Computer Science & Game Design

Week 1: Thursday, August 20th – Friday, August 21st

Welcome to the 2026-2027 school year! I'm excited to have you in class, and I hope you're looking forward to a good year of learning about computer science and game design.

Computer Science (CS) is the theoretical, scientific, and mathematical approach to information and its computation. Computer Science & Game Design focuses on computing skills related to programming in Python, an industry standard, high-level language. In this class, we will use Carnegie Mellon University’s Computer Science Academy, a teacher-led, online, interactive high school computer science curriculum that teaches coding through developing games. Students work at their own pace and get help from me when they get stuck. I believe that every student can learn computer science!

Here's what we're doing in class for the first week of school:

• Welcome to CS & Game Design! - first day presentation

• Letter to Parents

• Class brochure

• get logged in to CMU CS Academy

• 1.1 Basics - Notes and Exercises

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

Everything below this divider is from the 2024-2025 school year.

Week 35: Monday, May 12th – Friday, May 16th

Hello everybody! This week we'll continue working on our Final Project and say goodbye to our Seniors on Wednesday, which is their last day. If you're done with your Final Project, you can go back and work on earlier coursework to try to improve your grade. I can also issue grade corrections for previous quarters if you do work from earlier in the school year.

Seniors, thanks for taking Intro to Computer Science with me – I hope you enjoyed the course and learned a lot! Good luck with all your future endeavors, and please keep in touch.

Those of us left behind only have two more weeks after this before we take our 2nd Semester Exam on Monday, June 2nd. It'll be multiple choice and based on the Unit 7-11 Practice Quizzes. Have a great week, and let me know if you have any questions!

Week 33: Monday, April 28th – Friday, May 2nd

Hello again! I hope you're ready for a full five-day week; we haven't had one for a while.

For the rest of the school year, we'll be working on our Final Project in the course. I'm hoping you'll be able to find some inspiration from the classic video games we played last week to come up with something really fun that you can be proud of. Have a great week, and let me know if you have any questions!

Week 30: Monday, April 7th – Friday, April 11th

Hi there! Here's the plan for this week as we tackle one of our most challenging topics to date, 2D lists:

• start Unit 11: 2D Lists and Board Games

• 11.1 2D Lists

• start 11.2 Board Games

This is our last regular week for a while – next week we'll have late arrival and shortened periods on Monday and Tuesday due to state-mandated testing for ELA (boo!), followed by a four-day weekend (yay!), followed another week of shortened periods due to state-mandated testing (boo!). Fortunately we're doing most of this unit together as a class, so we should be fine despite all the interruptions. I hope you have a great first full week of April, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 29: Monday, March 31st – Friday, April 4th

Hello again everyone, and welcome back from Spring Break! We only have nine more weeks of school, much of which will be broken up by extended weekends and state testing, so it should go by pretty quickly. Here's the plan as we wrap up Unit 10: Lists and Return Values:

• Unit 10 Creative Task

• Unit 10 Practice Quiz

• Unit 10 Quiz

Next week we'll start Unit 11: 2D Lists and Board Games, which can be pretty challenging, so we'll work on those exercises together as a class. I hope you have a great week back from break, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 28: Monday, March 17th – Friday, March 21st

Welcome to 4th Quarter and the last week before Spring Break! Here's the plan as we start our penultimate* unit in Intro to Computer Science, Unit 10: Lists and Return Values:

• start 4th Quarter! 🍀

• start Unit 10: Lists and Return Values

• 10.1 Lists

• 10.2 List methods

• 10.3 Return values

• 10.4 Unit 10 Exercises

Lists and returns are both pretty easy topics, so I hope this week flies by so you can mentally get through these next five days as quickly as possible. Thanks for all of your hard work in the first nine-elevenths of the course so far, and have a fun and relaxing Spring Break! 🩴

* look it up! :)

Week 27: Monday, March 10th – Friday, March 14th

We've made it to the end of 3rd Quarter! After this week, we'll only have one week of classes before we all get a well-deserved week off for Spring Break. Here's the plan as we finish Unit 9: Types, Strings, and While Loops:

• finish Unit 9 Creative Task

• Unit 9 Review

• Unit 9 Practice Quiz

• Unit 9 Quiz

• End of 3rd Quarter – ALL OUTSTANDING WORK IS DUE BY FRIDAY 3/14!

Please note that Friday, March 14th is an Early Release Day.

Some of you are very far behind in the course and will need to put in a lot of extra effort this week in order to earn a passing grade for 3rd Quarter. Parents, please check ProgressBook so you know what assignments your child still needs to complete.

I hope all the sunshine today offsets losing an hour this morning. Have a wonderful week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 26: Monday, March 3rd – Friday, March 7th

Hello again, and welcome to March! Here's the plan for this week as we begin to wrap up Unit 9: Types, Strings, and While Loops:

• 9.4 While Loops

• 9.5 Unit 9 Exercises

• Unit 9 Creative Task

Next week we'll wrap up Unit 9, and that'll be the end of 3rd Quarter. Have a great week, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 25: Monday, February 24th – Friday, February 28th

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 continue our work in Unit 9: Types, Strings, and While Loops:

• 9.2 Strings

• ACT – NO SCHOOL for Sophomores & Seniors; good luck, Freshmen & Juniors!

• 9.3 String Methods

• 9.4 While Loops

Good luck to the Freshmen and Juniors taking tests on Tuesday! Remember, no school for Sophomores and Seniors. After this week, we'll only have two weeks before the end of 3rd Quarter, and then another week after that will be Spring Break. Hang in there, get caught up on your missing work (as most of you need to), and have a great week! Please let me know if you have any questions at all.

Week 24: Tuesday, February 18th – Friday, February 21st

Good morning! I hope you've been enjoying the winter wonderland during this three day weekend. 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 short week as we wrap up Unit 8 and start Unit 9: Types, Strings, and While Loops:

• finish Unit 8 Creative Task

• Unit 8 Review

• Unit 8 Practice Quiz

• Unit 8 Quiz

• 9.1 Types and Input

Strings are pretty easy, but as always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week – stay warm!

Week 23: Monday, February 10th – Friday, February 14th

Hello again! I hope you've enjoyed your surprise 4-day weekend and stayed warm during the ice storms. 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 United 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 continue Unit 8: Math Functions, Random Values, and Nested Loops:

• finish 8.3 Nested For Loops

• 8.4 Unit 8 Exercises

• start Unit 8 Creative Task

Next week, we'll take our Unit 8 Quiz, so make sure you don't forget everything during your time off. Have a great week, and enjoy your 4-day weekend!

Week 22: Monday, February 3rd – Friday, February 7th

Welcome to February, and 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 8: Math Functions, Random Values, and Nested Loops:

• finish 8.2 Random Values

• 8.3 Nested For Loops

• 8.4 Unit 8 Exercises

This will be our last full week of school for a while, because for the next three weeks we'll only have four school days each week due to teacher in-service, a holiday and the ACT. I hope you have a great week, and as always, let me know if you have any questions!

Week 21: Monday, January 27th – Friday, January 31st

Hello again, and welcome to the last week of January! Here's the plan as we finish Unit 7 and start Unit 8: Math Functions, Random Values, and Nested Loops:

• Unit 7 Review

• Unit 7 Practice Quiz

• Unit 7 Quiz

• 8.1 Math Functions - Notes and Exercises

• 8.2 Random Values - Notes and Exercises

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

Week 20: Tuesday, January 21st – Friday, January 24th

Wow, a five-day weekend! I hope you're all resting and staying warm. For this short week, we'll start to wrap up Unit 7:

• finish Unit 7 Creative Task

Make sure you get enough sleep tonight so that you're ready to go back tomorrow, and enjoy your short week of school!

Week 19: Monday, January 13th – Friday, January 17th

Hello again, I hope you had a good first week back! Here's the plan for this week as we continue our work in Unit 7:

• finish 7.3 For Loops

• 7.4 Unit 7 Exercises

• start Unit 7 Creative Task

Being able to loop through shapes in a group is going to open up a lot of fun new possibilities for us, especially in terms of game design. Have a great week, and as always, let me know if you have any questions!

Week 18: Monday, January 6th – Friday, January 10th

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 to coding. Here's the plan for our first school week of 2025 as we start Unit 7: New Shapes, Local Variables, and For Loops:

• review 1st Semester Exam

• 7.1 New Shapes

• 7.2 Local Variables

• 7.3 For Loops

Arcs are a little challenging, but everything else this week should be pretty straightforward. I hope you have a great first week back! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 17: Monday, December 16th – Friday, December 20th

Welcome to exam week! The plan is pretty straightforward – study for the 1st Semester Exam so you can earn the best grade possible and enjoy your Winter Break. Here's the schedule for this week:

Mon. 12/16

• review the Success Criteria for 1st Semester

• redo the Practice Quizzes in Units 1-6

Tue. 12/17

• redo the Practice Quizzes in Units 1-6

Wed. 12/18

• 1st period exam – 7:30-9:00am

• 2nd period exam – 9:15-10:45am

• Lunch – 10:50-11:20am

• 6/7th or 7/8th period exam – 11:25am-12:55pm

• Open study – 1:10-2:29pm

Thu. 12/19

• 9th period exam – 7:30-9:00am

• 10th period exam – 9:15-10:45am

• Lunch – 10:50-11:20am

• Make-up exams – 11:25am-12:55pm

• Open study – 1:10-2:29pm

Fri. 12/20

• 3rd period exam – 7:30-9:00am

• 4/5th or 5/6th period exam – 9:15-10:45am

• Lunch – 10:50-11:20am

• Make-up exams – 11:25am-12:55pm

• Open study – 1:10-2:29pm

• DUE: ANY OUTSTANDING WORK FROM 2nd QUARTER MUST BE COMPLETED BY TODAY AT NOON!

I'll also send out the exam schedule flyer on Remind and on Google Classroom as a picture so you can save it to your phone. Good luck on this exam and all of your other exams this week! Please let me know if you have any questions at all. I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing Winter Break, and I'll see you next year!

Week 16: Monday, December 9th – Friday, December 13th

We've finally made it to the end of 1st Semester! The plan this week is to wrap up Unit 6: Groups, Step Events and Motion so that you can spend next week preparing for your 1st Semester Exam on Thursday, December 19th at 9:15am. Here's what we're doing for our last full week of class in 2024:

• finish 6.4 Unit 6 Exercises

• Unit 6 Creative Task

• Unit 6 Review

• Unit 6 Practice Quiz

• Unit 6 Quiz

Some of you are very far behind in the course because you haven't been working during class time, or because you're not making up your work from being absent. The deadline to complete assignments on CS Academy for 2nd Quarter will be Friday, December 20th at noon.

Parents: please check ProgressBook so you know what your student needs to work on before the end of the quarter!

Have a wonderful week! As always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 15: Monday, December 2nd – Friday, December 6th

Welcome back! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving Break and were able to get some rest so you're fully recharged and ready to go for these final three weeks before the end of the semester. Here's the plan for the first week of December ☃️:

• 6.3 Step Events and Motion - Notes and Exercises

• start 6.4 Unit 6 Exercises

There are only 12 school days left to get through Unit 6 and its Creative Task, and I want to take at least one day two weeks from now to go over everything that will be on your 1st Semester Exam, which will look a lot like your quizzes. Imagine taking all of your quizzes so far, merging them together, and removing the free response questions, and that'll be your exam.

I hope you have a great week back, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 14: Monday, November 18th – Friday, November 22nd

We've finally made it to Thanksgiving Break! 🦃 I'm really proud of you all for sticking with Intro to Computer Science for this long. For this last week before break, we're going to start our last unit in the semester – Unit 6: Groups, Step Events, and Motion. Step events are awesome, you're going to love them! Here's the plan:

• start Unit 6: Groups, Step Events, and Motion

• 6.1 Groups - Notes and Exercises

• 6.2 Group Methods - Notes and Exercises

• start 6.3 Step Events and Motion - Notes and Exercises

This will be a nice place to pause until we return from break and tackle the rest of Unit 6. If you're behind in the course, you should use some of your free time over break to get caught up as much as you can. You can message me on Remind if you have any questions or need any help with your code. I hope you have a relaxing Thanksgiving Break, and I'll see you in December!

Week 13: Monday, November 11th – Friday, November 15th

Greetings, future coders! For this week in Intro to CS, we're going to wrap up Unit 5: Complex Conditionals and More Key Events with a Creative Task and a quiz. We're also going on a field trip to explore IT careers! Here's the plan:

• finish 5.3 Unit 5 Exercises

• Unit 5 Creative Task

• Passport to IT Careers Field trip on Wednesday, November 13th - meet in the auditorium atrium after 1st period!

• Unit 5 Review

• Unit 5 Practice Quiz

• Unit 5 Quiz

The field trip should expose you to the wide variety of good paying IT careers that are out there, so I hope you get a lot out of it. If nothing else, we'll get out of the building, enjoy a free lunch, and maybe pick up some swag from the companies that are there. 🤑 Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 12: Monday, November 4th – Friday, November 8th

Hello again, I hope you enjoyed your extra hour of sleep this morning! For this week in Intro to CS, we're going to start Unit 5: Complex Conditionals and More Key Events. Here's what we're doing for the first week of November:

• 5.1 Complex Conditionals - Notes and Exercises

• 5.2 More Key Events - Notes and Exercises

• start 5.3 Unit 5 Exercises

Complex conditionals let us combine if statements so that we can test multiple conditions at the same time. For example, did the user click on a specific shape while it's on the top half of the canvas? Complex conditionals give us a lot more control over how our programs behave, and they're used throughout computer science, including in AI. I hope you enjoy the early morning sunshine while it lasts, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 11: Monday, October 28th – Friday, November 1st

Good afternoon, I hope you've enjoyed this excellent weekend! Here's what we're doing in Intro to Computer Science for the last week of October 🎃:

• 4.4 Unit 4 Exercises

• Unit 4 Creative Task

• Unit 4 Review

• Unit 4 Practice Quiz

• Unit 4 Quiz

Do your best to not overdose on candy, and please let me know if you have any questions. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Week 10: Tuesday, October 22nd – Friday, October 25th

Hello, future computer scientists! I hope you're enjoying this extended weekend and getting outside to enjoying the warm weather while it lasts. For this week in Intro to CS, we're going to start wrapping up Unit 4: More Conditionals, Key Events, and Methods with coding activities about methods, which are simply functions that interact with an object. Here's what we're doing for this short first week of 2nd Quarter:

• BEGIN 2nd QUARTER

• finish 4.2 Key Events - Notes and Exercises

• 4.3 Methods - Notes and Exercises

• 4.4 Unit 4 Exercises

Methods are super important to computer science! Once you learn how to use them, you're going to have a lot more tools available to build programs and games the way you want. Please let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 9: Monday, October 14th – Friday, October 18th

Welcome to the end of 1st Quarter! It may be hard to believe, but after this week, we'll be 25% done with the school year. For this week in Intro to CS, we're going to wrap up this unit so that we can move on to Unit 4, which will allow us to detect keystrokes. Here's what we're doing this week:

• finish Unit 3 Creative Task

• Unit 3 Review

• Unit 3 Practice Quiz

• Unit 3 Quiz

• start Unit 4: More Conditionals, Key Events, and Methods

• 4.1 More Conditionals (if-elif-else Statements) - Notes and Exercises

• start 4.2 Key Events - Notes and Exercises

FYI Friday is an Early Release Day and it's also the end of 1st Quarter. Make sure you're caught up with all of your work through Unit 3.

Congratulations on making it this far! When we come back next week, we'll keep working on key events and learn about methods, which are very, very powerful. Please let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 8: Monday, October 7th – Friday, October 11th

And just like that, it's October! 🍁 For this week in Intro CS, we're going to begin to wrap up Unit 3. Here's what we're doing for the next-to-last week of 1st Quarter:

• 3.4 Unit 3 Exercises

• Unit 3 Creative Task

FYI Parent-teacher conferences are from 5-8pm on Monday, October 7th; you can use this link to sign up! Also, there will be no school for students on Friday due to a teacher PD day. If you're behind, you should use the long three-day weekend to get caught up before 1st Quarter ends next Friday.

I hope you enjoy this short week! Let me know if you have any questions.

Week 7: Monday, September 30th – Friday, October 4th

Hi there! I hope you had fun at Homecoming and were able to dry out after all the rain we got this weekend. For this week in Intro CS, we're going to continue our work on Unit 3: Mouse Motion Events, Conditionals, and Helper Functions. Here's the plan:

• 3.2 Conditionals (if Statements) - Notes and Exercises 

• 3.3 Helper Functions - Notes and Exercises 

If statements and helper functions are concepts that you'll use throughout the rest of this course and in any future programming languages you might learn, including Java. I hope you have an excellent week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 6: Monday, September 23rd – Friday, September 27th

Hello, future coders! For this week in Intro CS, we'll wrap our work on Unit 2 and move into Unit 3, which adds more fun mouse events that we can use. Here's the plan for the first week of fall 🍁:

• finish Unit 2 Creative Task

• Unit 2 Review

• Unit 2 Practice Quiz

• Unit 2 Quiz

• start Unit 3: Mouse Motion Events, Conditionals, and Helper Functions

• 3.1 Mouse Motion Events - Notes and Exercises 

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

Week 5: Monday, September 16th – Friday, September 20th

Hi, everybody! This week we'll continue our work on functions, mouse events and parameters as we begin to wrap up this short unit. Here's the plan for the last week of summer:

• finish 2.2 Mouse Events - Notes and Exercises

• 2.3 Properties - Notes and Exercises

• 2.4 Unit 2 Exercises

• start Unit 2 Creative Task

If you feel like you're struggling to keep up, please ask me for help! My prep period is 4/5th period, my PLC is 6/7th and my lunch is 8th, so you can come up any day during lunch and work in my room to get caught up. You can also skip some of the exercises from Unit 1 for now, but I recommend eventually going back and doing as many of them as possible. If you have Tuesday afternoons open, that's when RHS Coders Club meets in my room, and a lot of our members have already taken Intro CS and would be happy to help you.

I hope you have a wonderful week! As always, please let me know if you have any questions, and I'll see you in Fall. 🍂

Week 4: Monday, September 9th – Friday, September 13th

Hello again! I hope you had a good weekend and have recovered from all that rain on Friday night! Here's what we're doing in class this week as we wrap up our first unit in the course and move on to Unit 2:

• finish Unit 1 Creative Task

• Unit 1 Review

• Unit 1 Practice Quiz

• Unit 1 Quiz

• start Unit 2: Functions, Mouse Events, and Properties

• 2.1 Functions - Notes and Exercises

• start 2.2 Mouse Events - Notes and Exercises  

Unit 2 is a lot of fun because we'll start to make our drawings interactive by coding them so that they change when we click on certain objects.

This week, I'm going to pass out PSAT practice exams to all sophomores and juniors in the class. The PSAT takes place on Wednesday, October 9th in the morning at RHS and costs $19. It's a good way to practice for the full-length SAT, but more importantly, it's the qualifying exam for the prestigious National Merit Scholarship for juniors. Doing well on the PSAT could really pay off, and it looks good on a college application. Registration begins on September 20th on MyPaymentsPlus - I highly recommend taking it!

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

Week 3: Tuesday, September 3rd – Friday, September 6th

Hello everyone, I hope you're enjoying your three-day weekend! Here's what we're doing in class for this abbreviated week as we continue working on our first unit in the course:

• finish 1.3 Shapes - Notes and Exercises

• 1.4 Unit 1 Exercises

• start Unit 1 Creative Task

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

Week 2: Monday, August 26th – Friday, August 30th

Welcome to the first full week of school! I hope that school has started well for you and you have any issues with your schedule worked out. Now that we've had a few days to get to know each other and get everyone logged in to CMU CS Academy, we can get to work! Here's what we're doing in class this week:

• 1.2 Colors - Notes and Exercises

• 1.3 Shapes - Notes and Exercises

We'll be using these colors and shapes throughout the entire course, so make sure you complete as many exercises as you can. Fortunately, they're all pretty easy. Let me know you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 1: Wednesday, August 21st – Friday, August 23rd

Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! I'm excited to have you in class, and I hope you're looking forward to a good year of learning about computer science.

Computer Science (CS) is the theoretical, scientific, and mathematical approach to information and its computation. Intro to Computer Science ("Intro CS") focuses on computing skills related to programming in Python, an industry standard, high-level language. In this class, we will use Carnegie Mellon University’s Computer Science Academy, a teacher-led, online, interactive high school computer science curriculum that teaches coding through developing games. Students work at their own pace and get help from me when they get stuck. I believe that every student can learn computer science!

Here's what we're doing in class for the first week of school:

• Welcome to Computer Science! - first day presentation

• get logged in to CMU CS Academy

• 1.1 Basics - Notes and Exercises

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!

Everything below this section is from the 2023-2024 school year!

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

It was a pleasure having you all in class this year! Seniors, good luck with all of your future endeavors, CONGRATULATIONS, and please keep in touch! Everyone else, I hope you'll consider taking AP Computer Science A with me next year. If not, stop by to say hi any time. Have a great summer, everyone!

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

Congratulations to everyone who has already turned in their Final Project! This week, we're going to take a look at PCEP, an entry-level Python certification that can help prepare you to get a career in coding and computer science someday. We'll also discuss game design with one of my favorite classic video games – M.U.L.E. – which still has a bit of a cult following.

I hope you have an awesome first week of May! Please let me know if you have any questions.

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

We've finally made it to May! Great job hanging in there. For the rest of the school year, we'll be working on our Final Project in the course. I'm hoping you'll be able to find some inspiration from classic video games to come up with something really fun that you can be proud of. Have a great week, and 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. Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up Unit 11: 2D Lists and Board Games:

• finish 11.5 Unit 11 Quiz

• start 12.1 Final Project

  • 12.1.1 Images

  • 12.1.2 Sounds

  • 12.1.3 Final Project

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 continue our work in 2D lists:

• finish 11.1 2D Lists

• 11.2 Board Games

The board games are really challenging so we're going to code those together in class. 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. Here's what we're doing for the first week of April:

• wrap up Unit 10: Lists and Return Values

• start Unit 11: 2D Lists and Board Games

• 11.1 2D Lists

• prepare for the Great American Eclipse! 🔭☀️🌚

Speaking of the eclipse, here's some useful information about the total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8th:

• 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 wrap up Unit 10: Lists and Return Values. Here's what we're doing for the first week of Spring:

• 10.5 Unit 10 Creative Task

• 10.6 Unit 10 Review

• 10.7 Unit 10 Practice Quiz

• 10.8 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 get into Unit 10: Lists and Return Values:

• start Unit 10: Lists and Return Values

• 10.1 Lists

• 10.2 List methods

• 10.3 Return values

• 10.4 Unit 10 Exercises

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

Welcome to the first week of March! Here's the plan for this week as we continue our work in Unit 9: Types, Strings, and While Loops:

• finish Unit 9 Creative Task

• 9.7 Unit 9 Review

• 9.8 Unit 9 Practice Quiz

• 9.9 Unit 9 Quiz

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 continue our work in Unit 9: Types, Strings, and While Loops:

• 9.3 String Methods

• 9.4 While Loops

• 9.5 Unit 9 Exercises

• start Unit 9 Creative Task

Good luck to the Freshmen and Juniors taking tests on Tuesday! Remember, no school for Sophomores and Seniors. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

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

Welcome back from your extended weekend! 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 short week as we start Unit 9: Types, Strings, and While Loops:

• 9.1 Types and Input

• 9.2 Strings

Strings are pretty easy, but as always, please let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy your abbreviated week!

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 8: Math Functions, Random Values, and Nested Loops:

• finish Unit 8 Creative Task

• 8.6 Unit 8 Review

• 8.7 Unit 8 Practice Quiz

• 8.8 Unit 8 Quiz

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 8: Math Functions, Random Values, and Nested Loops:

• 8.3 Nested For Loops

• 8.4 Unit 8 Exercises

• start Unit 8 Creative Task

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 8: Math Functions, Random Values, and Nested Loops:

• 8.1 Math Functions

• 8.2 Random Values

Working with random values can be lots of fun, so 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! Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up Unit 7: New Shapes, Local Variables, and For Loops:

• 7.6 Unit 7 Creative Task

• 7.7 Unit 7 Review

• 7.8 Unit 7 Practice Quiz

• 7.9 Unit 7 Quiz

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. 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! Here's the plan for this abbreviated week as we start to wrap up Unit 7:

• 7.4 Unit 7 Exercises

• 7.5 Unit 7 Challenge Exercises

• 7.6 Unit 7 Creative Task

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

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 Unit 7: New Shapes, Local Variables, and For Loops:

• 7.1 New Shapes

• 7.2 Local Variables

• 7.3 For Loops

Arcs are a little challenging, but everything else this week should be pretty straightforward. I hope you have a great first week back! Let me know if you have any questions.

PS: If you were in 3rd period Intro CS last semester, remember that I'm teaching a different class this semester, so make sure you check your schedule so you know where to go!

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

We finally made it to the end of 1st Semester! Your 1st Semester Exam this week will be on Google Forms and will include 60 multiple choice questions from all six units so far. You'll need your school Chromebook to take the exam, so make sure it's fully charged! The exam will look a lot like the Practice Quizzes in CS Academy, so I strongly recommend you go back and redo all of those so that you're well prepared for the exam. Here's the exam schedule for this week:

Wednesday, December 20th:

• 1st period exam: 7:30–9:00am

• 2nd period exam: 9:15–10:45am

• Lunch: 10:50–11:20am

• 6/7 or 7/8th period exam: 11:25am–12:55pm

Thursday, December 21st:

• 9th period exam: 7:30–9:00am

• 10th period exam: 9:15–10:45am

• Lunch: 10:50–11:20am

• Make-up exams: 11:25am–12:55pm

Friday, December 22nd:

• 3rd period exam: 7:30–9:00am

• 4/5 or 5/6th period exam: 9:15–10:45am

• Lunch: 10:50–11:20am

• Make-up exams: 11:25am–12:55pm

• ALL WORK DUE FOR 1st SEMESTER

The entire exam schedule is available here so you can save it to your phone. 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!

PS: Students in 3rd period Intro to CS who want to continue the course into 2nd Semester will either need to switch to the 10th period class or take it as an independent study. If you'd like to take 2nd Semester as an independent study, I can give you the Credit Flex form in class.

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 6: Groups, Step Events, and Motion:

• 6.5 Unit 6 Creative Task

• 6.7 Unit 6 Practice Quiz

• 6.8 Unit 6 Quiz

Your 1st Semester Exam will be next week and will cover Units 1-6 in CS Academy. 3rd period will take their exam on Friday, December 22nd at 7:30am, and 10th period will take their exam on Thursday, December 21st at 9:15am. The entire exam schedule is available here. I strongly recommend reviewing all of the Practice Quizzes in CS Academy to prepare for the semester exam. Let me know if you have any questions at all. Have a great week!

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

Hello again! We're going to continue our work on Unit 6: Groups, Step Events, and Motion so we have all the tools we need to make a really impressive Creative Task next week. Here's the plan for the first full week of December:

• finish 6.3 Step Events and Motion

• 6.4 Unit 6 Exercises

I hope you find these motion and animation activities to be interesting, because I think they're a lot of fun! 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 and recharge 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:

• start Unit 6: Groups, Step Events, and Motion

• 6.1 Groups

• 6.2 Group Methods

• start 6.3 Step Events and Motion

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! 🦃 This week we'll wrap up Unit 5: Complex Conditionals and More Key Events with the following activities:

• 5.4 Unit 5 Creative Task

• 5.5 Unit 5 Review

• 5.6 Unit 5 Practice Quiz

• 5.7 Unit 5 Quiz

I hope you have a restful and relaxing Thanksgiving Break! Please let me know if you have any questions on anything you're working on.

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

Here's the plan for the first full week of November as we continue our work in Unit 5: Complex Conditionals and More Key Events:

• finish 5.1 Complex Conditionals

• 5.2 More Key Events

• 5.3 Unit 5 Exercises

Next week, we'll wrap up Unit 5 with the Creative Task and Quiz, just in time for Thanksgiving Break. 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 wrap up Unit 4: More Conditionals, Key Events, and Methods:

• 4.5 Unit 4 Creative Task

• 4.6 Unit 4 Review

• 4.7 Unit 4 Practice Quiz

• 4.8 Unit 4 Quiz

• begin Unit 5: Complex Conditionals and More Key Events

• start 5.1 Complex Conditionals

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

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

Welcome to 2nd Quarter – we're 1/4th done with the school year! Here's the plan for this week as we continue our work Unit 4: More Conditionals, Key Events, and Methods:

• BEGIN 2nd QUARTER

• finish 4.3 Methods

• 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)

• 4.4 Unit 4 Exercises

I hope you have a great week, and get outside and enjoy the nice weather while it lasts! Please let me know if you have any questions.

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 start Unit 4: More Conditionals, Key Events, and Methods:

• 4.1 More Conditionals (if-elif-else Statements)

• 4.2 Key Events

• 4.3 Methods

• END OF 1st QUARTER

Remember, Friday is the last day to turn in any work from Units 1, 2 or 3 for credit in 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! Here's the plan for this abbreviated week as we wrap up Unit 3:

• finish Unit 3 Creative Task

• Unit 3 Review

• Unit 3 Quiz

Unit 3 will be the last unit on your 1st Quarter grade.

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! We're going to wrap up Unit 3 with some lessons on helper functions, which are snippets of code that CMU has provided to help you with the lesson exercises. You'll use helper functions throughout the remainder of the course. Here's the plan for this week:

• 3.3 Helper Functions

• 3.4 Unit 3 Exercises

• start Unit 3 Creative Task

As always, let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

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

Hi there! For the first week of autumn 🍂, we're going to learn some additional mouse events as well as conditionals, which are a critical aspect of computer science and found in every programming language. Here's the plan:

• Unit 2 Quiz

• 3.1 Mouse Motion Events

• 3.2 Conditionals (if Statements)

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

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

Welcome to the last week of summer! Here are the topics we'll be working on as we wrap up Unit 2 on functions, mouse events, and properties:

• 2.4 Unit 2 Exercises

• Unit 2 Creative Task

• Unit 2 Review

As always, 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 starting Unit 2: Functions, Mouse Events, and Properties, which will allow us to add some interactivity to our programs. Here are the topics we'll be working on:

• 2.1 Functions

• 2.2 Mouse Events

• 2.3 Properties

These coding activities should be a lot of fun. 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, just in time for our very first quiz. Here's the plan for this hot, hot week:

• Unit 1 Creative Task

• Unit 1 Quiz

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:

• 1.3 Shapes - Notes and Exercises

• start 1.4 Unit 1 Exercises

Keep up the great work, and as always, please 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 CMU CS Academy, we can get to work! Here's what we're doing in class this week:

• 1.1 Basics - Notes and Exercises

• 1.2 Colors - Notes and Exercises

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!