Welcome to AP Computer Science Principles




Great job last week on your initial work with the Internet and Binary Messages!

This week we are going to be working on the following:

Introduction to AP Computer Science Principles Class

Introduction to Unit 1: The Internet

Introduction to Unit 6: AP Exam and Performance Task

To Think; To Develop Problem-Solving Skills; To Discover; and To Create;

Learning to Compute and Computing to Learn

Classroom Protocol:

 

This is where you will come every day to find out what we are going to do in class for that day. Every day you are to come to your Quia class web page upon arriving to class, go to your class web page, and follow the directions for today.

 

Homework Policy:

 

All assignments will be due on the deadline date given. It is the responsibility for all students to complete their assignments on time. Any assignments received late will not be accepted and a grade will not be given for that assignment.

Accessing your Class Weekly Agenda:

Each week’s agenda and assignments will be updated and posted on your Quia class web page on a weekly basis.  Previous weeks Assignments/Agendas will be provided with a link at the end of the current week’s Class Web Page in case you need to revisit due to an absence, or you’re required to make up, or catch up on your course assignments.

Homework Assignment: Daily homework assignments may be found at the end of each day’s agenda. Daily Journal Entries as seen in Daily Ticket to Leave are to be entered as part of your daily homework. All students will receive a homework grade on a weekly basis, and your journal will receive a project grade each mid-term and final semester.

 

IMPORTANT DATES:     Explore Performance Task:  8 hours

To Be Completed by December 22, 2017

 

This Week’s Agenda:

UNIT 1: The Internet: This unit begins exploring the technical challenges and questions that arise from the need to represent digital information in computers and transfer it between people and computational devices.

Topics include: the digital representation of information - numbers, text, images, and communication protocols.

In the second half of the unit, students solve problems similar ones that had to be solved to build the real Internet. Students design their own versions of protocols, each one layered on the previous one, in a process that mimics the layered sets of protocols on the real Internet. Topics include: the digital representation of numbers and text, Internet Protocol, DNS, and TCP/IP.

Chapter 1: Representing and Transmitting Information

Objectives

Students will be able to:

Big Questions

·         Why do computers use binary to represent digital information?

·         How does data physically get from one computer to another?

·         Are the ways data is represented and transmitted with computers laws of nature or laws of man?

Enduring Understandings

·         2.1 A variety of abstractions built upon binary sequences can be used to represent all digital data.

·         3.3 There are trade offs when representing information as digital data.

·         6.2 Characteristics of the Internet influence the systems built on it.

·         7.2 Computing enables innovation in nearly every field.

Vocabulary

 

UNIT 6: AP Performance Tasks

 

·         This unit contains lessons to help students with preparation and execution of the AP® Performance Tasks: Create and Explore

·         The lessons in this unit are meant to be taken piecemeal rather than as a typical unit sequence. Instead of a sequence of connected lessons, these represent a more modular breakdown of the things you need to do to:

1) Understand the AP Performance Tasks

2) Make a plan for completing the tasks in the time allotted and

3) Actually doing the tasks and submitting

 

Week 2: Monday Day G - 9-11-17 – Friday Day C – 9-15-2017

Lesson 6 – Sending Numbers

 

Standards Alignment

CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards

CT - Computational Thinking

Computer Science Principles

2.1 - A variety of abstractions built upon binary sequences can be used to represent all digital data.

2.3 - Models and simulations use abstraction to generate new understanding and knowledge.

3.1 - People use computer programs to process information to gain insight and knowledge.

6.2 - Characteristics of the Internet influence the systems built on it.


Objectives:

Students will be able to:

·         Describe how to use bits to create a functioning number system

·         Understand the relationship between the powers of 2 and the number of bits needed to express a number of a certain magnitude. e.g. How many bits do I need to represent the number “15”, or “32”, or “1492”?

·         Determine, for a given number of bits, both the number of possible numbers that can be represented and also the range of those numbers

·         Calculate the range of values that can be represented using binary numbers of a given size in bits.

·         Invent a simple communication protocol for sending a list of numbers that represent coordinates on a cartesian grid.

·         Use the Internet Simulator to send the list of points that make up the drawing to a friend.

Activator: Open up your Engineering Journal and review what you entered last class. Review the Standards, Objectives, above, for today’s lesson. Click on https://studio.code.org/ and log in. Locate the Unit 1: The Internet tile and click ‘View course’.

Direct Instruction:

1)   Review Binary Number System – Period 6 Students will teach those who missed Friday

Number systems help us express and reason about quantities. Early number systems were merely a system of tallies that allowed humans to record and perform simple arithmetic with values. The number system we use today uses the concept of place value to allow us to express any value we wish by combining only 10 symbols (0, 1, 2 …). We therefore call it a “base 10” number system. When developing a number system for a computer, we only have two symbols available to us, corresponding with the two states of a single bit. However, the power of place value allows our binary or “base 2” number system to express any value we wish.

When using this binary representation of numbers, certain values (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.) are seen repeatedly. When written in binary, these values are 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, and so on, and so are the incremental place values in this binary number system

Guided Practice: Lesson 5 – Binary Numbers – For AP Students who missed Friday

Tasks/Prompts to consider:

Students should:

If students finish early,  try out the Binary Game AppLab App - App.

 

Lesson 6 – Sending Numbers

 

Standards Alignment

CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards

CT - Computational Thinking

Computer Science Principles

2.1 - A variety of abstractions built upon binary sequences can be used to represent all digital data.

2.3 - Models and simulations use abstraction to generate new understanding and knowledge.

3.1 - People use computer programs to process information to gain insight and knowledge.

6.2 - Characteristics of the Internet influence the systems built on it.


Objectives:

Students will be able to:

·         Calculate the range of values that can be represented using binary numbers of a given size in bits.

·         Invent a simple communication protocol for sending a list of numbers that represent coordinates on a cartesian grid.

·         Use the Internet Simulator to send the list of points that make up the drawing to a friend.

Activator: Open up your Engineering Journal and review what you entered last class. Review the Standards, Objectives, above, for today’s lesson. Click on https://studio.code.org/ and log in. Locate the Unit 1: The Internet tile and click ‘View course’.

Direct Instruction:

1)   Review the following Internet Simulator Video:

Internet Simulator – Part 2

Guided Practice:

1)   Log into code.org and go to Stage 6 – Sending Numbers

2)   Click on the ‘File’ icon and read the introduction. You will also need to open the corresponding activity guides found at the bottom of the introduction. Save a copy of the guide to your Google Drive so that you will be able to submit to the Google Classroom Assignment.

3)   Make sure to clearly define with your partner the protocol you will be using on the activity guide which I have printed out for you.

4)   When you are ready each person of each team will secretly plot out the 5 point drawing on the graph activity sheet I have handed out to you.

5)   When ready each person of each team will use the internet simulator to send the coordinates of the points for their drawing to each other. Upon receiving the transmitted numbers you should plot the points on your graph paper and we will compare each plotted graph to see if the numbers were sent and received properly in order to determine how well your protocol worked.

6)   Depending on the results you may need to go back and refine the rules of your protocol to correct any problems that you encountered, and then try again with a different set up coordinates and a new drawing.

7)   Once successful you will need to exchange the rules of your protocol with another team and we will see if the team receiving your protocol can successfully execute your protocol with their partner and successfully use to complete the task.

Additional Questions: Now you should change your protocol as necessary to accomplish the next two tasks

Assessment for/of learning: Completion of today’s class assignment.

Summarizer: Mr. PC will review each day what each student accomplished and the focus of tomorrow.

Ticket to Leave:

In order to prepare you for your two AP CSP college-board performance tasks we need to get use to reflecting on our daily work and experiences. This is a skill that will prove to be useful when you go on to college, enter the workforce, and even in every aspect of your everyday life.  Every day at the end of class you should save your work, open up your journal, put down today’s date, and provide the following information.

1.   Provide at least on new thing that you learned today – Refer to today’s Objectives

2.   What did you accomplish today?

3.   Indicate any problems or obstacles you experienced

4.   How did you solve the problems or obstacles that you experienced?

Feel free to provide screen shots of your daily work in order to illustrate your day’s activities. Windows provides a Snipping Tool within its provided Accessories that may be used for this purpose.

Homework:

1)   Complete your ticket to leave journal entry. Complete answering the questions found in code.org for Stage 6.

2)   Submit your lesson activity guide to the online google assignment

3)   Continue working on your Explore Performance Task. Choose an article from your paper.li and choose a Computing Innovation which you will Explore according to the requirements of the Explore Performance Task. Be prepared to present to the rest of the class next week. Students will get a chance to use the Performance Task Rubric and Performance Tasks Samples to discuss and collaborate on ways in which we can improve on our task performance.

Explore PT Prep: Reviewing the Task

Objective:

·         Students will create a digital artifact tool to be used for collecting and researching new computing artifacts. This tool is to be used on a weekly basis for practice with the CollegeBoard’s Exploration of Computing Innovations Performance Task.

Activator: Open up your Engineering Journal and review what you entered last class. Review the Standards, Objectives, above, for today’s lesson.

Direct Instruction and Guided Practice: 

1)   Review the Explore Performance Task Rubric and Samples: Unit 6 of code.org

Explore PT Prep: Reviewing the Task

Explore Performance Task Rubric

2)   Mr. PC’s example of his paper.li account and newspaper.

Mr. PC’s Online Paper

 

Mr. PC’s EdTech Paper

3)   Create an account at paper.li

4)   Create a newspaper

5)   Research and add computing and technology links, urls, to your newspaper as feeds of information.

6)   Go to Google Sites, create a site, and add the url to your paper.li so it will be displayed

7)   Have the paper.li contents updated using settings

8)   Additional artifact resources found at the bottom of this class web page – Review with students

9)   Look at Summer Assignment submissions

10)               When you have finished you may begin your homework for today

Assessment for/of learning: Completion of today’s class assignment.

Summarizer: Mr. PC will review each day what each student accomplished and the focus of tomorrow.

Ticket to Leave:

In order to prepare you for your two AP CSP college-board performance tasks we need to get use to reflecting on our daily work and experiences. This is a skill that will prove to be useful when you go on to college, enter the workforce, and even in every aspect of your everyday life.  Every day at the end of class you should save your work, open up your journal, put down today’s date, and provide the following information.

1.   Provide at least on new thing that you learned today – Refer to today’s Objectives

2.   What did you accomplish today?

3.   Indicate any problems or obstacles you experienced

4.   How did you solve the problems or obstacles that you experienced?

Feel free to provide screen shots of your daily work in order to illustrate your day’s activities. Windows provides a Snipping Tool within its provided Accessories that may be used for this purpose.

Homework:

Ř Complete your ticket to leave journal entry.

Ř Choose an article from your paper.li and choose a Computing Innovation which you will Explore according to the requirements of the Explore Performance Task. Be prepared to present to the rest of the class next week. Students will get a chance to use the Performance Task Rubric and Performance Tasks Samples to discuss and collaborate on ways in which we can improve on our task performance.

Lesson 7 - Encoding and Sending Formatted Text

 

Standards Alignment

CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards

CT - Computational Thinking

Computer Science Principles

2.1 - A variety of abstractions built upon binary sequences can be used to represent all digital data.

2.3 - Models and simulations use abstraction to generate new understanding and knowledge.

3.1 - People use computer programs to process information to gain insight and knowledge.

6.2 - Characteristics of the Internet influence the systems built on it.

 

Objectives

Students will be able to:

 

Activator: Open up your Engineering Journal and review what you entered last class. Review the Standards, Objectives, above, for today’s lesson. Click on https://studio.code.org/ and log in. Locate the Unit 1: The Internet tile and click ‘View course’.

 

Direct Instruction:

In previous lessons we explored how to encode numbers in binary, and you also developed protocols for sending a list of numbers. Today we’re going to take that method one step further and look at how we can encode text with a binary representation. Hopefully you are beginning to realize that if we can figure out a way to represent information as a set of numbers, then we can encode it in bits and store that information in a computer or send it over the Internet

We can encode characters found in text using a standard encoding that is called the American Standard Code for Information Interchange or ASCII (pronoucned: “Ask-ee”).

A sample Ascii chart may be viewed by clicking on the following link:

ASCII Character Chart

Formatting Text Challenge: Create a protocol for encoding formatted text

 

Introduction:

“What if you wanted to send formatted text that included things like the ability to underline, bold, or italicize words....specify a different font size, or color?”

Today your challenge is to:

You will also notice that the Internet Simulator has been updated so that you can now type ASCII text characters to send

Directions

Work with your partner from last week to develop a protocol that allows you to send formatted text.

Guidelines

Both the text and the formatting instructions must be derived from the printable ASCII character set (i.e. codes 32-126).

Your protocol must encode at least:

Iteratively test your protocols to make sure that you have not overlooked any gaps in your protocol.

·         You will send a message and the recipient must be able to faithfully draw (or produce in some fashion) the formatted text, based only on the data she received. Here’s a sample message:

https://code.org/curriculum/docs/csp/U1L11-text-formatting-2.png

Develop Your Protocol

 

NOTE:  Make sure you document in detail your protocol for sending formatted text. You will be expected to demonstrate your protocol upon my return.

 

Also, you should be ready to present your Explore Performance Task on Friday. Good Luck and Have Fun!

Guided Practice: Tuesday and Wednesday Please Complete the Following

8)   With the same partners as last week do the following:

9)   Log into code.org and go to Stage 7 – Sending Formatted Text

10)               Click on the ‘File’ icon and read the introduction. You will also need to open the corresponding activity guides found at the bottom of the introduction.

11)               Make sure to clearly define with your partner the protocol you will be using on the activity guide.  

12)               Take the Unit 1 Assessment as found on code.org!

 Ticket to Leave:

In order to prepare you for your two AP CSP college-board performance tasks we need to get use to reflecting on our daily work and experiences. This is a skill that will prove to be useful when you go on to college, enter the workforce, and even in every aspect of your everyday life.  Every day at the end of class you should save your work, open up your journal, put down today’s date, and provide the following information.

1.   Provide at least on new thing that you learned today – Refer to today’s Objectives

2.   What did you accomplish today?

3.   Indicate any problems or obstacles you experienced

4.   How did you solve the problems or obstacles that you experienced?

Feel free to provide screen shots of your daily work in order to illustrate your day’s activities. Windows provides a Snipping Tool within its provided Accessories that may be used for this purpose.

Homework:

1)   Complete your ticket to leave journal entry. Complete answering the questions found in code.org for Stage 7.

2)   Complete the Unit 1 Assessment as found on code.org!

3)   Continue working on your Explore Performance Task. Choose an article from your paper.li and choose a Computing Innovation which you will Explore according to the requirements of the Explore Performance Task. Be prepared to present to the rest of the class next Monday. Students will get a chance to use the Performance Task Rubric and Performance Tasks Samples to discuss and collaborate on ways in which we can improve on our task performance.

 

Thanks for a great week!

Mr. PC 

 

 

Explore Performance Task Rubric

More Resources for finding computing innovations:

http://www.ted.com/talks

 

www.digg.com

 

http://www.teachersdomain.org

 

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

 

www.paper.li

 

Tools for building computing artifacts:

 

http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/

 

To Do: Create Digital Portfolios for Performance Tasks Submissions. Our goal is to complete our Explore Performance Task before the end of 2017.

·         Begin preparing for the May 11th Exam with practice exam questions from AP training google drive and the career board. Use online student response system for class review and discussion.

 

Unit 1 Vocabulary

 

Vocabulary

  

 AP CSP Week 1 Agenda