ICS Lesson Notes

Lesson #

Date

8/18/14

8/19/14

8/21/14

8/25/14

8/26/14

8/28/14

9/2/14

9/4/14

9/5/14

9/9/14

9/11/14

9/12/14

9/16/14

9/18/14

9/19/14

9/23/14

9/25/14

9/26/14

9/30/14

10/2/14

10/3/14

10/7/14

10/9/14

10/14/14

10/15/14

10/16/14

10/21/14

10/23/14

10/24/14

10/27/14

10/28/14

10/30/14

11/4/14

11/6/14

11/7/14

11/11/14

11/13/14

11/14/14

11/18/14

11/20/14

11/21/14

11/24-11/28

12/2/14

12/4/14

12/5/14

12/9/14

12/11/14

12/12/14

12/16/14

12/18/14

12/19/14

Duration

90/45 min

15 min

Teacher Activities

First day of school (15 min/class)

- Presentation - PCS Highlights (in G-Drive, PCS Stage)

- Emphasize: TECH Expectations

- Presentation: PCS Intro (in G-Drive, PCS Stage)

- Re-emphasize TECH. Cover pair work, grades, SOUL

- Show Snap website: snap.berkeley.edu

- GUI elements

- short program to draw square

- Ask students to go online and explore the Snap environment

- as a minimum - ask students to draw a house, made of one square and one equilateral triangle

- Ask students: warm up exercise:

- (re)create the House - 1 square, 1 equilateral triangle

- Show students one way to create the house:

- initial conditions (clear, pen up, go to 0,0, point to 90)

- 1 repeat 4 loop for square

- 1 repeat 3 loop for triangle

- Best Practice: create shorter program - they are more readable. Loops (vs. linear commands) help shorten.

- Best Practice: initialize the program to a known and well-defined condition

- In preparation for the first project - A bit about me:

- Introduce concept of multiple sprites, working in parallel

- create a second sprite

- each sprite has a separate program/script

- make 1 sprite draw the square, the other draw the triangle

- Emphasize that the sprites DON'T communicate/coordinate their activities

- Show broadcast and receive of messages:

- add to sprite 1 a broadcast message at the end of the drawing of the square,

- replace the green flag hat block of the second sprite with a "when receive" broadcast hat block

- Tie back to the project "A bit about me":

- show the example of myself in "A bit about me"

- stage backgrounds

- multiple sprites communicating

- some animation

- some sound

- Ask students to create an account on Snap/Berkeley

- Explain/emphasize saving work to the cloud, not to the browser!

- Display the instructions for creating an ePortfolio on Google Sites (on the nav bar of the spiralinglearning course site)

- emphasize using a "portfolio template" (can use the Pinewood/Morrell's template)

- enable comments on the project page (from the Google Sites "Page Settings")

- Publish/"Display" the Project assignment for "A bit about me" on Veracross

- make sure students can see the homework.

- Make sure students see the "Important Links" on the course website on Veracross

Due to trip, only Freshmen did this:

- Ask students to fill out the Google Form for sharing their ePortfolio URL

- Ask students to logon to Snap and create a "skeleton project" for "A bit about me"

- save to the cloud

- share it publicly

- use the public URL to embed the project in their ePortfolio as an iFrame

- Walk-through of my prototype project "A bit about me" - to show a few basic programming possibilities/capabilities

- Time permitting: start working on the "A bit about me" project

Due to trip, only Freshmen did this:

- Ask students to fill out the Google Form for sharing their ePortfolio URL

- Ask students to logon to Snap and create a "skeleton project" for "A bit about me"

- save to the cloud

- share it publicly

- use the public URL to embed the project in their ePortfolio as an iFrame

- Walk-through of my prototype project "A bit about me" - to show a few basic programming possibilities/capabilities

Freshmen + rest of class:

- work on the "A bit about me" project

- due on 8/28

- Display SOUL Reflection assignment on Veracross

- due 9/2

- Submit project by 8am on 8/28

- Ask students to upload the URL to their project through Veracross.

- Ask students to Show & Tell about "A bit about me"

- A "comic relief" - more on events/clicking on sprites

- Make a game: Whack-a-duck

- import a duck costume

- import a stage background with the x-y coordinates

- show the duck moving randomly, with "goto x y"

and "pick random min max"

- ask the students to complete the game

- Ask students to Show & Tell about "whack-a-duck"

- Pick a partner to pair up with for the Tech in the News presentations due 9/4

- fill out submission form by 9/2

- Assign individual projects to individuals - provide peer SOUL feedbacks

- In the time remaining: Write SOUL reflection about OWN project

- due 9/2

- Provide SOUL feedback to 2 other projects

- due 9/2

- submit the SOULs by 8am on 9/2

- go over ePortfolio links - make sure student has own reflection + 2 feedbacks

- Ask students: pick a partner

- submit pair names on form

- 2 pairs to volunteer - to present 9/4

- 2 pairs to volunteer - to present 9/5

- Introduce Computing in the News (CitN)

- show example 2 - The Joking Computer

- Build your own blocks

- Simple examples of BYOB (square - no parameters):

- show the drawing of the square: repeat 4, move 100...

- convert that to a block: "draw square"

- Motivation:

- It makes writing code simpler/readable

- it is a form of abstraction

- show how it can be used to draw a "flower":

- repeat 30: draw-square; turn 15

- BYOB with a parameter

- Motivation:

- if you want to draw squares of different sizes

- Student activity

- create a triangle of size 150

- convert it to a custom block

- make the block take a length parameter

- use the parametrized block to draw some interesting shapes

- Motivation - Fractals

- show video tour of Mandelbrot set (10 min) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_nfHY61T-U

- show the Koch Snowflake fractal (2 min) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKbwrzkupaU

- Show Koch Curve with random perturbations (2 min) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azPMEuFfxME

- 1 pair - Computing in the News presentation (CitN)

- Show how to create a parametrized block to draw an n-sided polygon of a parametrized size

- Quiz - exploring Snap (Veracross assignment)

- Homework:

- finish gen 4 of the Koch Curve

- embed on new page in ePortfolio

- due 9/9 at 8am

- Extra Experience:

- do at least a gen 4 of the Koch Curve with squares (instead of triangles) - a somewhat surprisingly different result)

- do a gen 4 Sierpinski Fractal

- 2 pairs - Computing in the News (CitN) presentation

- Retake quiz again - if interested

- or work on homework - fractals

- Student show & tell - Koch (triangle) - progress/status

- ask for 2 pairs to present CitN on 9/12

- Show the creation of a Koch Curve Fractal ("Koch 2" project in the cloud)

- demo building parametrized blocks

- create "make a hill of size %length" - for gen 1

- create "make 4 hills of size %length" using 4 "make hill of size" - for gen 2

- create "make 16 hills" using 4 "make 4 hills of size" - for gen 3

- emphasize self-similarity of fractals

- Student activity

- recreate custom blocks with parameters to make gen 4 of the Koch Curve

- make Koch curve variation - square curve instead of triangle curve

- Homework - reminder:

- finish gen 4 of the Koch Curve

- embed on new page in ePortfolio

- add your own SOUL reflection

- due 9/11 at 8am

- Extra Experience:

- do at least a gen 4 of the Koch Curve with squares (instead of triangles) - a somewhat surprisingly different result)

- do a gen 4 Sierpinski Fractal

- A few students have their fractals embedded in their ePortfolios

- but they are missing a reflection on their work

- some people are submitting the Snap URL through Veracross, as opposed to the ePortfolio URL

- Student show & tell - Koch (triangle, squares), Sierpinski

- A heads-up and invitation to explore

- Show Koch curves with recursion - triangle and square versions ("Koch - recursion" in the cloud)

- interesting math fact: Koch fractals have a finite/bound/converging area, BUT an infinite/boundless length/perimeter

Demo - practice custom blocks, abstraction:

- Make a flower with

- a dark green stem

- 5 light green triangular leaves (different sizes) on the stem

- 12 red pentagon petals (same size) on top of stem

Student activity - see instructions in the "Flower Garden" activity description

- Make a flower block - to take

- stem height and color

- number of (triangular) leaves and color - all same size

- number of (rectangular) petals and color - all same size

Lab activity - random flower garden - see instructions in the "Flower Garden" activity description

- Classwork (to be completed 9/12 in class):

- make a random flower garden

- embed on ePortfolio

- write a SOUL on your own and 2 peer projects

- 2 pairs present CitN

- Show & Tell on Flower Garden

- My show & tell - Fractals on the iPhone/iPad (2 min video) - http://fract.al/stages

Classwork: write 1 SOUL reflection on your Flower Garden work and 2 reflections on peers

- assign 2 pairs to do CitN

- student show & tell on flower garden

- embed Flower Garden in student portfolios - no need for SOUL reflections.

- Variables & conditionals

- need for variables:

- create a random-sized square - "Variables 1" example

- we need a local script variable to contain the random size

- create a condition to draw either a square or a triangle, after asking the user

- "answer" is another variable

- student exercise:

- Create a program dialog with the user:

- what's your name?

- Hello "name"

- what day is it today?

- if Sat or Sun - enjoy the weekend, otherwise - hope your week is going well

- Conditionals review

- Student Show & tell - name + day of week class exercise

- Demo - days of the week - with lists

- interaction with users - name + courses taken - example ("ask" block, "answer" variable) - "Variables 1" example

- adding a pause/continue button for "whack-a-duck"

- Remind students of Random Flower Garden class activity

- show how to make a block with different input types (text, numbers)

- e.g. "make '6' 'hexagon' petals of size '100' "

- show conditionals and variables: if shape = hexagon then set sides to 6

Student activity/classwork - "Name Guessing Game":

- instructions on Google Drive: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UhZQqSLgaaKFdKWq0PyHJGFCpY130ZXJqC77QAUDZ3s/edit?usp=sharing

- CitN presentations

- assign CitN pairs for next Friday

- Show & Tell - progress, problems, phase of "Name Guessing" game

- Demo of finding a letter in a word (Snap project in the cloud)

- Continue working on the "Name Guessing" game

- embed in your ePortfolio

- write SOUL reflection

- Show & Tell - if anything creative/original

- Continue working on the "Name Guessing" game

- embed in your ePortfolio

- write SOUL reflection

- in the Limitations - describe and explain the problem with double/repeating letters

- for finished students - "evil" version, extra experience - the program changes the secret number (without "lying" about higher/lower) to make it harder for the user to guess

or:

- For finished students - Additional practice with conditionals - time permitting

- create a game - "Rock, Paper, Scissors" - following the instructions on the shared Course Google Drive

- show & tell - "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

- Review the double loop (for loop or repeat until) to identify common letters in the guess and secret word

- Continue working on the "Name Guessing" game

- embed in your ePortfolio

- write SOUL reflection

- in the Limitations - describe and explain the problem with double/repeating letters

- For finished students - Additional practice with conditionals - time permitting

- create a game - "Rock, Paper, Scissors" - following the instructions on the shared Course Google Drive

- CitN

- show & tell - "Name Guessing" game

- show & tell - "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

- Make sure everyone finishes the "Name Guessing" game

- embed in your ePortfolio

- write SOUL reflection

- in the Limitations - describe and explain the problem with double/repeating letters

- Analyze my example of "Name Guessing" - show initialization and custom block for abstraction

- show & tell - "Name Guessing" game

- Conditionals Quiz

- Review Quiz

- The Shark Game - project

- instructions in the course shared folder (Google Drive)

- embed in your ePortfolio

- write 2 peer SOUL reflections, no need to do your OWN

- Show & Tell - Shark status

- Retake quiz - if interested

- Keep working on The Shark Game

- embed in your ePortfolio

- write SOUL reflection

- CitN

- assignment submissions - can be done earlier than the deadline, but

- the moment it is submitted I have your signal that you are ok with me checking it

- anything I comment on, I'll take a screenshot and send you as feedback, with the grade

- Everyone - create a new ePortfolio page with links to all their CitN presentations

- Fill-out the Course Feedback

- Fix problems with CitN ePortfolio page (sharing), and submit in Veracross

- Keep working on The Shark Game

- embed in your ePortfolio

- write your SOUL reflection

- write 2 peer reflections - for students ABOVE you on the list

- Students self-review stronger/weaker SOUL reflections

- For finished students - implement Rock, Paper, Scissors

- go over the Shark Game requirements

- go over SOUL examples from other classes

- the stronger and the weaker

- Students - finish the Shark Game

- Students improve on their SOULs

- For finished students - implement Rock, Paper, Scissors

- CitN

- assign the next CitNs

- Students - Show & Tell - Shark Game

- Analyze my example of Shark Game

- For students who did it - show and tell - Rock, Paper, Scissors

- Assign presenters for CitN

- 21 Card trick

- Explain the rules

- Do the 21 card trick with actual cards, first

- Demo - show the 21 Card trick program- as motivation for lists

- Lists - start:

- Self-Study - Go through the Introduction to Lists self-study (found in the Course Shared folder - Google Drive)

- Solidify self-study reading: Demo with student participation - key operations and concepts with lists

- Snap project: Lists - basics - together with students

- length, add, insert, delete

Homework:

- Lists Basics - in Veracross (creating a sentence block - per the "Try This" exercise at the bottom of the Lists page from UC Berkeley)

- The Hook: Demo - show the 21 Card trick program

- Students show and tell - creating a sentence block - per the "Try This" exercise at the bottom of the Lists page from UC Berkeley

- Show the use of lists to calculate and graph the increasing length of a Koch Curve (Snap program: Lists - Basics)

- Re-review: Solidify self-study reading: Demo with student participation - key operations and concepts with lists

- Demo and analyze - the 6 card trick program

- show the code, but not in detail

- Lists - students implement the 6 card trick

- Project - extend the 6 card trick to the 21 card trick

- Continue - 21 card trick

- Students show and tell - 21 card trick

- Write own SOUL reflection

- CitN - assign for 11/7

- Continue/finish - 21 card trick

- Write own SOUL reflection

- for finished students - read the "Creative Project #1" document in the Google shared drive

- start thinking of a project of your choice

- prepare for an "elevator pitch"

- Make sure all students have the 6 card trick (without the actual cards/sprites) working

- ask students who have finished to help the ones still not done

- Students who have finished the 6 card version, should move to the 21 card version

- screen shots for how to display the cards/sprites on stage for the 6 card game are on the Google Drive ("Displaying cards for the card game")

- review the rules for the 21 card version

- 4 dealings

- Collect cards by columns - take the pile (column) with the user's card and put it in the middle

- deal the cards across - by rows

- after 4 dealings the card will be (where?) ___?

- Clayton, Reed, Austin - go to the library - finish the write-up on future assignments commitment

- finish the 21 card version

- first without the card images/sprites, then with the images (harder)

- screen shots for how to display the cards/sprites on stage for the 6 card game are on the Google Drive ("Displaying cards for the card game")

- Students show and tell - 21 card trick

- Start on the Creative Project (#1)

- go over instructions and steps (idea, elevator pitch, approval, etc.)

- finish the 21 card trick - at least without the UI (actual cards)

- fast students are working on UI (with actual cards)

- students can work off of my example with UI/cards for the 6 card game/version) - in Google Drive

- Motivation for implementing the actual card UI: show/demo how the card trick can be displayed on an iPad/iPhone

- finish the 21 card trick - with the UI (actual cards)

- students can work off of my example with UI/cards for the 6 card game/version) - in Google Drive

- write own SOUL (due 10/31 - not a class day)

- Students Show & tell the 21 card trick - with the UI (actual cards)

- Start the Creative Project (#1)

- review the requirements