Week of February 1st - 5th, 2021

 

Welcome to Principles of Computer Technology for Spring 2021! 

“We live in a time exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.  This is a clear prescription for disaster.”  
- Carl Sagan

Monday:
Welcome! Discuss rules and expectations, course outline, current events assignment, "Good Questions" homework for Wednesday.

Here is the main presentation from today (ctemc.org login required)

Tuesday:

'Introduce yourself with FlipGrid' assignment due by 5:00 PM today, so that I can review them before tomorrow's class.
Begin unit 1: Digital Representation of Real World Information.  Here is the presentation we'll be using for the next few classes (ctemc.org login required)
Essential Questions:

• How can a computer work with so many kinds of information if all it can do is process ones and zeroes?

• How can a computer turn physical phenomena like sound and pictures into ones and zeroes?

• How can a computer turn ones and zeroes into physical phenomena like pictures and sounds?

Ones and zeroes: introduce binary/hex numbers

Wednesday:

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

'Ask some good questions' assignment due by 7:30 AM today.

First we will complete whatever is left from Tuesday's class up through the slides on binary search.  

Introduce 'Wine Bottle Riddle'.

You may have some class time to work on Khan Academy.  The Khan Academy units on 'Bits and Bytes' and 'Binary Numbers' as well as 'Digital Information: Quiz #1' is due by tomorrow morning.
Here is an online quiz that will give you practice converting between decimal, hex, and binary numbers.  It also includes octal (base 8) but you can skip them. . . 

Thursday:

Today is a flip day -- P2 is 7:45 to 9:00, and P1 is from 9:05 to 10:20.

Khan Academy 'Bits and Bytes', 'Binary Numbers', and 'Digital Information: Quiz #1'  due by 7:30 AM today

For all the Khan Academy quizzes, you can continue to retake them until you are satisfied with your score, up until the due date and time of the assignment.

Begin talking about digital encoding - sounds, pictures, videos.  We'll continue to use the slides from Tuesday.

Friday:

Continue talking about digital encoding.

Khan Academy 'Limitations of storing numbers', 'Storing text in binary', 'Converting analog data to binary' and 'Digital Information: Quiz 2' due by 7:30 Monday.

Week of January 25th - 29th, 2021

Monday:

Everyone working their final project.

Tuesday:
Remote learning for AAHS grades 9, 10, and 12, so that 11th graders can take the PSAT.

Everyone working their final project.

Wednesday:

Final projects submitted via CMU,  journals submitted via Google Classroom - due 7:30 AM

Review for final exam.  Here again is the review sheet.

Slides for review.

Final project reflection due 5:00 PM

Thursday:
Final exam!

Please complete this survey when you're done.

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

2) Steve Jobs Stanford graduation speech video.

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 

Week of January 18th - 22nd, 2021

Monday:
MLK Holiday, no class

Tuesday:
Final Project Design Document due by 7:30 AM

Introduce Rubber Duck debugging.

Begin working on final project code, make sure you create a journal entry at the end of class

For your convenience, here is a link to the spreadsheet that will take you to the journal links

Wednesday:
Everyone working on final project code, make sure you create a journal entry at the end of class

Thursday:
Everyone working on final project code, make sure you create a journal entry at the end of class

Friday:
Everyone working on final project code, make sure you create a journal entry at the end of class

Give out review sheet for final exam.  The exam will be next Thursday.

You will also have next Monday and Tuesday to work on your project.  Projects and journals are due Wednesday morning, and your reflection is due Wednesday afternoon.

Week of January 11th - 15th, 2021

Monday:

I expect you to have completed CMU Unit 7.3 Step Events and started 7.4 by the end of today's class.

Introduce Soldering (optional): 

How To Solder video

Discuss basic electronics - circuits, resistors, capacitors, LEDs, transistors

Read 'Soldering is Easy' handout

 
Tuesday:

I expect you to have completed CMU Unit 7.4 Libraries by the end of today's class.

Optional soldering lab for cohort A students

Wednesday:
I expect you to have completed CMU Unit 7.5 Using Media and 2 points worth of exercises from 7.6 by the end of today's class.

Here again is a link to the unit 7 slides that we looked at today.

Thursday:

Optional soldering lab for cohort B students

Introduce the final project.  Begin working on design document.

Please enter your name (and your partner, if any) in this spreadsheet.  When you have an idea what you want to build, enter that here too.  Also, make a shared google doc for your team, give me editor access, and enter a link to it in the spreadsheet as well.  This will be the document you use as your journal, and it should have an entry for every class day until you submit your project.

Friday:

I will grade your Unit 7 work this morning before class begins

Everyone working on the design document for the final project.  It's due by Tuesday morning at the beginning of class.  Once you have submitted your design, you can go ahead and start on the actual programming.  Remember to include a brief journal entry for every day you are doing programming, as described in the project description.

Week of January 4th - 8th, 2021

Monday:
Finish up overview of how computer history, and how they work . . .
Here is a copy of the slides I'll be going through (updated).
Demo the Visible Computer.

We are going to start in with Unit 7 of the CMU material this week, since we are all going to be online.  I will go easy on the pace, understanding that the machine learning paper is due Friday morning, so the programming assignments for the week should be easy to complete during class time. Note that you are encouraged to do more than the minimum number of points for the Unit 7 exercises, but I will not be giving any more extra credit, I have already gone way overboard in that department!
Introduce CMU Unit 7 material

Tuesday:

Continue working on Unit 7.

Wednesday:
Complete 7.1.3 exercises (compound and nested conditionals) by end of  today's class. 

Thursday:
Complete 7.2.2 exercises (onKeyPress) by end of today's class. 

Friday:
Machine learning paper due by 7:30, on Google Classroom and also via turnitin.  Consult the assignment for a reminder about how late papers are handled.

Complete 7.2.4 exercises (onKeyHold)  and begin 7.3.3 exercises (Step Events) by end of today's class.   Next Tuesday will be the last class time dedicated to working on Unit 7, so please continue to make progress.