Wednesday, December 31, 2014

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com and the Twitterverse!

UPDATE (2014.1231): 
AppInventor has moved to http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/ AppInventor was a participant in the #HourOfCode this year and last. Also, my ILearnedToProgram permacode is here. AppInventor, now hosted by MIT instead of Google, is still a great way to code Droid Apps even for the Google Play Store! You owe it to yourself to try out the new tutorials using you own Droid CellPhone to test out your Blocky/Scratch code! BTW, I know it's New Year's Eve, but I saw someone reading this old post and just had to update it. I'm trying this new incarnation of AppInventor with my Computing Independent Study aka CIS(theta) students!

 ORIGINAL POST (2011.0521):
My AP Computer Science students finally got tired of playing bzflag, starcraft1, tremulous, openarena and glest after their AP exam during AP week. So, they wrangled me into starting a final project based on programming apps for the Droid OS! Here's what we've accomplished so far:

 does! Starting final project for my  class running   using   
Actually, we started all this at the http://ilearnedtoprogram.com site which has the link listed above. Also, as you can see, I started tweeting about this project too. On a recent post I wrote "I became a Twit on Twitter so I can Tweet!" Well, now that I'm a veteran on Twitter, I see that they don't call themselves Twits, they call themselves Tweeps. So, I should have said "I became a Tweep on Twitter so I can Tweet!" In anycase, I turned to my fellow Tweeps for help! BTW, I'm not on Facebook much anymore, but I set up an app that posts my tweets simultaneously on both Twitter and Facebook as a new status!


 does! Step 1: dl  to run   on our 32bit   10.10. We have  installed and hope we don't need 
This step was not entirely necessary, but my class wanted to try out Google Chrome. It was an easy download from http://google.com/chrome all we had to do was click on the *.deb 32bit package and the Ubuntu installer popped right up!
This step also boiled down to a debian app downloaded from http://appinventor.googlelabs.com and installed via the Ubuntu Software Center. BTW, I suspect the installer is just a GUI frontend for dpkg.

 does! Step 3: Trying helloPurr tutorial today but can't get   in  working???  file will not run!
Now we ran into one heck of a SNAFU! So, I asked the fellow appinventor tweeps from the twitterverse for advice:

  hi! I see you are using . I can't get jpnl file to run when I start blocks editor. How did u get past this?
 did you try opening the downloaded jpnl file directly? I opened the downloaded file and it works, takes some time to open though.
 I tried in Ubuntu on both Firefox and Chrome and have the same problem!

 hi! I see u r using . I am having trouble running blocks editor, how did you run it? The jpnl file just downloads!
 you need to double-click the downloaded file and follow the prompts. It links to your appinventor session. Really enjoying it!
 How do you open that file? I double clicked it and it didn't run, it just started up Firefox again and tried to download itself???
 Almost there! Download the JDK and open the jpnl file with the included javaws app. Now getting err re. setup commands.
 We have Sun JRE which does not include javaws. Google specifically says not to use openJDK?
 The JDK was the one I installed to get to javaws. With the .deb pckg things seemed to work. Let me know how you get on. Cheers.
 Thanx for ur help. I think u r right. I have to install JDK to have javaws available. So, I will try to do that on Monday.

So, I suppose Sun (Oracle actually) JDK will need to be installed on every Linux box after all. The main difference between my Student Stations and my Servers is that the server has JDK but not JRE installed and the Student stations have the JRE and no JDK. I did this on purpose as my AP Computer Science students need the JDK to do their work, so they simply ssh into the server. Its convenient to have JDK on one server so I need maintain it on only one box and the students can also use it from home! The JRE is on the Student Stations for SAGE to do 3D graphs. BTW, I have the JRE on the Teacher Station for the same reason, but I also need it for http://screenccast-o-matic.com

Well, stay tuned for updates on this project. Wish us luck! I hope you found this post informative. BTW, if you're wondering what the YouTube above has to do with anything on this post, its a video I got by following the NASA tweep tweeting yesterday on twitter about the USS Endeavour's final mission!


UPDATE (2011.0530):
If you use a network proxy to get internet access, make sure that both JRE and JDK are configured to use it. For the JRE, goto "System/Preferences/Network Proxy." For JDK, goto "Applications/Accessories/Terminal" and fire up javaws -viewer. At my school, I had to use my network login credentials on each station to get *.jnlp files to run correctly!

HTH, good luck with your droid apps!

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Thursday, December 25, 2014

Teaching Math 4R: Chapter 5 Quarter II Weeks 4&6 Inverses! 12/01/14-12/19/14

Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 5
Quarter II Weeks 4&6 Inverses!
12/01/14-12/19/14
OK, you can't make me blog about Week 3 (11/24-11/28) since it was a 2 day week right before Thanksgiving Break. Monday we had tests and Tuesday was a make up day. Actually, Monday was also a make up lab day for APCS.

Also, I'm not blogging about Week 5 (12/08-12/12) since I focused on telling the whole school about the #HourOfCode! So, my regular classes just had a lot of review sheets.

Finally, I'm not blogging about Week 7 (12/22-12/26) since it's also a 2 day week before XMas Break! Monday we have tests and Tuesday is preCalculus and Calculus Carols plus a game day in APCS. Monday is also a make up day for APCS.

So, what am I blogging about? Well, I'll let the YouTube ScreenCasts speak for themselves. Suffice it to say that we completed all of CH09 about Vectors and started CH05 about Inverse Functions!

YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS: 
Week4: #HourOfCode!
Week6: preCalc and Calculus Carols!

Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL
SCREENCASTS: 
YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 9
Quarter II Weeks 1&2 Vectors!
11/10/14-11/21/14
Yeah, Quarter II has begun! We started the unit on vectors by talking about complex numbers in CIS(theta), aka polar form, and 2D vector form. We also talked about adding, subtracting and multiplying, via the dot product, 2D vectors. Next week, we'll talk about 3D vectors and the cross product!

PRECACULUS CAROLS:
Don't forget to start rehearsals! 

YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS: 
Since we're doing Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus, it's time for our Astronomy related YouTubes! We had 2 guest speakers talk about the Asteroid Apophos and its flyby in 2029!
Week1: Neil deGrasse Tyson!
Week2: Bill Nye the Science Guy?

Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL
SCREENCASTS: 
YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 10
Quarter I Weeks 9&10 Conics!
10/27/14-11/07/14
Yeah, Quarter I is done! We finally finished Conic Sections using the Completing The Square algorithm to get Standard Forms for Parabolas, Ellipses and Hyperbolera! For those graphs that we could not use the Completing The Square algorithm, we used SAGE and polar_plot(). We also talked about parametrically defined trajectories and SAGE's parametric_plot().

YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS: 
Since we're doing Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus, it's time for our Astronomy related YouTubes! We started by talking about really big and really small numbers and metric prefixes.
Week9: NEW Powers of Ten.
Week10: Original Powers of Ten.

Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL
SCREENCASTS: 
YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 10
Quarter I Weeks 7&8 Conics!
10/13/14-10/24/14
We finished the Matrix unit (CH11) with nonLinear Systems and Linear Programming. Then we started Conic Sections (CH10). In fact, we're having a quiz right now, as I type, on the Standard Form Equations for Parabloas, Ellipses and Hyperbolera! We are focusing on conics with horizontal or vertical symmetry right now. Next week, we'll deal with what I call Twisted Conics using Polar Mode. Then, the following week, we'll revisit the concept of foci and do some real world problem solving!

YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS: 
If it's October, it's gotta be Admiral Grace Murray Hopper!
Week7: Letterman interview.
Week8: Walter Isaacson on CBS Sunday Morning (from my DVDR). 

Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL
SCREENCASTS: 
YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.







Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 11
Quarter I Weeks 5&6 Matices!
9/29/14-10/10/14
During these past 2 weeks, we started solving 2D and 3D Systems using Matrix Arithmetic and Matrix Algebra! In fact, we are having a quiz this week using Cramer's Rule of Determinants as well as Matrix Inverses to solve these systems. I make a point of doing 2D problems totally by hand (no calculator or CAS). We are doing 3D systems on SAGE!

YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS: 
If it's October, it's gotta be Admiral Grace Murray Hopper!
Week5: CBS Rewind 60 Minutes interview.
Week6: Full interview on DVD.

Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL
SCREENCASTS: 
YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.





Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 11
Quarter I Weeks 3&4 Systems!
9/15/14-9/26/14
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!

YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS: 
If it's September, it's gotta be Tom Lehrer!
Week3: Elements ala Sheldon, Potter not to mention Gilbert and Sullivan?
Week4: Lobachevsky channeling Danny Kaye!

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:


Well, that's all folks!
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