Sunday, May 21, 2017

AP Calculus BC 2016-2017: Life After AP Calculus BC? (May)

AP Calculus BC 2016-2017:
Life After AP Calculus BC?
(May)



As you can see above in a screen capture from edmodo, life is a bit more laid back around here now that the AP Exam is over! Every Monday and Friday we watch a movie related to Math or Science (Hidden Figures, The Man Who Knew Infinity, The Imitation Game, The Theory Of Everything, Proof, Beautiful Mind, Stand And Deliver)! Tuesday-Thursday every week after the exam is devoted to our final project. 

We are currently solving the AP Exam using SageMathCloud instead of a graphing calculator. Next week we'll start looking at Advanced Differential Equations. Stay tuned, we'll probably have some new "LAC: Life After Calculus" (see below) and "How To Part IIA" (see above) ScreenCasts on my YouTube channel soon!



 YouTube Wednesday: SymphonyOfScience!


Teaching With Technology,
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AP Computer Science 2016-2017: Life After CompSci? (May)

AP Computer Science 2016-2017:
Life After CompSci?
(May)


As you can see above in a screen capture from edmodo, life is a lot more laid back around here now that the AP Exam is over! Every Monday and Friday we play set up a FLOSS LAN Party! Tuesday-Thursday every week after the exam is devoted to our final project. I was going to have the students help me to come up with a new project to add to each lab we did this year using openProcessing. However, Repl.it came up with a free online course on React Native, so we are trying that out first.


AP CompSci Pep Talk 2017
The best way to learn how to code is to watch someone else code and try to do some coding yourself everyday! That's what I try to provide for you in class.

Also, the best way to succeed on the AP CompSci Exam is to read and write code everyday even at home! You should be playing around with repl.it everyday now that we have a server we can use in class and at home! 

You also need to get the latest Barron's Review book and read and write a little code in there everyday. You should be reading our textbook power points and trying our lab pdfs everyday! 

Just a little advice from your friendly neighborhood CompSci teacher who's been coding for over 40 years!

Backgound
Ever since Linux came out (1995?), I have always provided my students with a sftp/ssh server they could log into in class and from home. This was a great solution for us as students could work on labs in class, in extra help, in the library and at home. This made our workflow very efficient so that we could do a lot of programming assignments in a short amount of time. I'm used to giving my students a lot of lab time and coding practice everyday!

In recent years, my district has hired out our tech services to some off campus "experts" in IT and Cyber Security. This new "Tech Dept" has found fit, in its infinite wisdom, to change the school's internet firewall in such a way so as not to permit ssh tunnels in or out. My pleas to the contrary falling on deaf ears. So, now my students cannot login from home. I've been struggling with alternate solutions involving Teamviewer, SplashTop and Chrome Remote Desktop just to name a few. These experiments have had varrying degrees of success but still no joy.

This semester I started playing around wih online java IDEs. I tried many and found Cloud9 actually provided an online Ubuntu terminal very much like what we use in class. However, javac is no longer installed and customer service is not very helpful....

cloud9 is free. However, if you want to setup a teacher account, it costs a modest $1 per month.

Why would you pay if it's free? The problem with cloud9 is the registration process. They require a credit card for identification purposes.

Students can join your Team without a credit card if you have a Teacher Account.

Regarding the APCS Labs (Magpie, etc), I still have my local sftp linux server in class for GUI and graphical work.

Most of the work we do all year is more text based, so using https://repl.it or https://c9.io would be fine.

Also, if we want to play with graphics we could use https://www.openprocessing.org/

I'm sticking with repl.it for now as my students are doing well with it and it's easy to share code on my SmartBoard as I teach.

c9 is hard to see on the SmartBoard. You can increase font size in the text editor but not in the terminal???

Actually, you can install default-jdk (openjdk) from the commandline much as you do in a standard Ubuntu terminal with apt-get. Here's an example of some coding I did, https://ide.c9.io/calcpage/rot13

If you want to play with c9 you can make one workspace for the whole year, just make a new directory (aka folder) for each project,

Also, make a "custom workspace" by clicking on the Ubuntu icon. They have different workspaces for c++, python, html website dev, etc.

Your Custom Workspace is basically a plain vanilla install of Ubuntu (virtual machine like Harvard's CS50 uses) that works over a web interface.

So, jdk is not installed. Do this once in the terminal (aka commandline):

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install default-jdk

This installs the latest version of openjdk from the debian repositories which is fine for text based work.

However, we did play around with https://repl.it and found it very useful. Students get their own free accounts. Students can store their work with revision histories. Students get a text editor with syntax completion and syntax color highlights (simple java IDE). Students get an ASCII terminal for output. You can use a variety of programming languages too. 

Teachers can get a teacher account where they can set up online classrooms and assignments but I haven't done that. I'm using my account as the students do. Each new project is saved as a separate session. Each session can have multiple files and classes. One thing to watch out for is that the main method has to be in Main.java in the Main class. 

Last, but not least, you can share a live instance of any particular revision of any session you want complete with editor, terminal and runner. Here's an example, https://repl.it/GLAC/93


YouTube Wednesday: SymphonyOfScience!

Well, that's all folks,
A. Jorge Garcia

 Applied Math, Physics and CS
2017 NYS Secondary Math PAEMST Nominee


Sage Ebay
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preCalculus 2016-2017: 8 Week Calculus Crash Course (May)

preCalculus 2016-2017:
8 Week Calculus Crash Course
(May)





Calculus Units 2,3 & 5!
As you can see above, my Calculus Crash Course starts with CH03 Rational Functions (2 weeks) about Limits. This is actually the last chapter we cover in the preCalculus text. I add the concept of Limits at a Point and Limits at Infinity when graphing Rational Functions. When we talk about horizontal, slant and non-linear asymptotes, we are really talking about Limits at Infinity. When we talk about vertical asymptotes and holes in the graph, we are really talking about Limits at a Point. 

UNIT02 (2 weeks) is from my Calculus class. Here we extend the idea of Limits at a Point to finding the limiting slope of a secant line as it approaches a tangent line. Then we introduce limits involving the Difference Quotient! We also talk about continuity and differentiability.

UNIT03 (2 weeks) is all about developing and applying the algebraic rules for derivatives: Power Rule, Trig Rules, Product Rule, Quotient Rule and Chain Rule. If we have time, we even touch on part of UNIT04 about Implicit Differentiation and Related Rates!

UNIT05 (2 weeks) is about AntiDerivitives. We first work with AntiDerivatives analytically. Then we play around with Definite Integrals and Reimann Sum estimates. We even write a program for LSUM, RSUM and TRAP when calculating areas with large numbers of rectangles! If we have time, we touch on UNIT06 and Volumes of Revolution! 

I don't do UNIT01 as it's preCalculus review! We don't really do justice to UNIT04 (applications of derivatives) nor do we have a lot of time for UNIT06 (applications of antiderivatives). Hopefully, my students will take a full semester of Calculus in college next year or a full year in High School and get a lot more practice with these concepts. However, my 8 week crash course is a good introduction to the concepts of Calculus! We barely scratch the surface, but my students could probably pass the AP Calculus AB exam if it were given in June!


YouTube Wednesday: SymphomyOfScience!



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Monday, May 15, 2017

CIS(theta) 2016-2017: May Meeting: Quadrature!


CIS(theta) 2016-2017: 
May Meeting: Quadrature!

We worked with sample MPI code:

https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt


InstantCluster Step 7: 
Coding IA - quad-serial.py
Coding IB - quad-mpi.py

InstantCluster Step 8: 
Coding IIA - mandel-serial.py
Coding IIB - mandel-mpi.py

InstantCluster Step 9: 
Coding IIC - Mandel Zoom Movie

InstantCluster Step 10: 
Coding III - POVRay 3D Rendering

InstantCluster Step 11: 
Coding IVA - Blender 3D Rendering

InstantCluster Step 12: 
Coding IVB - Blender 3D Animation

2016-2017 MANDATORY MEETINGS
09/14/2016 (organizational meeting)
10/26/2016 (installing Ubuntu 16.10 64bit)
11/09/2016 (installing Ubuntu 16.10 64bit)
12/14/2016 (Pelican HPC DVD)
01/11/2017 (openSSH Public Keys)
02/08/2017 (openMPI Software Stack)
03/08/2017 (openMPI Software Stack)
03/22/2017 (Fractals)
04/26/2017 (POVray)
05/10/2017 (Blender)

So, what's all this good for aside from making a Fractal Zoom or Shrek Movie?

SETI Search
Econometrics
Bioinformatics
Protein Folding
Beal Conjecture
Scientific Computing
Computational Physics
Mersenne Prime Search
Computational Chemistry
Computational Astronomy
Computer Aided Design (CAD)
Computer Algebra Systems (CAS)

These are but a few examples of using Computer Science to solve problems in Mathematics and the Sciences (STEAM). In fact, many of these applications fall under the heading of Cluster Programming or Super Computing. These problems typically take too long to process on a single PC, so we need a lot more horse power. Next time, maybe we'll just use Titan!

====================

Membership (alphabetic by first name):
CIS(theta) 2016-2017: 
DanielD(12), JevanyI(12), JuliaL(12), MichaelC(12) , MichaelS(12), YaminiN(12)

CIS(theta) 2015-2016: 
BenR(11), BrandonL(12), DavidZ(12), GabeT(12), HarrisonD(11), HunterS(12), JacksonC(11), SafirT(12), TimL(12)

CIS(theta) 2014-2015: 
BryceB(12), CheyenneC(12), CliffordD(12), DanielP(12), DavidZ(12), GabeT(11), KeyhanV(11), NoelS(12), SafirT(11)

CIS(theta) 2013-2014: 
BryanS(12), CheyenneC(11), DanielG(12), HarineeN(12), RichardH(12), RyanW(12), TatianaR(12), TylerK(12)

CIS(theta) 2012-2013: 
Kyle Seipp(12)

CIS(theta) 2011-2012: 
Graham Smith(12), George Abreu(12), Kenny Krug(12), LucasEager-Leavitt(12)

CIS(theta) 2010-2011: 
David Gonzalez(12), Herbert Kwok(12), Jay Wong(12), Josh Granoff(12), Ryan Hothan(12)

CIS(theta) 2009-2010: 
Arthur Dysart(12), Devin Bramble(12), Jeremy Agostino(12), Steve Beller(12)

CIS(theta) 2008-2009: 
Marc Aldorasi(12), Mitchel Wong(12)

CIS(theta) 2007-2008: 
Chris Rai(12), Frank Kotarski(12), Nathaniel Roman(12)

CIS(theta) 1988-2007: 
A. Jorge Garcia, Gabriel Garcia, James McLurkin, Joe Bernstein, ... too many to mention here!
====================


Well, that's all folks,
A. Jorge Garcia

 Applied Math, Physics and CS
2017 NYS Secondary Math PAEMST Nominee


Sage Ebay
TpT
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Monday, May 1, 2017

Filk Friday!

Filk Friday! 
A few years ago, we started an Ancient Tradition in my AP classes, namely: Filk Friday!

What is Filk Friday? It's the Friday before our first AP Exam week each year. What we do is stop AP review briefly and catch our breath. To accomplish this state of relaxation and euphoria, we watch a few filks!

I do this in all my classes since my preCalulus students are burnt out from AP Review in other classes too!

The first 2 videos you see above are for AP Calculus BC. We also have our Continental Mathematics League Awards ceremony.

Videos 3-5 above are related to AP Computer Science. 

The last 3 videos are for preCalculus as we just started doing a bit of Caclulus proper.
Hope you enjoyed letting off some steam before your AP Exams!

Well, that's all folks! 

BONUS ROUND:



Generally Speaking,
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