Scientific Computing
Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math
Teaching & Learning Math & Science with Technology
Graphing Calculators, Numerical Methods, Computer Algebra Systems & Linux Clusters
Why Shadowfax? Our cluster is so fast that we named it after the Lord Of The Rings character!
Website once known as CalcPage.tripod.com (1988 – 2008)
OK, I have to admit it, I've probably been a massive media maven since birth! I probably had the first VCR on the block! I remember recording every episode of ST:TNG starting with the very first episode September 1987! You couldn't do that with The Original Series in the 1960s. You had to watch everything live back then, they hadn't even invented reruns yet.
I've used them all: VCRs, DVRs and even a DVDR for recording directly to DVD instead of VHS tape. DVDRs are great for converting VHS tapes to DVDs too. I even use my DVDR to make mp4s for YouTube of old VHS video.
Anyway, this post is supposed to be an update to this post. That was back in July of 2012. My arguement then was that the best way to watch your fave SciFi TV shows (old and new) was via online streaming to you PC, tablet of cellphone ie: not on TV! You could use NetFlix, Hulu or Amazon Prime with your device of choice. I used my WiFi Kindle Fire HD 7" with Amazon Prime.
Don't forget your fave webseries! Many of mine a Star Trek related like ST:Continues, ST:Phase2 and ST:Renegades. BTW, ST:Axanar is a new series that looks really promising! Webseries such as these are great to watch on your tablet or cellphone using an App called YouTube Downloader (not to be confused with the FireFox add-on) whereby you can download the next episode of your fave webseries from YouTube when you are near a WiFi Hot Spot and watch it whenever and wherever you want. Other webseries on YouTube you may want to look for are: HISHE, TED, Ignite, ViHart, Kahn Academy, Geek & Sundry, Table Top, Nerdist!
BTW, it's such a shame that the SyFy Channel is no longer the SiFi Channel! Now we get to watch WWF on SyFy, TNG on BBCA and FireFly on History Channel?
So, here's what's new. Now, most TV channels have an App. So, download the App for the channel that runs your fave series and watch it on the road! You're no longer relegated to just the YouTube Downloader app. So, you have a lot more choices for content. You do need WiFi or 4G. BTW, in a pinch, you could always setup a WiFi hot spot on your cellphone! I'm using my WiFi Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" now.
FYI: I refuse to get a tablet with 4G. Why pay extra for such hardware when WiFi Hot Spots are so prevalent now? Remember the early days of the iPhone and iPad? That's Steve Job's legacy. You had to get 2 devices each with it's own data plan. So, you pay Apple twice as much as should be necessary. That was the business model that made Jobs rich! Ever hear of a phablet? It's a large cellphone with apps or a small tablet with cellphone capability. Let's cut to the chase: I want a large tablet (like this) with cell access! That's one device with one data plan, done!
Note, TV seasons used to be Fall-Spring with repeats in the Summer. Some series went Winter-Summer. Maybe they'd break for XMas or Easter. Maybe you'd get a Halloween or Thanksgiving special and that was it! Now you get 1/2 season shows in the Fall and Spring with 12-13 episodes per calendar season like Supernatural. Some shows are only one calendar season like Vikings, Defiance, Falling Skies and Last Ship!
So, what follows are my genre related picks for 2014 to give you examples of this new way of keeping up with your fave shows:
I was really looking forward to Sean Bean in Legends but I was disappointed. His is the only good character. They don't really flesh out the other characters and the other actors don't have much to do. But you gotta love Sean in LOTR and an old BBC series called Sharpe based on the Bernard Cornwell novels!
NOTE ON DOMINION:
Dominion was another diappointment! I love Anthony Head from Buffy and BBCA's Merlin. However, the plot was slow and Head was not the main character. He couldn't carry the whole show on his shoulders all by himself, I'm afraid.
NOTE ON FOREVER:
By contrast, I'm really liking Ioan Gruffudd in Forever! All the characters are nicely fleshed out and work well together. I remember the first season of ST:TNG. The actors were so stiff and fake! I'm a big fan of Ioan since the film Titanic and an old BBC series called HornBlower based on the C.S. Forrester novels. BTW, in a similar vein, I also love what they did with the Patrick O'Brien novels in the movie Master and Commander!
Now go enjoy some of your own Extreme Video Streaming adventures!
OK, let me go back to my weekly or biweekly summaries. The day by day summary is too time consuming to write and I think too tedious to read! So, this will be a 2 week
summary as this past week was quite short
(Thursday and Friday was Rosh Hashanah).
We finished Chapter 12 on Sequences and Series with the Binomial Expansion Theorem. Then we started Chapter 11 on solving 2D and 3D Systems of Equations. Next week, this will lead to the development of Matrix Arithmetic and Matrix Algebra. We will even get into some Linear Programming! I hope you are getting a lot out of our ScreenCasts (see below) which include SageCell WorkSheets in the YouTube Descriptions.
We also celebrated "The Great TI 84+ UnBoxing of 2014!" We unboxed and distributed 24 out of the 48 84s that were donated to our class. I'm still waiting on some calculator rental forms to give out the remaining 24 GCs. BTW, these are not really rental forms as no one pays a dime until the end of the year if the GC is lost or damaged (like a book card really). So, over the past several years we've upgraded our emulators from Ziggie (VTI-83 and TILEM-83) to Frodo (WABBIT-84) to SAGE!
Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 12
Quarter I Week 2 Sequences and Series!
9/8/14-9/12/14
MONDAY: Lesson 1201A Recursion Now we redo 1201 by looking at sequences and series defined recursively. TUESDAY: Lesson 1202 Arithmetic Seqs Today we talked about adding finite arithmetic sequences. WEDNESDAY: Lesson 1203 Geometric Seqs Then we derived a formula for summing finite and infinite geometric sequences. BTW, if it's September, YouTube Wednesday must include Tom Lehrer's New Math! THURSDAY: Lesson 1204 Induction Proofs Finally, used Peano's Postulates to prove sums by induction! FRIDAY: Lesson 1204 Induction Practice We went over the homework as a review for a QUiz on Monday. Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 12
Quarter I Week 1 First Week Back!
9/1/14-9/5/14
I don't usually do a day by day rundown of the week, but here goes nothing! MONDAY: Labor Day (nothing to report) TUESDAY: Superintendent's Conferences where we spent all day in meetings except for the last 2 hours of the day when we finally got to set up our rooms. I spent those 2 hours moving 100 textbooks, arranging and tweeking 25 PCs, finding 25 chairs and placing 6 tables. Then I found that my SSH server's RAID drive crashed, so I had to setup openSSH on an alternate server I used to have for FTP. That's OK since I don't need the FTP server much anymore. I use the SSH sever for my AP Computer Science students to login from home and finish their Java projects. I share files with my students through Edmodo. I upload my files on DropBox, SageCell and YouTube aka my cloud! WEDNESDAY: First Day of Classes The first day of every quarter starts with the "Ceremony Of The Seats" (new seating assignments). The students come into a dark room except for the PC monitors and the SmartBoard. On the SmartBoard I'm playing an MP3 of the sound track to "A Beautiful Mind" over VLC. Since this isn't an MP4, VLC adds some wild special effects on the SmartBoard so it's all cool. Then I walk to each seat and call each student using my SmartPhone as a flashlight as if I'm an usher in the Movie Theater. It's all very dramatic. Then we hand out books and book cards, go over the syllabus and fill out some biographical forms. Sorry, there's no instruction the first day of classes. YOUTUBE: Since it was Wednesday, after all, I had to show a FILK or two! So, at the end of the period I snuck in our own student made Frozen and then the infamous Mathmaticious! THURSDAY: Lesson 1200 Intro to SAGE Finally, we say goodbye to Ziggie (TI-83) and play around with SAGECELL! All we did was some basic Arithmetic and Algebra but I think we got across the power of a robust Computer Algebra System, aka CAS, such as SAGE! FRIDAY: Lesson 1201 Sequences & Series We dive right into sequences and series using for loops and list comprehensions in python! TECH NOTE: I recorded these ScreenCasts last year. The audio isn't great as I was using a BlueTooth Mic I inherited after Hurricane Sandy. It took me a while to get all my equipment replaced, sorry. Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Ziggie must die - No more TI-83!
Quarter I Week 0 August Preparation:
PreCalculus is all new this year:
(1) My preCalculus for Juniors classes will start the school year with Chapter 12 this year! We start with Chapter 12 so we don't waste a lot of time reviewing topics from Chapters 1 and 2 which are about solving Linear Equations and Quadratics! So, when midyear is upon us, we can switch to Calculus without skipping important topics at the end of the preCalculus text. As such, we cover as much preCalculus as we can in the Fall Semester and as much AP Calculus AB material as we can in the Spring in preparation for Calculus next year! (2) We are using a Computer Algebra System called SAGE instead of the TI-83. We used to call the TI-83 "Ziggie." Hence the title of this post: Ziggie must die! The grand experiment this year is to see how well students learn the Math while learning to code in python at the same time! Well, it's not such a grand experiment as we've been using SAGECELL for several years now. What's different is that we won't be using the TI-83 this year as we just don't need it anymore! (3) We will be learning a lot of python in class. You can learn some python code on your own too with this online, interactive textbook! (4) Here's a taste of our first day:
OK, let me go back to my weekly or biweekly summaries. The day by day summary is too time consuming to write and I think too tedious to read! So, this will be a 2 week
summary as this past week was quite short
(Thursday and Friday was Rosh Hashanah).
We finished UNIT02 on Limits and Continuity. Then we started UNIT03 on the Algebraic Rules of Differentiation. I think you will get a lot out of our new ScreenCasts (see below) featuring the TI nSpire CX CAS!
We also celebrated "The Great TI NSPIRE UnBoxing of 2014!" We unboxed and distributed 22 out of the 24 nSpires that were donated to our class. I'm still waiting on some calculator rental forms to give out the remaining 2 GCs. BTW, these are not really rental forms as no one pays a dime until the end of the year if the GC is lost or damaged (like a book card really). We are also waiting for a our DonorsChoose Project to be funded to get another 14 GCs! So, over the past several years we've upgraded our emulators from Hal and Colossus (VTI-83/89 and TIEMU-89) to Castiel (KARMTI-nSpire)!
NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube desciptions include links to handouts and notes if you need them.
Here's an oldie but goodie featuring the TI-89. I was sick last week and could not re-record this ScreenCast, sorry.
OK, I just recorded a new version of 302!
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT02
Quarter I Week 2 Limits and Continuity!
9/8/2014 - 9/12/2014
MONDAY: Lesson 107 Functions vs Relations
We talked about graphing General Form Conic Sections by Completing The Square and using Polar Notation! TUESDAY: Lesson 201 1-Sided Limits Now we look at Limits at Infinity and limits on either side of points of discontinuity. WEDNESDAY: Lesson 202 Continuity Now we define Continuity and use the Intermediate Value Theorem. BTW, if it's September, YouTube Wednesday must include Tom Lehrer's New Math! THURSDAY: Lesson 202 Continuity Nothing new today, we just went over the homework in groups on our mini marker boards from http://whiteboardsusa.com FRIDAY: Lesson 203 Definition of f'(x) Finally, we defined the Derivative as the limit of the secant line slopes! NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube desciptions include links to handouts and notes if you need them.
TECHNOTE: If you are having trouble running KARMTI at home, you may need to reinstall the OS. Enter this line: /1=boot1.img /MXC /PB=boot2.img /PO=TI-NspireCXCAS-3.6.0.550.tcc /K4 /N /R in (FILE)(BOOT OPTIONS)(COMMANDLINE) Then enter myFlash.bin in (FILE)(SAVE FLASH AS) Then enter this line: /1=boot1.img /F=myFlash.bin /K4 in (FILE)(BOOT OPTIONS)(COMMANDLINE) Then do (FILE)(EXIT) UPDATE: You may also have to goto (FILE)(SKINS) to enable a skin! The next time you run KARMTI, it should default to "/1=boot1.img /F=myFlash.bin /K4" using the new OS without you having to enter anything as it works in class. BTW, the new OS file "TI-NspireCXCAS-3.6.0.550.tcc" is already in the KARMTI folder I gave you. What we do in class requires OS 3.1 or greater, I'm using 3.6 OS. To get the latest TI nSPire CX CAS OS goto http://education.ti.com/en/us/home Good Luck!
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT01+UNIT02
Quarter I Week 1 First Week Back!
9/1/2014 - 9/5/2014
I don't usually do a day by day rundown of the week, but here goes nothing!
MONDAY: Labor Day (nothing to report) TUESDAY: Superintendent's Conferences where we spent all day in meetings except for the last 2 hours of the day when we finally got to set up our rooms. I spent those 2 hours moving 100 textbooks, arranging and tweeking 25 PCs, finding 25 chairs and placing 6 tables. Then I found that my SSH server's RAID drive crashed, so I had to setup openSSH on an alternate server I used to have for FTP. That's OK since I don't need the FTP server much anymore. I use the SSH sever for my AP Computer Science students to login from home and finish their Java projects. I share files with my students through Edmodo. I upload my files on DropBox, SageCell and YouTube aka my cloud! WEDNESDAY: First Day of Classes The first day of every quarter starts with the "Ceremony Of The Seats" (new seating assignments). The students come into a dark room except for the PC monitors and the SmartBoard. On the SmartBoard I'm playing an MP3 of the sound track to "A Beautiful Mind" over VLC. Since this isn't an MP4, VLC adds some wild special effects on the SmartBoard so it's all cool. Then I walk to each seat and call each student using my SmartPhone as a flashlight as if I'm an usher in the Movie Theater. It's all very dramatic. Then we hand out books and book cards, go over the syllabus and fill out some biographical forms. Sorry, there's no instruction the first day of classes. YOUTUBE: Since it was Wednesday, after all, I had to show a FILK or two! So, at the end of the period I snuck in our own student made Frozen and then the infamous Mathmaticious! THURSDAY: Lesson 101 Intro to TI-nSpire Finally, we say goodbye to Hal (TI-89) and play around with the KARMTI emulator on each PC as we don't have all our TI nSpire CX CAS Graphing Calculators from DonorsChoose as yet. The students are still trying to get some FREE Google Gift Cards from Codecademy! TECH NOTE: I was ScreenCasting Lesson 101 from the front of the room at the SmartBoard using SmartNotebook with my USB Mic attached to the SmartBoard. This was all well and good until the keys on the emulator started sticking. So, I had to go to my PC in the back of the room to use a standard keyboard and mouse instead of the SmartBoard for input on the emulator. FRIDAY: Lesson 106 Implicit Graphs I used to do a whole UNIT1 on preCalculus Review. Now I just sneak in a few of those lessons before UNIT2 on Limits. These UNIT1 Lessons are mainly an intro to the calculator and review of a bit of Algebra and Trig. We play around with Function, Parametric, DiffEqu and Polar modes all in the first few days of class! TECH NOTE: I was ScreenCasting Lesson 106 from the back of the room at my PC with the USB Mic attached to the PC to fix the problems I listed in the last technical note. I still had a problem late in the ScreenCast when xournal, the pen app I was using, started drawing random lines all over the SmartBoard whenever I put the stylus down on my tablet. I was using xournal instead of SmartNotebook and a DROID Tablet over WiFi instead of the SmartBoard like the old days when all I had was a PC Projector. Maybe I'll try using SmartNotebook with the Tablet on Monday to see if that's a bit better. The problem with this setup is that when I use SmartNotebook with aconv, my ScreenCaster, and SplashTop (to connect the tablet over WiFi) then SmartNotebook is a bit laggy. UPDATE: Today is Monday and I recorded ScreenCast 107 as above. I got a lot of lag between writing with the stylus and seeing what I wrote on SmartNotebook. So, I moved every thing back up front next to the SmartBoard. I attached an extra USB keyboard and USB mouse as well as the USB Mic directly to the SmartBoard. Luckily there's 3 USB ports! So, Tuesday I'll record ScreenCast 201 from the front of the room using the SmartBoard with SmartNotebook which worked well the first day (101). When I need to use the nSpire emulator, I can now use the keyboard and mouse at the front of the room to avoid the sticky keys! Neither will I need SpalshTop nor the Tablet. I still have the standard keyboard and mouse on the teacher/smartboard PC at the back of the room. NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube desciptions include links to handouts and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 5H:
Hal Must Die - No More TI-89!
Quarter I Week 0 August Preparation
AP Calculus BC is switching gears this year. We're leaving our TI-89s behind for the first time in 20 years! We will go forth and conquer with our new TI nSpire CX CAS Graphing Calculators! We've been running project after project on Donorschoose and nearly have a class set of nSpires to loan out. We used to call the TI-89 "Hal," hence the title of this post: Hal Must Die - No More TI-89! It shouldn't be a tough transition, however, as the 89 and the nSpire are very similar Computer Algebra Systems aka CAS. However, the nSpire has a nicer color, hi-res, bright interface and a document system to save our work. It also has the LUA programming environment, but I think we'll stick to TI-BASIC when writing programs for Calculus class! Whenever I change textbooks or technology, I have to rerecord the course for YouTube. So, I'll record AP Calculus BC all over again with a bunch of new screencasts featuring the nSpire! This was the first course I ever recorded, so it's about time. Here's a taste of the nSpire (not my video):
OK, let me go back to my weekly or biweekly summaries. The day by day summary is too time consuming to write and I think too tedious to read! So, this will be a 2 week
summary as this past week was quite short
(Thursday and Friday was Rosh Hashanah).
We talked about constructing and using objects from existing classes in the Java Library such as java.awt.Rectangle, java.awt.Color, java.util.Random and java.lang.String. We mentioned constructors, accessors, mutators and immutable classes. I call this Object Based Programming (OBP). I reserve Object Oriented Programming (OOP) for when we write our own classes from scratch! I hope you are getting a lot out of our ScreenCasts with Java code attached to the YouTube descriptions.
We also talked about when to use lower-case, camelCase, ProperCase and UPPER_CASE following the Java Library conventions. Finally we reviewed our commandline: ls, cd, mkdir, rmdir, rm, top, last, who, whoami, chmod, javac, java, javadoc and appletviewer!
I think I'm changing my mind about doing my own projects or mini case studies this year. The new 20 hour triple lab component imposed by the College Board in APCS is worrying me. So, below you will find some canvas class projects with pixel graphics for your information but I'm skipping these for now. I'll revisit this decision later in the year if we find we have the time. Maybe we'll just play with pixel graphics as an after AP Exam Final Project?
APCS: AP CompSci + JAVA SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching AP CompSci:
Lab 01
Quarter I Week 2 println() Mania!
9/8/14-9/12/14
MONDAY: Hello World Version #2 Last week we left off on Hello1 which is your standard HelloWorld program using only println() for output. Today we played with Hello2 adding args[0] for commandline input. TUESDAY: Hello World Version #3+4 Hello3 adds JOptionPane for GUI input. As a result we had to ssh -Y userid@IP to allow a graphic ssh tunnel. Be carefull, ssh in class works the same as ssh at home on a Linux or Mac box. If you are using putty in Windows, you can't do any graphics. Hello4 was about doing the same thing with JApplet! WEDNESDAY: Lab 01 - C1X1+C1X2 We finally started Lab 01 which is everything you wanted to do with a println() in a main() method but were afraid to try! I modeled C1X1 (Chapter 1 Exercise 1) and the students tried to complete C1X2 in groups. C1X1 had us use "ASCII Graphics" to print out our names in a box. C1X2 was about printing out a face pattern. Of course, YouTube Wednesday would not be complete without Tom Lerher's "New Math" after which we discussed base 8 in great detail! THURSDAY: Lab 01 - C1X3+C1X4 C1X3 had use output an ASCII version of a TicTacToe Board. C1X4 was similar but we had to produce a staircase pattern. FRIDAY: Pop Goes the Quzzie! We refined the Quizzie and took it for real this time:
APCS: AP CompSci + JAVA SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching AP CompSci:
HelloWorld
Quarter I Week 1 First Week Back!
9/1/14-9/5/14
I don't usually do a day by day rundown of the week, but here goes nothing! MONDAY: Labor Day (nothing to report) TUESDAY: Superintendent's Conferences where we spent all day in meetings except for the last 2 hours of the day when we finally got to set up our rooms. I spent those 2 hours moving 100 textbooks, arranging and tweeking 25 PCs, finding 25 chairs and placing 6 tables. Then I found that my SSH server's RAID drive crashed, so I had to setup openSSH on an alternate server I used to have for FTP. That's OK since I don't need the FTP server much anymore. I use the SSH sever for my AP Computer Science students to login from home and finish their Java projects. I share files with my students through Edmodo. I upload my files on DropBox, SageCell and YouTube aka my cloud! WEDNESDAY: First Day of Classes The first day of every quarter starts with the "Ceremony Of The Seats" (new seating assignments). The students come into a dark room except for the PC monitors and the SmartBoard. On the SmartBoard I'm playing an MP3 of the sound track to "A Beautiful Mind" over VLC. Since this isn't an MP4, VLC adds some wild special effects on the SmartBoard so it's all cool. Then I walk to each seat and call each student using my SmartPhone as a flashlight as if I'm an usher in the Movie Theater. It's all very dramatic. Then we hand out books and book cards, go over the syllabus and fill out some biographical forms. Sorry, there's no instruction the first day of classes. YOUTUBE: Since it was Wednesday, after all, I had to show a FILK or two! So, at the end of the period I snuck in our own student made Frozen and then the infamous Mathmaticious! THURSDAY: Hello World Version #1 Of course, I had to start with Hello World! This version simply uses println for output. The next version will add args[0] commandline input! We are using a basic Linux Shell or Terminal with a text or ASCII Editor along with jdk 1.6's java and javac utilities. I'll introduce appletviewer next week and javadoc in chapter 3 when we write our own classes. FRIDAY: Pop Goes the Quzzie! I know it's only the 3rd day of class. However, I did throw a lot of acronyms and jargon at my students already, so here's the quiz. I hope you know all the answers. Let me just do these fill-ins for you: PARTC: MrG has been teaching 1010) PROGRAMMING since 1975 1011) NYS REGENTS MATH & SCI since 1984 1100) COLLEGE MATH & COMP since 1993 1101) LINUX CLUSTERS since 2002 1110) COMP ALG SYSTEMS since 2011 1111) IDK! since 2020
APCS: AP CompSci + JAVA SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching AP CompSci:
APCS NEW LAB DEBATE!
Quarter I Week 0 August Preparation
I started getting ready for the new AP Computer Science 20 hour lab requirement that's replacing the GridWorld Case Study using the 3 New Labs some time ago. If I recall correctly, all I had to do was goto the secure documents area of the APCommunity Teacher Audit site and download 3 zip files. Before downloading said files I had to click on some sort of acknowledgement pop up about using these labs or similar labs of my own design as part of the 20 hour requirement, that these files are indeed secure (ie: not to be posted publically) and that GridWorld is gone!
If that's all you think that you have to do for your students, I'd say that you're missing the point! The new requirement is to have at least 20 hours of lab time as part of your course. I don't think that's going to be a problem for most of us currently teaching APCS as I'm sure we probably provide more than 20 hours of lab time already. I know that I have lab time as part of every single class (that's why I teach in a PC Lab/Classroom). In 150 classes before AP Review and AP Exam Week, I probably have 100 hours of lab time! I can go many classes in a row without any formal lecture if we are in the throws of a particularly challenging problem set. I usually do a brief lecture at the beginning of a chapter. Then I give the students a pdf of the chapter to study at home privately via Edmodo or DropBox. Then I give my students a problem set for the chapter to hash out "together" (ie: in pairs but I help out at each PC or at the SmartBoard).
Now, if the 20 hours really means 20x60 minutes and not 20 periods, then the new requirement is more like 30 periods if your periods are 40 minutes long. So, if you did the New Labs all in a row, we're talking, for example, all of January and most of February.
When I heard of the demise of GridWorld, I was very happy as I could finally go back to using my own smaller "case studies" or projects that I never had time to do since the advent of College Board imposed Case Studies. I would only be able to do 1 or 2 of my own projects and varied them each year. I guess I'm a throw back to the time before AP Case Studies. Yes, there was such a time, and I enjoyed teaching that way.
Now the problem is to be able to cover the same material presented in the New Labs in those 20 hours. I was going to do my own thing or even just stick to GridWorld for a while. But now that I see the labs, I think my students may well enjoy this approach. I'll probably do a mix of a few of my own projects with the New Labs and the old problem sets from our textbook.
I've read the articles on http://www.skylit.com (Maria and Gary Litvin) as well as on http://www.bluepelicanjava.com (Charles Cook) regarding the use of the 3 Labs. Gary makes the case that the New Labs will take too much class time to cover thoroughly. Charles talks about reorganizing the labs into 17-23 hours of class time to cover them all. BluePelicanJava includes a lot of APCS B aka CS II, so I guess we can cut some of that! I was originally 100% with Gary, but now I think I'm somewhere between the two.
http://www.apluscompsci.com (Stacey Armstrong) even has a College Board approved syllabus with the New Labs integrated throughout the year. So, I guess she's on board too.
I haven't heard much from Cay Horstmann, or anyone else for that mater, on this subject.
You know, when we used to teach C++ in AP Computer Science, I used Gary Litvin's C++ for You++ as well as Owen Astrachan's Tapestry. Both of these C++ texts were masterpieces in my opinion!
Now, I use Gary's "MP3: Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python 3.0" in my intro CS class and Cay's Big Java in APCS A aka CS I. I wonder what Owen has to say about the New Labs. He's probably too busy developing the new AP CS Principles course to weigh in on this. BTW, these two texts are masterworks as well! Keep up the good work!
Am I going to be able to fit in every single exercise from all 3 Labs the first year? Probably not, but I think I'll try to fit as much in as I can. As with everything else, it comes down to experience. WRT to the 3 Labs we are all NOOBS again, so this year we can do justice to some of the Labs, next year a bit more, then eventually we'll get it down.
On a related note, if I had decided NOT to use the New Labs and substitute my own projects covering the same concepts, would I have had to resubmit my APCS Syllabus for audit? I was never clear on this point. I suppose it's moot now as I'm using the New Labs.
If you want ideas for your own projects, I like to use the StdDraw class from Princeton CS 126. I've also used How To Think Like A Computer Scientist in my intro course using Python. Some of the projects in there could easily be done with Java. Here's some nice lab ideas from the awesome Roger Frank! Given enough time (obviously can't do all this but I wish I could), here's what I'm thinking: CH1: Hello World (main, println, basic IO) CH2: Using Objects (from existing classes) CH3: Implementing Classes (our own constructors, accessors, mutators) CH4: Fundamental Data Types (Objects vs Primitives) CH6: Decisions (if statements, boolean expressions) CH7: Iteration (for loops, while loops, for each loops) **MAGPIE LAB** PROJECT: RockPaperScissorsLizardSpock (IF) PROJECT: ROT13 Encryption (Strings)
PROJECT: Lindenmayer Systems (Strings) PROJECT: Pythagorean Triples (Loops)
PROJECT: Function Graphing Calculator PROJECT: Parametric Graphing Calculator PROJECT: Polar Graphing Calculator CH8: Arrays and ArrayLists (1D and 2D static arrays, Lists) **PICTURE LAB** skip optionals PROJECT: Polygons and ShoeLace PROJECT: Iterated Fractal Systems PROJECT: Number Base Conversions PROJECT: Roman Numeral Arithmentic PROJECT: Chess960 and Random Numbers PROJECT: Complex and Mandelbrot CH11: Interfaces and Polymorphism CH13: Inheritance **ELEVENS LAB** skip optionals except sim CH18: Recursion CH19: Sorting and Searching PROJECT: Turtle Class PROJECT: Turtle Class+Lindenmayer PROJECT: Turtle Class+Koch SnowFlakes PROJECT: Turtle Class+Ball/Ballistics PROJECT: Turtle Class+nBody/Orbits PROJECT: Our own Static Math Class AP REVIEW AP EXAMS POST AP EXAMS: Linux Clusters, MPI4PY Python, VPython, Cython SAGE, POVRAY, BLENDER, TACHYON Python Samples to convert to Java projects:
Java Samples:
VPython Sample:
SAGE Samples: (4 video playlist)
Clusters and Scientific Computing Samples: (6 video playlist)
