via EdPuzzle.  This is an excerpt from In the Age of AI, an excellent 2 hour PBS program.  I encourage you to watch the whole thing, but I just can't afford that much class time.)

Friday:

Review for Unit 4 Quiz (next Monday)

Here is the review sheet.
Work on 'Getting Started with Machine Learning Paper' or Creative Task in remaining time.

Creative task and reflection due 5:00 PM Monday.

Week of April 12th - 16th, 2021

HTHS is sponsoring a hackathon.  Some AAHS kids have participated in the past and really enjoyed it.  Check it out here.

Monday:

Introduce Unit 4 creative task

Continue to work on Unit 4 problems

Tuesday:

Opportunity to ask questions before the midterm.  Here again is a link to the review sheet.

Continue to work on Unit 4 problems

Wednesday:

Midterm exam

Remember that today is a regular school day (not shortened), with cohort A physically present!  A step towards normalcy. . . 

Thursday:

Give a preview of the Groups capabilities from Unit 5, which you can use in your Unit 4 project if you want to.

Everyone working on the creative task once you've submitted your plan

Friday:

Unit 4 problems at 7:30 AM.

Creative task plan due by 4 PM

Everyone working on the creative task.

Here are some particularly good Unit 4 projects from last semester:

https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/sharing/bisqueElephant7428

https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/sharing/coralAlligator7613

https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/sharing/turquoiseGiraffe0703

https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/sharing/azureZebra1891

https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/sharing/forestGreenLobster4716

Week of April 5th - 9th, 2021

Remember that all students are remote this week!

Monday:
No school, last day of spring break:

Tuesday:
Welcome back!
Review concepts from CMU through 4.4: functions, mouse events, properties, if/else conditionals
Everyone working on CMU problems from Unit 4.3 and 4.4.  

Wednesday:

(Shorter classes today: P1 is 8:00 to 9:00 and P2 is 9:05 to 10:05)

Current event #2, group 4 due today:

P1: Sukriti, Mary, Lili W., Audrey

P2: Ella, Hanna, Matthew, Ava, Kayla
Remember to enter your topic here and be sure no one else from your period is already doing it.

Thursday:

CMU problems from Unit 4.3 and 4.4. due at 7:30 AM today.

The remainder of the Unit 4 problems will be due next Wednesday, April 14th, at 7:30 AM.  Remember that next week is also midterms week, and plan ahead!

Friday:

Give out review sheet for midterm next week.

Continue to work on CMU Unit 4.

Week of March 22nd - 26th, 2021

Note that we will be doing current events on Tuesday this week instead of Wednesday, due to the International Fair.

Monday:

Review test from last Thursday.

'Gallery Walk' of Unit 3 Creative Tasks

Everyone working on CMU Units 4.1 and 4.2.  The problems from these units are due Thursday morning.

Tuesday:

Current Events group #3 due today:

P1: Vansh, Zachary, Elizabeth, Avinash

P2: Ayushi, Revanth, Erica, Aarya, Jasmin

Remember to enter your topic here and be sure no one else from your period is already doing it.

Everyone working on CMU Unit 4.

Wednesday:
International Fair.  Be sure to submit your response to the attendance question.

Thursday:
Continue to work on CMU Unit 4.

Friday:

Problems from CMU Units 4.1 (Functions) and 4.2 (Mouse Events) are due at 7:30 AM.  Don't skip 4.2.5, you'll want to know how to use mouse move and mouse drag.

Continue to work on CMU Units 4.3 and 4.4. 

Problems from Unit 4.3 and 4.4 will be due at 7:30 AM on Thursday, April 8th, after we return from Spring Break. You will also have class time on Tuesday, April 6th, and some time on Wednesday April 7th, after group 4 presents their current events.

Have a great break, see you April 6th!

Week of March 15th - 19th, 2021

Monday:

Complete at least 6 points from 3.4 exercises by this morning at 7:30 AM.

Creative task planning assignment - due by 7:30 AM today.

Everybody working on creative task - code and reflection due by 7:30 Friday morning.

I want to call your attention to the rubric I'll be using to grade the creative tasks.  This is copied from the assignment in Google Classroom:

• demonstrates mastery of many or most of the drawing elements you've seen so far - 30%

• it seems like you put in a diligent and persistent effort - 30%

• code is well-commented, so that it's easy to determine what part of the picture is being drawn by any piece of code  - 20%

• project is creative and ambitious - 20%

Tuesday:

Begin work with REPL.IT and Guessing Game.  Everyone who was been physically present in class last Friday or Monday/Tuesday of this week should have picked up a paper copy of the slides, which might make this a little easier.  If you're in cohort C, here is a link if you want to print it yourself. 

Wednesday:

Current Events group #2 due today:

P1: Nickolas H., Amrita, Ramisha, Thomas
P2: Jake, Kaylin, Lily H., Charlize, Omar
Remember to enter your topic here and be sure no one else from your period is already doing it.

Before class today, everyone needs to read 'The Way of The Program' and complete the vocabulary worksheet in the Google Classroom assignment.  You don't need to do the exercises at the end of the reading.

Review for test on unit 3 of CMU material.

Here's a video from CMU for some additional review.

Thursday:

Test on CMU Unit 3

Work on Creative Task and reflection when you've finished the test.

Friday:
Creative task and reflection due by 7:30 this morning.

Work on Guessing Game with REPL.IT

Problems from CMU Units 4.1 (Functions) and 4.2 (Mouse Events) will be due at 7:30 AM on Thursday morning of next week.

Note that if you're doing a current event next week, we will do them on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, due to the International Fair on Wednesday.

Week of March 8th - 12th, 2021

Please note that I am trying to keep people making good progress with the CMU CS Academy work, but I do not want it to become overwhelming.  If you discover that you cannot comfortably keep up the pace I have set, you must let me know! If you cannot complete an assignment, let me know via email ahead of time -- no later than 9 PM the evening before it's due.

You aren't required to do more than the minimal number of points for each section, but it will help you master the concepts.

Monday:

Complete at least 4 points worth of exercises from CMU section 3.1.5 by 7:30 this morning.

Continue with CMU CS Academy work today on 3.1.6 and 3.1.7. 

Tuesday:

Complete section 3.1, 'Drawing Basics': do at least 3 points worth of exercises from the CMU section 3.1.7 by 7:30 this morning.

If you've finished the CMU stuff and are looking for more,  try CodeHS. It takes a different approach which I think will complement the CMU material. Create yourself an account at https://codehs.com/go/11051, give it a try, and let me know what you think.

Wednesday:

Current Events group #1 due today:
P1: Arsh, Nicole, Nicholas D., Stavros, Demetra
P2: Fazal, Kunal, Marissa, Sophia, Madelyn, Syon
Remember to enter your topic here and be sure no one else from your period is already doing it.

Complete at least 4 points of exercises from CMU section 3.2.2 by 7:30 this morning.

Thursday:

Introduce 'Creative Task'

Complete at least 3 points worth of exercises from the CMU section 3.2.4 by 7:30 this morning.  Also do 3.2.5, 'Regular Polygons and Stars'.

Work on Unit 3 exercises: complete at least 6 points from 3.4 exercises by next Monday at 7:30 AM.

Friday:

Work on Unit 3 exercises.  When you have completed at least 6 points worth, go on to the Creative Task.

Week of March 1st - 5th, 2021

Monday:
Computer Pioneers paper due 7:30 AM - in Google Classroom and also turnitin.
Finish up computer security unit: SolarWinds

Here's a good current event if you need one (make sure no one in your period already took it)

China Appears to Warn India: Push Too Hard and the Lights Could Go Out

Introduce programming.

Video: Why learn to code?

In class, please register for the CMU Computer Science Academy.  
First period, use  https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/new-student/KW21-SW64
Second period, use  https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/new-student/JK94-ZG29
When you register, please use the first 5 letters of your last name, followed by a hyphen, followed by your first initial.  If your last name has fewer than 5 letters, please pad it out to 5 letters with the letter z.  So I would register as Judki-A.  If I was Steve Jobs, I would register as Jobsz-S.  If I was Bill Gates, I would registers as Gates-B.

(These names are not publicly visible, BTW.)

Tuesday:

Begin Pioneer presentations.  Everyone needs to be ready to go, even though we may not get to everyone today.

Share review material for test on Friday.

Wednesday:

(Shorter classes today: P1 is 8:00 to 9:00 and P2 is 9:05 to 10:05)

Current Events group #2 due today:

P1: Sukriti, Mary, Lili W., Audrey

P2: Ella, Hanna, Matthew, Ava, Kayla
Remember to enter your topic here and be sure no one else from your period is already doing it.

Complete pioneer presentations

Thursday:

Opportunity to ask questions about test materials

Work on CMU CS Academy in remaining time

Friday:

Test on analog/digital world, the Internet, and computer security.

Week of February 22nd - 26th, 2021

Monday:
Khan Academy: ' Scalable systems', 'The Internet protocol suite',  'Open protocol development', 'The digital divide', 'The Internet: Quiz 3', and 'The Internet: Unit test' will be due by 7:30 AM.

Wrap up 'The Web and The Cloud'

Begin unit 3: Basic principles of computer security, malware, privacy, and cyberwar.

Essential Questions:

• How does the pervasiveness of networked computers affect our personal safety and privacy?
• How does the pervasiveness of networked computers affect our national security?

Discussion: how have you been affected by computer security issues? Students list ways to avoid getting malware on their computers.

Tuesday:

For this morning, read the following: (it looks like a lot but these are short):

• New Fast-Spreading Virus takes Internet by Storm(1999)
• Slammed! An inside view of the worm that crashed the Internet in 15 minutes (2003)  (If wired.com says that you have read all your articles for this month, try again with your browser in incognito mode, delete your wired.com cookies, or try a different browser.)
• The Facebook Virus Spreads: No Social Network is Safe (2008)
• What is a Drive-By Download? (2013)
• New Jersey hospital chain pays attackers to thwart ransomware incident (2019)

Wednesday:
Current Events group #3 due today:

P1: Vansh, Zachary, Elizabeth, Avinash

P2: Ayushi, Revanth, Erica, Aarya, Jasmin

Remember to enter your topic here and be sure no one else from your period is already doing it.

Career and Technical Education Day - shortened classes

Thursday:

For this morning, read the following:

• How Phishing Works (from HowStuffWorks)
• Creepster of the Week: Webcam Hijacker Gets Six Year Sentence (2011)
• What is a keylogger?
• Health Insurer Anthem is Hacked, Exposing Millions of Patients' Data (2015)
• Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They're Not Keeping It Secret (2018) (this is long -- take a look, but just skimming it is ok)

We will do this Google phishing quiz together

Friday:

• How Zombie Networks Fuel Cybercrime (2004)
• The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History (2018 - long but worthwhile) (This one has a really bad word, repeated three times. I wish people wouldn't do that, because outside of that it tells an important story really well.) If wired.com says that you have read all your articles for this month, try again with your browser in incognito mode, or try a different browser.
• Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet (2016) . (try this link if the other isn't working. . . )

Remember that the Computer Pioneers project is due next Monday morning at 7:30!

Week of February 15th - 19th, 2021

Monday:
No school, President's Day weekend

Tuesday:
Internet vocabulary assignment due.

Also, read 'Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends World Wide Web'.  Please ignore the bad word.

Continue to discuss TCP/IP and Internet technology

Wednesday:

(Shorter classes today: P1 is 8:00 to 9:00 and P2 is 9:05 to 10:05)

Khan Academy: 'Introducing the Internet', 'Connecting Networks', 'Addressing the Internet', and 'The Internet: Quiz 1' due by 7:30 AM today.

Current Events group #2 due today:

P1: Nickolas H., Amrita, Ramisha, Thomas
P2: Jake, Kaylin, Lily H., Charlize, Omar
Remember to enter your topic here and be sure no one else from your period is already doing it.

Internet 'try-at-home' experiments: demo nslookup, ping, traceroute, telnet, WireShark, etc.

Thursday:
Continue discussion of Internet technology.

(Back-to-school is tonight, online at 6:30)

Friday:

Khan Academy: 'Routing with redundancy', 'Transporting packets', 'Web Protocols', and 'The Internet: Quiz 2' due by 7:30 AM today.

Begin 'The Web and The Cloud'.  Essential questions:

• How does a search engine work?
• What do companies like Google know about us, and what do they do with that information?
• What is 'the cloud'?

Khan Academy: ' Scalable systems', 'The Internet protocol suite',  'Open protocol development', 'The digital divide', 'The Internet: Quiz 3', and 'The Internet: Unit test' will be due by 7:30 AM next Monday, February 22nd.