Friday, May 23, 2014

Teaching AP CompSci: LAB18 Recursion! (LAST POST THIS SCHOOL YEAR IN THIS THREAD)


Teaching AP CompSci: 
More LAB18 Recursion!
YouTube DropBox

LAST POST THIS SCHOOL YEAR IN THIS THREAD:
Quarter IV Weeks 1&2: 4/14-4/25
We are done with the course now. AP review starts next week. We had a lot of FRQ based take homes through out the year, so we're going to focus on MCQs! We finished LAB18 Recursion, LAB19 Searching and Sorting and we are finishing GridWorld Part 3. Part 4 will be for homework. After AP Exam Weeks 1 and 2, we'll start Life After Computer Science 2014 (LACS2014). This school year's AP Computer Science A blog is done! Good luck on your AP Exams!

Hope you had fun learning Java with us this year. Have a great Summer, see you next year!

UPDATE: 5/23/2014
This is the last post in this thread for this year as next week is Final Review and then we have In-Class Finals. I think we had a successful year. You have all our ScreenCasts and Java Code for the whole year right here in this post! However, next year I think I'm rerecording my ScreenCasts with my current mic. The beginning of the year had poor audio. Maybe we'll record APCS Java Shorts (eve)? Have a great Summer!

Bye Bye Period 6, AP CompSci
You will be missed!
(missing Seniors from Period 1)


old LAB18

old LAB19

old GridWorld Part 3


Quarter III Weeks 7&8: 3/24-4/04
We're about finished with LAB7 about static arrays, ArrayLists, 1D and 2D arrays and the for each loop. We'll finish this up next week, the week before April Break. The week after break we'll do a short lab on Recursion. Then we have to finish GridWorld the following week. We won't have a lot of time for review since the week after is the AP Exam already!

new LAB7:


Quarter III Weeks 5&6: 3/10-3/21
We finished LAB6 about for, while and do loops. We started LAB7 about static arrays, ArrayLists, 1D and 2D arrays and the for each loop. New ScreenCasts are coming soon!

old LAB7:

Quarter III Weeks 3&4: 2/24-3/7
I'm only posting every 2 weeks lately as we've had so many Snow Days plus February Break, so we haven't been able to cover a lot of material. We did finish GridWorld Part II and we did start CH7/LAB6 Iteration!

new LAB6:

Quarter III Weeks 1&2: 2/3-2/14
OK, we finally got around to starting GridWorld! We did all the readings and questions in Parts I&II. We started the exercises at the end of Part II on p13. After February Break we'll finish these exercises and start CH7/Lab6 Iteration!

Here's a free MOOC at udacity.com based on the Computer Science textbook by Cay Horstmann from San Jose State U. My students have covered the equivalent of Lessons 1-5 (Intro, Objects, Classes, Types, Decissions) already. So, I told them to try these on their own as a review 
They could probably skip the Video Lessons and try the Problem Sets which give plenty of feedback in the case of errors. 

We did some of Lessons 8&9 (More Classes, Interfaces and Inheritance). But I told my students not to try these on their own yet as about half of these Problem Sets are based on Lessons 6&7.

I'm covering GridWorld right now, but there's nothing on GridWorld, I'm afraid!

After GridWorld we are doing the equivalent to Lessons 6&7 (Loops, Arrays). I told my students that, if they want a head start, they could watch these Video Lessons!


GridWorld Parts I&II:

Quarter II Weeks 8&9: 1/13-1/24
We finished CH5 this week about Conditional Statements, Boolean Expressions and Predicate Methods. In fact, we went a bit nuts this last couple of weeks or so on Line.java, C5X15. This project was about abstracting a line of the form y=mx+b by encapsulating m and b. The lab question wanted us to write isParallel(Line other), intersects(Line other) and equals(Line other) predicates. I went ahead and extended the Object class by overriding equals(Object other) and toString(). I even implemented the Comparable interface with the compareTo(Line other) method. So, we started talking about Inheritance and Polymorphism. The project also asked us to overload the constructors: Line(m,b), Line(m,x1,y1) and Line(x1,y1,x2,y2) with out rewriting code. We also added graphics! Next week is the last week before midterms, so the students can finish their labs and hand them in by Friday. I think we'll start GridWorld soon after midterms.

Finishing new LAB5, Line.java:

Quarter II Week 7: 1/6-1/10
We continued CH5 this week about Conditional Statements, Boolean Expressions and Predicate Methods. We even started talking about OOPs concepts such as ReUsable Code, Extending the Object Class and Implementing the Comparable Interface! YouTubes on these OOPs topics are still in the works.

Oh, apparently, this is what we do between periods before AP CompSci:

Quarter II Week 6: 12/16-12/20
We continued CH5 this week about Conditional Statements, Boolean Expressions and Predicate Methods. We also finished Number Systems and Chip Logic! I did the #HourOfCode again on Monday as an in school field trip for our Honors 9th Grade Math classes to advertise AP Computer Science. Due to budgetary constraints, we're not offering an intro CompSci course anymore. So, Honors 9th and 10th Graders won't have that option anymore. Friday was, of course, GAMEDAY!

Quarter II Weeks 4&5: 12/2-12/13
We started CH5 this week about Conditional Statements, Boolean Expressions and Predicate Methods. We also finished Number Systems and Chip Logic!

Chip Logic:


new LAB5:



Quarter II Week 3: 11/25-11/29
We finally finished CH4 this week. We have Take Home 4 due this Tuesday. We printed Lab 4. This was a short week due to Thanksgiving, so that's about it! Next week we'll start CH6+Lab5 on Conditional Statements. Of course, Wednesday was GAMEDAY!

Quarter II Week 2: 11/18-11/22
We continued CH4 this week. We went nuts with "Can you name that number?" aka Number Systems. We converted to Base 10. We converted from Base 10. We counted, added and subtracted in various bases: BIN, OCT, HEX. See ScreenCasts below!

Quarter II Week 1: 11/11-11/15
We continued CH4 this week. We also continued "Numeral of the Day!" aka "Can you name that number?" For example, 111BIN, 222TRI, 777OCT and FFFHEX=? We wrote several classes where finals were useful such as the CashRegister class which had public static final double QUARTER_VALUE=0.25 listed after the private instance fields. We also dealt with various forms of input from main: JOptionPane, Scanner and args[0]. When using JOptionPane and args[0] we had to use Double.parseDouble() or Integer.parseInt() quite a bit!

Quarter I Week 9: 11/4-11/8
We started CH4 this week about the differences between byte, short, int, long, boolean, char, float, double variables and finals. We also started "Numeral of the Day!"

Number Systems:


new LAB4:



Quarter I Week 8: 10/28-11/1
We finished Lab3 which talks about writing your own classes from scratch. Our first TakeHome Tuesday on this chapter is due next week!

Quarter I Week 7: 10/21-10/25
We continued Lab3 which talks about writing your own classes from scratch. We are doing the end of chapter exercises as labs. We do the odds together so I can model new concepts. I am rerecording the odd exercises  as ScreenCasts for YouTube. The students complete the evens as labwork in groups. New Lab1 ScreenCasts are done. New Lab2 ScreenCasts are almost done. Sorry, there's no new ScreenCasts for Lab 3 yet. I have a link to my old Lab3 ScreenCasts. See my DropBox link for all our code so far. See links below.

Quarter I Week 6: 10/14-10/18
We started Lab3 which talks about writing your own classes from scratch. We have to come up with our own Contructors, Accessors and Mutators for the first time. We also discussed Abstraction and Encapsulation! Sorry, there's no ScreenCasts for Lab 3 yet.

old LAB3:



Quarter I Week 5: 10/07-10/11
Out sick.... However, I did start using DropBox and I added some screencasts for Lab 2, see above!

Quarter I Week 4: 9/30-10/4
This week we finished Lab2 by introducing the StdDraw class from Princeton's CS101 course. Here we used Object Based Programming to draw Rectangles, Ellipses and Lines! See all the code linked below from my PasteBin account (last link). I've also been redoing my ScreenCasts in the APCS Shorts playlist on my YouTube channel (see below too)!

Quarter I Week 3: 9/23-9/27
This week we started Lab2 based on Chapter 2. In this chapter we discuss constructing objects from existing classes: Rectangle, Color, Random and String. We started talking about Constructors, Accessors and Mutators as well a Private Instance Fields. I'm reworking the ScreenCasts as short summaries after class. I have a new playlist (see below) with only HelloWorld so far.

new LAB2:



Quarter I Week 2: 9/16-9/20
We had a good week this week! We finished Lab1 based on Chapter 1 Exercises 1-8 (see Code and ScreenCasts below). We basically covered everything you ever wanted to know about main() methods and println()! We just started talking about Chapter 2 and Lab 2, Object Based Programming (using existing classes, constructors, objects, accessors) at the end of the week.

Our networking and various hardware issues are all corrected now (except the HP Color LaserJet is still down). My networking issues required setting up a static IP on the SmartBoard or Teacher PC. So, I have access to all my sites at school, finally!

address: 10.5.129.25
netmask: 255.255.0.0
broadcast: 10.5.0.254
dns: 10.1.1.19
proxy: NONE! (was 10.0.0.125)

There's a bit of lag on the LAN. So, I think I'll make Static IPs for the students too as there may be a DHCP conflict. However, the student stations are required to have the proxy.

Also, most students can access the ssh server from home. Some of us have Linux running at home which makes accessing java files the same as in class. Some students are logging in using putty from WIN but cannot use GUI applications from home (WIN graphics engine does not recognize the LIN graphics engine). Some have Mac at home and find that the MAC terminal works just like the Linux terminal at home including GUI ssh tunnels using: "ssh -Y userid@173.251.48.56"

Quarter I Week 1: 9/9-9/13
APCS had a slow start this year with a lot of networking and server issues. I think we're up to snuff now. We're in Chapter 1 of Cay Horstmann's fabulous text. All we did was write serveral versions of HelloWorld. This is a fine way to become familiar with our Linux based system. 

We talked about how to use our server from home using putty in Windows or a terminal in Mac and Linux land.

We also talked about CLI vs GUI, ASCII and Unicode, SSH vs FTP, javac vs java, etc. We also talked about the importance of comments and self-documenting code!

What's new this year is that I'm trying to stick to a CLI for coding in java all day every day! All we need is a shell or terminal to run javac, java and a text editor. This way we call login from home and do our work the same way we do in class even from a Mac terminal or by using putty in Windows!


new HelloWorld:


new LAB1:


Well, that's all folks!
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Teaching Math 5H: UNIT 12 Polar Mode! (LAST POST THIS SCHOOL YEAR IN THIS THREAD)


Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT 12 Polar Mode!
YouTube DropBox SagePub

LAST POST THIS SCHOOL YEAR IN THIS THREAD:
Quarter IV Weeks 1&2: 4/14-4/25
We started and finished UNIT 12 about Parametric Mode, Polar Mode. We calculated slope and arc length Parametrically. We also calculated area and arc length of Polar Functions! 

Next week is AP Review and the following 2 weeks are AP Exams. So, this concludes this year's blog for AP Calculus BC! A new thread will start in 3 weeks called Life After Calculus 2014 (LAC2014). Good luck on your AP Exams!

Hope you had fun learning Calculus with us this year. Have a great Summer, see you next year!

UPDATE: 5/23/2014
This is the last post in this thread for this year as next week is Final Review and then we have In-Class Finals. I think we had a successful year. You have all our ScreenCasts, SmartNotes and SAGE WorkSheets for the whole year right here in this post! Next year, we'll be useing the new TI nSpire CX CAS and I think I can use SAGE more. In 2 years I think I can redo my ScreenCasts using all this great new tech. Have a great Summer!

Bye Bye Period 1, Math 5HBC Calculus
You will be missed!


UNIT12 Polar Mode!


Quarter III Weeks 7&8: 3/24-4/04
We started UNIT 11 about MacLaurin Series, Taylor Series, Intervals of Convergence, Alternating Series Error and LaGrange Error terms! Next week, the week before April Break, we'll finish UNIT 11. The week after break we'll do a short unit on Vector/Polar. The week after that is review and the week after that is the AP Exam already!

UNIT11 Power Series

Quarter III Weeks 5&6: 3/10-3/21
We finished UNIT8 about Partial Fractions and By Parts Integration techniques. I skipped UNIT9 about VARSEP DIFFEQUS as we covered that elsewhere and we had to make up time. We only have a few weeks before and a week after April Break to finish the course! Then we only have a week of review! 

So, we just started UNIT10 on Convergence of Infinite Series of Constants with all Positive Terms. We'll sneak the Alternating Series Error Theorem somewhere. Then we have 2 weeks on Power Series and 1 week on Vector/Polar.

UNIT10 Series of Constants

Quarter III Weeks 3&4: 2/24-3/7
We didn't get very far this past couple of weeks with all the Snow Days and February Break! We did manage to cover most of UNIT 8 about Integration By Parts and Partial Fractions. We started the unit with a class on L'Hopital's rule using the "Mean Girls Limit" as a Do Now! I also ended that class with a Calculus Carol by one of my students about L'Hopital as a summary. I do this topic now as these limits will start to become an issue soon!

I will finish the unit next week with a discussion of Variable Separable DiffEqus including Logistics, Slope Fields and Euler's Method.

UNIT 8 Advanced Integration Techniques:

Quarter III Weeks 1&2: 2/3-2/14
We didn't get very far this past couple of weeks with 3 SnowDays and a Delayed Opening in the way! We did somehow manage to finish UNIT 7 focusing on Differential Equations. We talked about Slope Field and Variable Separable solutions for Exponential Growth and Decay, Exponential Approach (aka Newton's Laws of Heating or Cooling) and Logistic Growth models! After February Break we have our last AB Part I MCQ Monday and then we'll talk about L'Hopital's Rule and Indeterminate Forms.

Announcement from the AP Calculus Forum:
FREE! MOOC style AP Review courses at coursera.com only for Calc and Stats at present!

The University of Houston is offering the following FREE courses through Coursera, with start dates of March 17. Registration is currently taking place. Please inform your interested students and colleagues.

Quarter II Weeks 8&9: 1/13-1/24
We started UNIT7: Transcendental Functions! We focused on the derivative of ln(x) and Logarithmic Differentiation. Next week and after Midterm Week, we'll revisit Applications of Derivatives, Applications of Integrals and Variable Separable Differential Equations involving e^x and ln(x).

UNIT 7 Calculus of Transcendental Functions:

Quarter II Week 7: 1/6-1/10
We finished UNIT6: Applications of the AntiDerivative! We focused on Volumes with Known Cross Sections, Arc Length and Surface Area.

Quarter II Week 6: 12/16-12/20
We continued UNIT6: Applications of the AntiDerivative! We focused on Volumes of Revolution with horizontal and vertical strips: Disk, Washer, Shell. Of course, Friday was Calculus Caroling Day!



Quarter II Weeks 4&5: 12/2-12/13
We started UNIT6: Applications of the AntiDerivative! We focused on the Betty Sue problem and the importance of adding a constant C. We talked about horizontal and vertical strips in our Riemann Statements for finding area between curves and Volumes of Revolution.

UNIT 6 Applications of AntiDerivatives:




Quarter II Week 3: 11/25-11/29
This week we continued our discussion of AntiDerivatives by introducing The Fundamental Theorem Parts I and II! We went over a MCQ Monday on Monday and did the Fundamental Theorem on Tuesday. This was a short week due to Thanksgiving, so we had GAMEDAY on Wednesday. Fun was had by all!

Since we were covering Indefinite Integrals this week, we had to do the Betty Sue FRQ and sing the song! 

Also, next week is December already, so we start practising our preCalculus and Calculus Carols!

Quarter II Week 2: 11/18-11/22
This week we continued our discussion of AntiDerivatives and Riemann Sums! We focused on Scientific Computing. IE: we wrote programs in TI89 BASIC demostrating the Numerical Methods for definite integration: LSUM, RSUM, MSUM, TRAP and SIMP!

Quarter II Week 1: 11/11-11/15
This week was all about AntiDerivatives and Riemann Sums! We talked about Right Riemann Sums as exact limits. Next week we'll have to right some TI89 code! We also started talking about solving Variable Separable Differential Equations.

UNIT 5 AntiDerivatives and Riemann Sums:




Quarter I Week 9: 11/4-11/8
We finally finished with UNIT 4: Application of Differentiation this week. We programmed Newton's Method in TI89-BASIC. We also covered related rates. Next week is all about AntiDerivatives and Reimann Sums!

Quarter I Week 8: 10/28-11/1
We're nearly finished with UNIT 4: Application of Differentiation this week. We programmed Newton's Method in TI89-BASIC. We also started related rates this week.

Quarter I Week 7: 10/21-10/25
We started UNIT 4: Application of Differentiation this week. We started talking about IVT, MVT, Min/Max and Optimization!

UNIT 4 Applications of Derivatives:




Quarter I Week 6: 10/14-10/18
This week we finished UNIT 3 with a discussion of the Chain Rule, Implicit Differentiation, Min/Max and Related Rates.

Quarter I Week 5: 10/07-10/11
Out sick.... However, I did start using DropBox, see above!

Quarter I Week 4: 9/30-10/04
We started UNIT 3 about Differentiation! We derived the Product and Quotient Rules. We did all 6 Trig Rules. We started talking about the Chain Rule.

UNIT 3 Differentiation Rules:



Quarter I Week 3: 9/23-9/27
We finished UNIT 2 with a test! Our last topic concerned the existence of the derivative. BTW, we start with UNIT 2 since UNIT 1 is just a review of PreCalculus. We did a bit of that in 106 and 107 on Conics and Polar Notation.

Quarter I Week 2: 9/16-9/20
We are almost finished with UNIT 2: Continuity and Differentiablility! We demostrated the Power Rule using the Definition of the Derivative as the limit of the Difference Quotient. We even started the Trig Rules!


Quarter I Week 1: 9/9-9/13
AP Calculus BC started with a preCalc review in the form of the topic of Conic Sections! This is a great topic to review Cartesian and Polar Coordinates, as well as some algebra, trig and TI89 usage!

UNIT 2 Limits and Derivatives:



Well, that's all folks!

Sincerely,
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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

May YouTube Wednesdays!

May YouTube Wednesdays!
YouTube Wednesdays would not be complete without the Nova about Cliff Stoll and the Cuckoo's Egg!

April YouTube Wednesdays!
We started one of my favorite YouTube Wednesday features. In the name of AP Computer Science review of Computer History and Computer Literacy, I played the only National Geographic Special not about warm, fuzzy animals! It's called "Miniature Miracle: The Computer Chip" and it's all about the history of electronic computing. I remember seeing this live on NBC around 1983 listening to Alexander Scourby's iconic voice and Elmer Bernstein's phenomenal musical theme! 

I used to have this on online, but YouTube made me take it down. I copied it from my VHS version to a DVD. I then uploaded it to YouTube as MP4 files. So, I still have these files to play with VLC, unfortunately I can't show them to you online. You can get your own VHS copy on EBay or Amazon if you like! Here's a little review from 1985 in The New York Times!

BTW, we also have some great new student made filks this year:

"Up All Night to draw Fractals"


"Let It Go preCalculus"


"Robin Thicke Calculus"


"Drunk In Love Calculus"


"Started From Math 1"



February & March YouTube Wednesdays!
We haven't had a lot of time of late for YouTube Wednesdays what with all the Snow Days and February Break. We did manage to start a NOVA called "Ancient Computer" about a lump of bronze found off the coast of Greece. It was found with several lost works of art dated circa 70 BC. However, noone thought anything of this lump of bronze until someone decided to X-ray it! 

I'm showing this episode of NOVA for 10 minutes each Wednesday through the end of March. BTW, this used to be on YouTube. Unfortunately, the Nova YouTube Channel was converted to show only 2-3 minute previews, so you have to go to PBS.org to view full episodes. I used the PBS app on my Kindle Fire HD 8.9 over WiFi. I also used an HDMI cable to attach the Kindle to the SmartBoard in HDMI mode.

ALERT: Look what Neil DeGrasse Tyson is up to! Dr. Tyson was one of our "Guest Speakers" during our Astronomy Month YouTube Wednesdays (see November below). He has now taken it upon himself to update the seminal Carl Sagan series named Cosmos. You can catch the new and improved Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey starting this Sunday at 9PM on NatGeoWild.

Midterm Week: Ingite, TED and Filk!
Showing a 5-10 minute YouTube at the beginning of class once a week is a great way to start a 5-10 minute discussion on interesting topics related to your curriculum to which students may otherwise never be exposed!

Recently, I tried out an Ignite Thursday. The Ignite Show used to be on the BBC. It was great in that the speaker had exactly 5 minutes to speak. Also, the speaker had 20 slides to talk about that auto-advanced every 15 seconds. Needless to say, this make for a very quick, if informative, presentation.

I found a nice Ignite by a curator at the Walters Museum, William Noel. His talk was about how he discovered long lost texts by Archimedes buried inside a medieval palimpsest. What's amazing about this discovery is that the text shows Archimedes doing advanced Combinatorics and Calculus circa 200BC! 

That Ignite video led us to a TED Tuesday also by William Noel! Now I think I have to show a documentary about the Antikythera Device! There's a nice NOVA about Ancient Computers and here's a related youtube.

By the way, I also throw in Calculus Filks at random intervals whenever we cover a related topic:
Definition of Continuity

Definition of the Derivative



Position, Velocity, Acceleration


Product Rule

Quotient Rule


Chain Rule


L'Hopital's Rule

AntiDerivatives

More AntiDerivatives

Some Physics

Some BC Calculus

Even Outer Space

Don't forget VI Hart!


January YouTube Wednesdays!
Now we turn our attention to Nova and Fractals:

December YouTube Wednesdays!
December 9th was Grace Hopper's birthday and the Hour Of Code! So, we revisited Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace. We were also practicing preCalculus and Calculus Carols which are the best math filks ever.

Who was Ada?

Calculus Sleigh Ride!

Oh Calculus, Oh Calculus

November YouTube Wednesdays!
This month I covered Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus class. So, Youtube Wednesday saw several Astronomers as Guest Speakers. We have several Guest Speakers and Documentaries though out the year.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Bill Nye

Phil Plait


Carl Sagan

October YouTube Wednesdays!
October is devoted to one of my all time inspirations: Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.

60 Minutes!

Letterman!

Biographer!

September YouTube Wednesdays!
I started the year with the definition of filk:

 /filk/ n.,v. [from SF fandom, where a typo for `folk' was adopted as a new word] A popular or folk songwith lyrics revised or completely new lyrics and/or music, intended for humorous effect when read, and/orto be sung late at night at SF conventions. There is a flourishing subgenre of these called `computer filks',written by hackers and often containing rather sophisticated technical humor.


Then I proceeded to show some Math Filks! I always start with Mathematicious which is a review of Regents Math. Then I introduce Tom Lehrer!

Regents Math Review!


Base 8 Arithmetic!


Periodic Table of Elements!


Research?


Well, that's all folks!

Sincerely,
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