Welcome to
AP Computer Science Principles
Great
job last week on your initial work with Rapid Prototyping and Binary Messages!
This week we are going to be working on the following:
Continuation
of Unit 1: The Internet
Introduction
to 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: Saturday November 17th @ Bay Path HS
Saturday February 2nd @ Auburn HS
Saturday April 6th Mock Exam @ your school
Explore Performance Task: 8
hours
To
Be Completed by December 22, 2017
This
Week’s Agenda:
UNIT 1 Overview: The Internet:
This
unit explores the technical challenges and questions that arise from the need to
represent digital information in computers and transfer it between people and
computational devices. The unit then explores the structure and design of the
internet and the implications of those design decisions.
In
this unit students learn how computers represent all kinds of information and
how the Internet allows that information to be shared with millions of people.
The
first chapter explores the challenges and questions that arise when representing
information in a computer or sending it from one computer to another. It begins
by investigating why on-off signals, also known as binary signals, are used to
represent information in a computer. It then introduces the way common
information types like text and numbers are represented using these binary
signals. Finally, it illustrates the importance of establishing shared
communication rules, or protocols, for successfully sending and receiving
information.
In
the second chapter, students learn how the design of the internet allows
information to be shared across billions of people and devices. Making frequent
use of the Internet Simulator, they explore the problems the original designers
of the internet had to solve and then students “invent” solutions. To
conclude the unit, students research a modern social dilemma driven by the
ubiquity of internet and the way it works.
Chapter 1: Representing and Transmitting Information
Big Questions
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.
Chapter 2: Inventing the Internet
Big Questions
Enduring Understandings
·
2.1 A variety of abstractions built upon
binary sequences can be used to represent all digital data.
·
6.1 The Internet is a network of
autonomous systems.
·
6.2 Characteristics of the Internet
influence the systems built on it.
·
7.3 Computing has a global affect -- both
beneficial and harmful -- on people and society.
Explore - AP
Performance Task Prep
·
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
Tuesday
Day E - 9-4-18 – Friday Day H – 9-7-2018
Tuesday Day E - 9-4-18
Lesson
3: Sending Binary Messages with the Internet Simulator
CL – Collaboration
CT - Computational Thinking
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.
3.3 - There are trade-offs when representing information as digital
data.
6.1 - The Internet is a network of autonomous systems.
6.2 - Characteristics of the Internet influence the systems built on
it.
Direct
Instruction:
Last week you all made your own
binary message devices.
We
learned that we could compose any number of messages by sending a sequence of
states.
In
order to interpret the message we needed to know
What we were really doing was
beginning to develop a communication protocol
Today you’re going to develop a
protocol to solve a problem.
The
following demonstration can be done in two ways:
Instructions:
“Imagine
that you and your friend have made a binary signaling protocol using a
flashlight. The light on is state A, off is state B.”
Test
1
“Your
friend sends you this message. What is being signaled here? Write down what you
think the message is.”
Test
2
“Uh oh! Your friend realizes she
actually made a mistake encoding the message from before and decides to re-send
the message. Decode this new version of the message and write it down.”
Guided Practice:
Discussion
Lead a discussion that explores the
assumptions made when decoding these messages, and more importantly, explores
what information they would need in order to decode it.
Quick
Vocabulary
We need to get some terminology down
so that we can speak about our problems and solutions more efficiently.
·
Protocol -
For our purposes today a “protocol” is simply a set of rules about sending,
receiving and interpreting binary messages.
·
Bit
- We will call each element of a binary message a bit. “Bit” is
short for binary digit. So for example if you have a binary message A
B B A, we would say that is a 4-bit message.
Today you and your partner will be
developing a protocol for exchanging 2-bit messages using an Internet
Simulator.
It
is likely that they will have uncovered most of the properties of the simulator,
but if they haven’t you can explain now.
The
challenge of today’s activity is to figure out a way to coordinate
actions with your partner to make this tool into a functioning two-way
bit-sending device.
Experiment:
Coordination and Single-Bit Protocols
Students
experiment with sending a single bit and develop protocols that allow them to
send more complex messages with more bits.
1)
Log
into code.org and view your class. Go to stage 3. You will need to work with a
partner
2)
Within
code.org studio click on the lesson file in stage 3, read the introduction, and
open, save, and follow the directions in the activity guide.
The activity guide should be filled out and attached to the assignment
found on your Google Classroom. Thanks
3)
Watch
the following video that will show you how to use the Internet Simulator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn6Fd5uwZno&feature=youtu.be
4)
It’s
recommended that partners who want to send data to each other sit close together
so they can talk, even though they need to be on different computers.
5)
Report
what you have discovered about the Internet Simulator and the protocol you
developed in order to meet the requirements of the Activity Guide.
The
2-bit Message Exchange Challenge!
Students will practice relaying a
2-bit sequence with their partners. The goal is to exchange 2-bit messages
(partner sends a 2-bit message, other partner sends a 2-bit message back) as
quickly and accurately as possible. In other words, students are trying to get
the fastest bit rate possible.
Rules
for the Challenge:
1)
Watch
the The
Internet: Wires, Cables & WiFi - Video
Discussion:
Relate
what’s shown in the video to what students had to do in the previous two
lessons:
If
students have not already done so, they should calculate the fastest bit rate
they were able to achieve. Lead a quick classroom discussion about the following
topics, using these prompts:
2)
Answer
the questions for Stage 3 of this unit of study in code.org
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. Make sure to provide
as much detail as possible and provide a response for each numbered statement
below. You may want to copy the four statements below to your engineering
notebook for each daily entry.
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:
Ø
Complete
your ticket to leave journal entry. Complete answering the questions found in
code.org for Stage 3.
Ø
Make
sure to attach your Lesson 3 activity guide to the assignment found on your
Google classroom.
Ø
Review
all vocabulary introduced to date and make sure you understand each definition
in preparation for your weekly quiz.
Wednesday Day F - 9-5-18
Objective:
1)
Describe
the major components of the Explore PT
2)
Describe
how the Explore PT Scoring Guidelines will be used to assess the task
3)
Identify
remaining questions about the Explore PT
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 Explore - AP Performance Task Prep
Direct
Instruction and Guided Practice:
The Explore PT is in many ways straightforward: you perform
research on a computing innovation and present your findings. As you dig into
the details of the task, however, you quickly come across some of the nuances of
individual components of the task and how they're scored. This lesson is
designed to introduce what these nuances are, and begin to provide some answers
to the questions that will inevitably arise. Keep in mind that the next lesson
provides a more structured set of responses to those questions, and so today
students are just diving in to what the task looks like.
Today we're going to start looking
more deeply at the Explore PT, focusing specifically on understanding:
Don't worry, you already have much
of the knowledge and skills you need to do well on this task. The hardest part
might be just understanding what is required of you.
First, we'll quickly read the task
description and look at some examples and how they were scored.
AP CSP Performance
Task Directions for Students - College Board Student Handout
1.
Read
and then discuss with a partner (1) the "Submission Requirements"
section on pages 5-6, and (2) the scoring guidelines on pages 22-23. For the
scoring guidelines you can focus only on the first 3 columns for now:
"Reporting Category", "Task", "Scoring Criteria".
We'll dive into the decision rules later. Just get familiar with these
documents.
After reading discuss with a
partner:
2.
With
a partner examine the two documents below:
NOTE: This
is a raw student submission - exactly what the student uploaded for their
computational artifact and written responses. Read it first. Then with your
partner spend a few minutes reviewing this exemplar. Be ready to share out the
following answers.
Discuss: Ask
partners to spend a couple of minutes specifically discussing the prompts above.
Then have the whole class quickly share the results of their discussion.
3.
Annotated
Explore PT Sample:
CB Explore PT -
Sample C (8/8) -
Annotated PT Sample
With
your partner look over this annotated version of the sample to see how each row
of the scoring guidelines was applied. You should be reading specifically
to answer any of the questions you had about the task earlier.After looking it
over we will discuss:
4.
Explore
PT Annotated Samples D and E
Let's now take a look at some
samples that didn't get a perfect score.
Prompt: With
your partner look at these samples - you can pick which to look at first. As you
review this task with a partner ask yourself:
5.
Look
at Explore tasks submitted by students in previous years.
Ask students how they think they scored.
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:
Complete
your ticket to leave journal entry.
Thursday Day G - 9-6-18
Lesson
5 – Binary Numbers and Lesson 6 – Sending Numbers
CT - Computational Thinking
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.
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:
Ø
Review
Binary Number System
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
Students
should:
If
students finish early, try out the Binary
Game AppLab App - App.
Lesson
6 – Sending Numbers
CT - Computational Thinking
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.
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:
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
Friday Day H - 9-7-18
CL – Collaboration
CT - Computational Thinking
2.1 - A variety of abstractions built upon binary sequences can be used to
represent all digital data.
2.2 - Multiple levels of abstraction are used to write
programs or create other computational artifacts