AP Computer Science A

Week 36: Monday, May 13th – Friday, May 17th

Seniors, it was a pleasure having you in class this year! Good luck with all of your future endeavors, CONGRATULATIONS, and please keep in touch!

Week 35: Monday, May 6th – Friday, May 10th

This is it! The AP Computer Science A exam is on Wednesday, May 8th at 12pm. Make sure you look over the practice materials I've given you, and you may also want to review the past quizzes and exams in ProjectSTEM. Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck!!

Week 34: Monday, April 29th – Friday, May 3rd

We've finally made it to May! This week is more of the same – study for the AP exam on Wednesday, May 8th at 12pm.

Also, don't forget that Friday, May 3rd is the #RHSE3 Celebration – seniors, wear your Employment, Enlistment or Enrollment gear!

Have a great week, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 33: Monday, April 22nd – Friday, April 26th

Welcome to the last full week of April! We're almost done with state testing, so please make note of our last day of the late arrival schedule on Monday. We're going to continue preparing for the AP exam, so make sure you finish those practice FRQs and multiple choice exams.

Have a great week! Hang in there – we're almost done.

Week 31: Tuesday, April 9th – Friday, April 12th

Hello again! I hope you survived the solar eclipse and enjoyed your bonus 3-day weekend. Here's what we're doing for this week as we wrap up the last topic in the course:

• finish Unit 10 Exam 🥨 

• work on practice exams and FRQs

Now that we've finished all of the material in the AP Computer Science A course, we can focus on getting you ready for the exam in May! My goal is to provide you with class time to study and work on practice questions so that you don't have to do any of that at home. Congrats on making it through to the end! Let me know if you have any questions.

Week 30: Tuesday, April 2nd – Friday, April 5th

Welcome back! I hope you had a fun and relaxing Spring Break and are fully recharged and ready to prepare for the AP Exam in May. Here's what we're doing for the first week of April as we continue our work in Unit 10: Recursion:

• Unit 10: Lesson 3 - Binary Search

• Unit 10: Lesson 4 - Merge Sort

On Monday, April 8th, the Great American Eclipse will take place as a rare total solar eclipse goes across North America, including most of Ohio. Here's some useful information about the timing of the eclipse:

• 1:59:28 pm: Partial eclipse begins - the moment the edge of the Moon touches the edge of the Sun is called "first contact"

• 3:14:30 pm: Totality begins 😱 - the moment the edge of the Moon covers all of the Sun is called "second contact"

• 3:15:54 pm: Maximum eclipse‼️ - this is the deepest point of the eclipse, with the Sun at its most hidden

• 3:17:17 pm: Totality ends 😭 - the moment the edge of the Moon exposes the Sun is called "third contact"

• 4:29:17 pm: Partial eclipse ends - the moment the edge of the Moon leaves the edge of the Sun is called "fourth contact"

There's also a really cool interactive map of the eclipse path, and you can find out all about the many, many eclipse-related events happening this weekend in Kent at the Kent Total Eclipse 2024 website. Make sure to build a pinhole projector out of cardboard and aluminum foil ahead of time – they're really cool and easy to make!

I hope you have a great week back from Spring Break! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 29: Monday, March 18th – Friday, March 22nd

We've made it to Spring Break! 4th Quarter has begun and we can start Unit 10: Recursion – our last unit! Here's what we're doing for the first week of Spring:

• BEGIN 4th QUARTER

• start Unit 10: Recursion

• Unit 10: Lesson 1 - Intro to Recursion

• Unit 10: Lesson 2 - Recursive Functions With Returns

• Unit 10 Quiz

I hope you have an awesome Spring Break and get lots of rest and relaxation! I'll see you next month. 😎

Week 28: Monday, March 11th – Friday, March 15th

Welcome to the end of 3rd Quarter! I hope you survived the time change over the weekend and you're ready to finish strong. Here's what we're doing for this last week of Winter as we wrap up Unit 9: Inheritance:

• Assignment 9: Ultimate Frisbee

• Unit 9 Exam 🎏

• END OF 3rd QUARTER

Seniors, you're 15/16ths done with high school. 😱 I hope you have a great week, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 27: Monday, March 4th – Friday, March 8th

Here's the plan for this week as we get further into Unit 9: Inheritance:

• Unit 9: Lesson 2 - Inheritance Overriding Methods

• Unit 9 Quiz 🚐

• Unit 9: Lesson 3 - Is-a and Has-a Relationships

We only have two weeks left in 3rd Quarter, so make sure you're getting all of your work completed and turned in. Let me know if you have any questions, and have a wonderful week!

Week 26: Monday, February 26th – Friday, March 1st

Welcome to the end of February! To wrap up Black History Month, I'd like to tell you about John Henry Thompson (b. 1959), the creator of the influential Lingo programming language. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Mr. Thompson got his first opportunity to work with a computer as a 10th grader at the Bronx High School of Science when his geometry teacher, Ms. Strauss, gave him early access to the math department's computer lab and helped him get his first job as a computer operator in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. After graduation, he earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Visual Studies from MIT in 1983 and continued on as a technical instructor, developed an early color pre-press design system for the Visible Language Workshop, which is now part of the MIT Media Lab. Mr. Thompson then became a project lead at Lucasfilm on the EditDroid project, an early nonlinear editing system that was a precursor to Final Cut, the industry standard in video editing. In 1987 he joined Macromedia (now part of Adobe), where he contributed to the development of a number of products, including Macromedia Director, and he invented the Lingo programming language and XObjects, which made it easier to create interactive multimedia content like Flash, Shockwave and graphics-based CD-ROMs. If you've ever played an interactive game in a web browser, his work helped make that possible! For the past two decades, Mr. Thompson has continued teaching in New York City, Philadelphia, Jamaica, and online, and he has since become an outspoken critic of social media companies such as Facebook for how they use personal data and what he describes as their negative impacts on society.

Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up 2D arrays and move into Unit 9: Inheritance:

• Assignment 8: Battleship

• Unit 8 Exam 🍝

• start Unit 9: Inheritance

• Unit 9: Lesson 1 - Inheritance

Remember, no school for Seniors on Tuesday due to the ACT. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

Week 25: Tuesday, February 20th – Friday, February 23rd

Hello again! This week I'd like to tell you about Dr. Clarence "Skip" Ellis (1943-2014), the first Black person to earn a PhD in computer science. Dr. Ellis grew up in Chicago and graduated from Parker High School while also working as a part-time night shift security guard for the Dover Corporation. While at Dover, he watched over the company's mainframe computers and became fascinated by them, so he read over the manuals during his shift and learned how to operate and repair the vacuum-tube-based machines. He earned degrees in mathematics and physics from Beloit College in Wisconsin, and while at Beloit, he was one of 10 North American college students to attend a computer science program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Based on his experiences there, he earned his PhD in computer science from Urbana-Champaign in 1969, making him the first Black person to ever do so. Dr. Ellis worked at Bell Labs, IBM, and Xerox, and from 1976–1984, he worked at the Palo Alto Research Center, where he led the team that created Officetalk, the first program to use icons and the Internet to allow for long-distance collaboration. This means that every icon-based app or operating system you've ever used was directly influenced by Skip Ellis. You could say he's "iconic"! (Sorry.)

Here's the plan for this week as we begin Unit 8: 2D Array:

• start Unit 8: 2D Array

• Unit 8: Lesson 1 - 2-D Array

• Unit 8: Lesson 2 - 2-D Array Algorithms

Two-dimensional (2D) arrays can be pretty challenging, so we're going to take this topic slowly and use some graphical organizers to make sure you understand what's going. If you think of a 2D array as a grid, like a chessboard, then they're a lot easier to visualize, which should make it a little easier to figure out how to implement them. Enjoy your abbreviated week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 24: Monday, February 12th – Thursday, February 15th

Hello again! This week I'd like to tell you about Dr. Timnit Gebru, a Black computer scientist who studies artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic bias and data mining. Dr. Gebru was born in Ethiopia and fled the Eritrean–Ethiopian War when she was 15, eventually receiving political asylum in the Unites States. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees as well as her PhD from Stanford University. While at Stanford, she worked as an intern at Apple making audio circuitry and later developed signal processing algorithms for the first iPad. After brief stint at Microsoft where she investigated racial bias in facial recognition software, she joined Google in 2018 to co-lead a team the ethics of artificial intelligence. However, in late 2020, her employment at Google was terminated when she refused to withdraw a research paper about the serious risks of large language model AI systems (Dr. Gebru claims that she was fired, while Google has refused to say whether she resigned or was terminated). Since leaving Google, Dr. Gebru has co-founded Black in AI, a community of Black researchers working in AI, and the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), a "space for independent, community-rooted AI research, free from Big Tech's pervasive influence". She has earned numerous accolades, including being named one of the world's 50 greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine in 2021 and one of Time Magazine's most influential people of 2022.

Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up Unit 7: ArrayList:

• Assignment 7: Game Wheel

• Unit 7: Review

• Unit 7 Exam 

Enjoy your looong weekend, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 23: Monday, February 5th – Friday, February 9th

Happy Black History Month! Before I list this week's activities, I'd like to tell you about Dorothy J. Vaughan (1910–2008), the first African-American female supervisor of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) who became an expert in digital computers and their applications in NASA programs. Ms. Vaughan graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio with a degree in mathematics and started out as a math teacher. In 1943, to support our country's efforts in World War II, she joined NACA as a human "computer" who did complex calculations for engineers and scientists. She worked with computers Vera Huckel and Sara Bullock to create an algebraic methods handbook for mechanical calculating machines, and when NACA became NASA, she joined its new Analysis and Computation Division and became an expert FORTRAN programmer. Ms. Vaughan and her countless calculations supported NACA and NASA accomplishments and helped to achieve our country’s aerospace goals. Very impressive!

Here's the plan for this week as we continue Unit 7: ArrayList:

• Unit 7: Lesson 3 - Array Algorithms with ArrayLists

• Unit 7 Quiz 🎈

• Unit 7: Lesson 4 - Linear Search

• Unit 7: Lesson 5 - Selection Sort

• Unit 7: Lesson 6 - Insertion Sort

This is our last full week of school for a while, because next week we'll only have three and a half school days before having a four-and-a-half day weekend, and then we'll have other interruptions like the ACT. I hope you have a great week, and as always, let me know if you have any questions!

Week 22: Monday, January 29th – Friday, February 2nd

Welcome to the end of January! This month has really flown by, although I'm sure that having Winter Break, MLK Jr. Day and three calamity days all helped with that. Here's the plan for this week as we start Unit 7: ArrayList:

• finish Assignment 6: Array Statistics

• Unit 6 Exam 👟

• start Unit 7: ArrayList

• Unit 7: Lesson 1 - ArrayList

• Unit 7: Lesson 2 - Traversing ArrayLists

With any luck, we'll be able to get through a full week without any interruptions as we move into February and one month closer to the end of the school year. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 21: Monday, January 22nd – Friday, January 26th

Hello again! Last week was certainly an interesting series of events. I hope you took advantage of your bonus three-day weekend and got some rest and relaxation! We're going to continue our work on Unit 6: Array this week:

• finish Unit 6: Lesson 4 - Algorithms on Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 5 - The Enhanced For Loop

• Assignment 6: Array Statistics

The weather this week looks to be much warmer and rainy, so I'm hoping we'll be able to get through all five days without any interruptions. Next week, we'll take the Unit 6 Exam and move on to Unit 7: ArrayList. Have a great week, and let me know if you have any questions!

Week 20: Tuesday, January 16th – Friday, January 19th

I hope you enjoyed your three day weekend! This week, we're going to continue our work on Unit 6: Array. Here's the plan:

• Unit 6 Quiz

• Unit 6: Lesson 4 - Algorithms on Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 5 - The Enhanced For Loop

These topics should be pretty straightforward, but as always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

Week 19: Monday, January 8th – Friday, January 12th

Happy New Year, and welcome back from Winter Break! I hope you were able to take some time to rest, relax and recharge before we get right back into the thick of things. Here's the plan for our first school week of 2024 as we start our work on Unit 6: Array:

• review 1st Semester Exam

• start Unit 6: Array

• Unit 6: Lesson 1 - One-Dimensional Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 2 - Traversing an Array

• Unit 6: Lesson 3 - Arrays of Strings

I hope you have a great first week back! Let me know if you have any questions.

Week 18: Monday, December 18th – Friday, December 22nd

We finally made it to the end of 1st Semester! Your exam will be on Thursday, December 20th at 7:30am in Room 211, so make sure you're there on time. The 1st Semester Exam will be on paper and will include 40 multiple choice questions from all five units so far. It'll look a lot like your quizzes, tests and the practice exam I gave you in class, so review those materials to prepare. Here's the schedule for the week:

• Mon. 12/18

  • 1st Semester Exam prep

  • HW: work on 1st Semester Practice Exam

• Tue. 12/19

  • 1st Semester Exam prep

  • HW: work on 1st Semester Practice Exam

• Wed. 12/20

  • 1st, 2nd & 6/7 or 7/8th period exams

  • HW: finish 1st Semester Practice Exam

• Thu. 12/21

  • 1st Semester Exam @7:30–9:00am

• Fri. 12/22

  • ALL WORK DUE FOR 1st SEMESTER

In case you didn't get it last week, the entire exam schedule is available here. I hope all of your exams go smoothly and you have a restful Winter Break. Have a Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2024!

Week 17: Monday, December 11th – Friday, December 15th

Welcome back! Here's the plan for the last full week of 1st Semester as we wrap up Unit 5: Writing Classes:

• Assignment 5: Player

• Unit 5: Review

• Unit 5 Exam 🦒 (please complete by Tuesday 12/19)

Your 1st Semester Exam will be on Thursday, December 21st at 7:30am and covers Units 1-5 of the course with 40 multiple choice questions that you'll take on paper. I've prepared a practice exam that is very similar to your semester exam that I'll give you in class. The entire exam schedule is available here. I strongly recommend taking notes while doing the practice exam and doing it as far in advance as possible so that you can ask me questions if you need help with anything. Have a great week!

Week 16: Monday, December 4th – Friday, December 8th

Hello again! We're going to continue our work on Unit 5: Writing Classes so we have all the tools we need to complete Assignment 5 next week. Here's the plan for the first full week of December:

• finish Unit 5: Lesson 6 - Constructors

• Unit 5: Lesson 7 - Documenting a class

• Unit 5: Lesson 8 - Static Vs. Instance

• Unit 5: Lesson 9 - Wider Impacts of Computing

Next week, after we complete Assignment 5 you'll have time to complete the practice exam and study for the 1st Semester Exam, which is all multiple choice and should be very similar to the quizzes and exams you've seen so far. As always, let me know if you have any questions. Have a wonderful week!

Week 15: Monday, November 27th – Friday, December 1st

Welcome back from Thanksgiving Break! I hope you were able to rest, recharge and get caught up (if necessary) so we can make it through the next four weeks before we go on Winter Break. Here's the plan for the last week of November:

• finish Unit 5: Lesson 4 - Return Methods

• Unit 5 Quiz 🥪

• Unit 5: Lesson 5 - Classes - The Basics

• Unit 5: Lesson 6 - Constructors

I hope your first week back goes well! As always, let me know if you have any questions.

PS: Make sure you plug in your Chromebook to charge overnight!

Week 14: Monday, November 13th – Friday, November 17th

We finally made it to Thanksgiving Break! 🦃 Here's the plan as we continue our work on Unit 5: Writing Classes: 

• Unit 5: Lesson 2 - Parameters

• Unit 5: Lesson 3 - Parameters - Primitive vs. Class 

• Unit 5: Lesson 4 - Return Methods

I hope you get some rest and relaxation over break! Use this time to get caught up if you need to, and please let me know if you have any questions about anything you're working on.

Week 13: Monday, November 6th – Friday, November 10th

Hello again! Here's the plan for the first full week of November as we wrap up Unit 4: Iteration and move on to Unit 5: Writing Classes: 

• finish Assignment 4: String Shortener

• Unit 4: Review

• Unit 4 Exam 🪥

• start Unit 5: Writing Classes

• Unit 5: Lesson 1 - Void Methods

Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 12: Monday, October 30th – Friday, November 3rd

It's the last week of October, and it's finally starting to feel like Fall! 🎃 I hope you got out and enjoyed the last bits of nice weather. Here's the plan for this week as we continue our work in Unit 4: Iteration:

• Unit 4: Lesson 4 - Algorithms for Strings

• Unit 4 Quiz 🐧

• Unit 4: Lesson 5 - Nested loops

• Unit 4: Lesson 6 - Algorithm Efficiency

• start Assignment 4: String Shortener

As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Stay warm!

Week 11: Monday, October 23rd – Friday, October 27th

Welcome to 2nd Quarter! According to the Project STEM pacing guide, here's where we should be as we start Week 11 with Unit 4: Iteration:

• BEGIN 2nd QUARTER

• start Unit 4: Iteration

• Unit 4: Lesson 1 - While Loops

• Unit 4: Lesson 1 ½ - Tracing Code

• Tuesday 10/24: Security Summit Field Trip to I-X Center (meet at the cafeteria entrance at 8:45am!)

• Wednesday 10/25: Capture the Flag Competition! (in class)

• Unit 4: Lesson 2 - Algorithms for Numbers

• Unit 4: Lesson 3 - The For Loop

These coding activities should be a little quicker to finish, but as always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week, and get out and enjoy the nice weather while it lasts!

Week 10: Monday, October 16th – Friday, October 20th

Welcome back from your 3-day weekend! Here's what we're doing for the last week of 1st Quarter as we wrap up Unit 3:

• Unit 3: Lesson 7 - Comparing Objects

• Assignment 3 - Crack the Code!

• Unit 3: Review

• Unit 3 Exam 🐘

• END OF 1st QUARTER

Let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

Week 9: Monday, October 9th – Thursday, October 12th

I hope you had a great weekend! This week, we'll continue our work on Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements. Here's the plan for this abbreviated week:

• Unit 3: Lesson 4 - Logical Operators and Truth Tables

• Unit 3: Lesson 5 - Short Circuit Evaluation

• Unit 3: Lesson 6 - De Morgan's Law

We'll also have these important events this week:

Monday 10/9: Parent-Teacher Conferences @5-8pm – sign up here!
Tuesday 10/10: Passport to IT Careers field trip (8:15am-2:00pm)
Thursday 10/12: Early Release Day
Friday 10/13: Teacher PD Day – NO SCHOOL

Enjoy your three-and-a-half-day weekend! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 8: Monday, October 2nd – Friday, October 6th

Welcome to the first week of October!  Here's the plan for this week as we move into a new unit:

• start Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements

• Unit 3: Lesson 1 - Simple Ifs

• Unit 3: Lesson 2 - Relational Operators

• Unit 3: Lesson 3 - Else

• Unit 3 Quiz

Boolean expressions and if statements are absolutely critical concepts in computer science. Some experts have argued that artificial intelligence (AI) is nothing more than lots and lots of if statements, so we'll want to make sure we have a solid understanding of these topics. I hope you have a great week! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 7: Monday, September 25th – Friday, September 29th

Hi there! We're going to wrap up Unit 2: Using Objects with an assignment that looks harder than it actually is, and then we'll take the Unit 2 Exam. Here's the plan for the first week of autumn 🍂:

• Unit 2: Review

• Assignment 2: Control Tower

• Unit 2 Exam ⛵️

I hope you have a great week! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 6: Monday, September 18th – Friday, September 22nd

Hello again! For this final week of summer, we're going to continue our unit on objects in Java with important but less confusing topics. Here's the plan:

• Unit 2: Lesson 6 - Using methods

• Unit 2: Lesson 7 - Wrapper Classes

• Unit 2: Lesson 8 - Math Functions

Methods are simply functions that somehow interact with or modify an object, while wrapper classes let us use methods with our primitive data types (like integers and floats). Easy stuff, I promise! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 5: Monday, September 11th – Friday, September 15th

Welcome back! I hope you had a great Homecoming weekend. This week, we're going to continue learning about objects in Java. Here are the topics we'll be working on:

• finish Unit 2: Lesson 3 - String Methods

• Unit 2: Lesson 4 - Classes and Objects

• Unit 2 Quiz 🍍

• Unit 2: Lesson 5 - Using Constructors

You've already been using classes like String and Scanner, so we're just going to dive a little deeper into their structure, which is defined by a constructor. It sounds a little weird, but with enough examples and analogies, I'm confident you'll understand it, and that knowledge is going to be extremely helpful going forward. Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 4: Tuesday, September 5th – Friday, September 8th

I hope you enjoyed your 3-day weekend! We're wrapping up Unit 1 this week and moving on to Unit 2: Using Objects. Here's the plan for this hot, hot week:

• Unit 1 Exam

• start Unit 2: Using Objects

• Unit 2: Lesson 1 - Strings and Class Types

• Unit 2: Lesson 2 - Escape Sequences and String Concatenation

• start Unit 2: Lesson 3 - String Methods

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or need help with anything at all. Stay cool!

Week 3: Monday, August 28th – Friday, September 1st

I hope you enjoyed your unexpected 3-day weekend! Here's what we're doing in class for the last week of August:

• Unit 1: Lesson 5 - Modular Division

• Unit 1: Lesson 6 - Numeric Casts

• Assignment 1: Calculating Grades

• Unit 1: Review

The assignments in this course can sometimes be a little challenging, so please ask me for help as you're working on Assignment 1. We'll take the Unit 1 Exam next week after another 3-day weekend. Keep up the great work, and as always, let me know if you have any questions!

Week 2: Monday, August 21st – Friday, August 25th

Welcome to the first full week of the 2023-2024 school year! Now that we've had a few days to get to know each other and get everyone logged in to ProjectSTEM, we can get to work! Here's what we're doing in class this week:

• Unit 1: Lesson 1 - Output In Java

• Unit 1: Lesson 2 - User Input and Variables

• Unit 1: Lesson 3 - Data Types

• Unit 1 Quiz

• Unit 1: Lesson 4 - Number Calculations

I've also included a link to a weekly schedule of all of the assignments for the year.

I hope you had a great first week and that you were able to get some rest this weekend before we attempt to go to school for five full days without strange bell schedules or burning birds. Let me know you have any questions!