Shadowfax Cluster Rant 2009-2024 Release 36.03: CompSci Honors Chapters 11-17: COVID19 Edition! (May-June)

Friday, June 26, 2020

CompSci Honors Chapters 11-17: COVID19 Edition! (May-June)

LAST UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapters 11-17:

COVID19 Edition!

(May-June)

Wow, we've been pretty busy these past several months during the COVID19 shut down! As you can see below, we talked about Recursion (Chapter 11), Polynomials as Lists (Chapter 12), Matrices (Chapter 14) and Encryption (Chapter 17). We even used Matrices in our final project: Conway's Game Of Life Simulation! We used Trinket all year to play with Turtle Graphics every Tuesday for fun. This final project is a culmination of all that work! Good job everyone! Have a great summer!

APRIL UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter Eight:

How Do You Count?

(April)

Chapter 8 was all about the Counting Principle, Combinations, Permutations and Probability. We even played around a bit with resursive functions such as those that calculator Factorials and Pascal's Triangle numbers! Chapter 9 revisited the concepts of Lists, Tuples, Dictionaries and Files.

MARCH UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter Six:

What Is Boolean Algebra?

(March)

Chapter 6 was all about Boolean expressions, Boolean Algebra, Truth Tables, Digital Circuit Diagrams, if else, if elif and Predicate Functions. We just barely finished Chapter 6 when the COVID19 scare reared its ugly head. Fun was had by all, even remotely! Chapter 7 extended the idea of truth tables to digital circuits! We even played Rock Paper Scissors and modeled the COVID19 infected population of NYC from 3/1/2020- 3/28/2020.

FEBRUARY UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter Five:

What Is Positional Arithmetic?

(February)

We completed chapter 5, yeah! We played around with arithmetic in other bases such as Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal. We also learned how to convert a whole number from Decimal to other bases and we learned how to convert whole numbers from other bases to Decimal. We even figured out how to deal with rational numbers and integers in any base. Can you interpret the 2's Complement Binary representation of an integer, aka signed number?

JANUARY UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter Four

What's A Sequence

(January)

We completed chapter 4, yeah! This chapter was about sequences and series. We played around with for loops, while loops and list comprehensions to find finite and infinite series as summation loops.

We also made the distinction between Arithmetic vs Geometric series as well as Telescoping series and Recursive sequences. Last, but not least, we talked about finite vs infinite series convergence and divergence!

403 What's A Finite Series?(code)

404 What's An Infinite Series(code)

405(even) What Is Iteration?(code)

405(odd) What's Is Iteration?(code)

DECEMBER UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter Four

What's A Sequence

(December)

Unfortunately, we did not progress as far I thought we might this month. Currently, we are in the middle of 403 What's A Finite Series. So, I only have screen-cast summaries for 402 What's A Sequence which was very intricate, detailed and slow going!

We had a lot of days off this past unit. We also have Trinket Tuesdays every week. Further, we had the Hour Of Code around Grace Hopper's birthday (1 day for my students and 1 day for honors math students as an in-school field trip). Last, but not least, we had rehearsals every day for our Compsci Carols and we just went caroling on 12/20/19 (our last day before break)!

So, below you will find summaries for 402 only. We'll finish 403 after December Break. Then 404 will be about Infinite Series and 405 will be about Iteration. Chapters 5-7 will be about Binary, Decimal and Hexadecimal conversions, operations, truth diagrams, logic gates and circuit diagrams!

402A What's A Sequence?(code)

402B What's A Sequence?(code)

402C What's A Sequence?(code)

NOVEMBER UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter Three

What's A Function

(November)

This month we focused on Chapter 3: What's A Function. We talked about functions with and without arguments. We played around with functions that have a return line and some that didn't. We found out what an argument is and what the type of each argument is. Please see below for new screencasts and code!

CSH302 - What Is A Variable? (code)

CSH303 - What Is Scope? (code)

CSH304 - What Is None? (code)

CSH305 - What Is An Argument? (code)

OCTOBER UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter Two

What's An Interpreter

(October)

This month we focused on Chapter 2: What's An Interpreter. We continued our work flow as last month with Trinket Tuesdays following http://codeHS.com's python curriculum. However, most days we are using http://sagecell.sagemath.org with our textbook as pictured above.

Next year, in much the same vain, we would like to use the Big Java textbook with CS50 most days. Tuesdays will be about graphics programming in Processing. Last year we used http://ide.cs50.net (Google Compute Platform) most days and http://processing.org (Amazon Web Services) on Tuesdays.

Computing in the cloud has proven a very efficient paradigm as we could work on the same projects both in class and at home seamlessly! However, with the advent of the new NYS Ed-2d Student Privacy Law, working in the cloud will prove difficult. I'm looking into installing desktop IDEs for next year instead. We already have the Processing IDE, we just have to install NetBeans or Eclipse.

Please see below for all our ScreenCasts from chapter two in our textbook, "Mathematics For The Digital Age."

CSH202 - What Is A CPU? (code)

CSH203 - What Is An Interpreter? (code)

CSH204 - Intro To Coding! (code)

SEPTEMBER UPDATE:

CompSci Honors Chapter One

What's An Algorithm

(September)

Welcome to the Grand Experiment!

For several years now, we've been running a one year AP Computer Science program with less and less success. Years ago, we had a two year program where the first year was an introduction to computer science using python. Our Grand Experiment this year is all about bringing back our intro course so students will have two years experience with coding practice and computer science theory before taking the AP Computer Science A exam.

BTW, I'm not ScreenCasting our Tuesday experiments. Right now we are using Trinket as an online IDE to play around with Turtle Graphics on Tuesdays. We are using curriculae from codeHS and Runestone! Later in the semester we may try our hand at TI-BASIC on our TI-84Cs!

So, this year we are using the Litvins' textbook most days using SAGE with Tuesdays reserved for something a little different, codeHS curriculum with Trinket.

Next year, in much the same vain, we will use the Big Java textbook with CS50 most days. Tuesdays will be about graphics programming in Processing.

Please see below for all our ScreenCasts from chapter one in our textbook, "Mathematics For The Digital Age."

Notes:
1) Section 100 is not part of the textbook. It's an intro to SAGE.
2) There iare no ScreenCasts for CSH101, CSH201, etc as these are introductory sections for each chapter, so there are no exercises in those sections.
3) Live SageCell code is stored on the sidebar of this blog.

CSH100 - Intro To SAGE (code)