Tag Archives: ap computer science

New AP CS A Labs – Magpie, Elevens, and PictureLab

2014 is the last run for GridWorld.  I for one am sorry to see it go.  I have had a fun time working with this case study and have found it to be the best case study of any of the AP CS Case Studies.  There are just so many things you can do with it. Rather than have case studies for the next few years and likely beyond that, there were will be new labs that will serve in the same capacity as case studies have in the past.  These labs will require that student rationalize about existing code and modify existing code.  This will help the students learn what is like to work with code created by someone else and likely work with projects bigger than what they would create on their own. Here are the basics of the 3 new labs.

  • Magpie – string lab where students work with a chatbot program
  • PictureLab – matrix lab that focuses on image manipulation
  • Elevens – card lab that uses lists of classes

Drafts of these new labs can be found at  http://www.cs.rit.edu/~ptt/apcs_labs/

A+ Computer Science Curriculum Materials will provide full support for these new labs.
I have an ap audit-approved syllabus posted that incorporates the new AP CS A Labs.

These labs will also be used at my AP Summer Institutes in the summer of 2014.

Tech Jobs Without a Degree

There is quite a bit of buzz right now about all of the open tech jobs.  Many articles are being written about the job openings and what is needed to get one.  USA Today recently posted a nice article about all of this.  Some of these high paying jobs that do not require a degree.

Texas recently passed HB5 which cuts down on mandatory graduation requirements and testing in order to give students options for graduation.  One of the options allows for students to take Computer Science for 2 years in place of other graduation requirements.  Texas recognizes the job demand in the tech field and they are attempting to give students more flexibility to start working towards those careers while in high school.

AP CS A Exam 2013 Wrap-Up

Well,  Another AP Comp Sci Exam has come and gone and I can say that I am kinda sad, but not really.  My crew felt that exam was very familiar, but a bit more tricky than in years past.  I guess I agree with that considering I went over every single thing on the exam 50 plus times.

I have posted my solutions to the 2013 FR questions and a Java start-up project on my A+ site.

Each year I like to post some of the best make-me-laugh / make-me-writhe-in-pain comments heard 48 hours after the exam.  Here is my top 4 list for 2013.  Some of these really did make me cry and not from joy.

Numero Uno – “I know you said that we absolutely had to call part A on part B if it said to do that, but I just went ahead and rewrote my code from part A on part B – I think it mostly worked.”
[ Arggggggggghhhhhh! ]
Numero Dos – “The Grid is a matrix?   When did they change it to that? ”
[ Sneaky, they are. – say this in your best Yoda voice as it is way funnier that way. ]
Numero Tres – “There was a Song problem on the exam just like the one we did in class, but you made us process 10,000 songs and the exam example only used 20 songs.  I was so confused.”
[ I deleted all of the songs from my iPod except for 20. I am now a changed man. ]
Numero Quatro – “You said there would be a matrix of classes on the exam.  You were totally wrong as the test had a matrix of doubles.”
[ Yep, doubles are way more complicated.  Boustrophedon!  ]

I posted my predictions last week and I think I was spot on for the most part.  You can check out the post below.  I did predict a matrix of classes so technically, I was off by one on that one – OBOB.

Have a great summer!
All of those going to grading, have a great time and rock the grading!

Good Luck to all on the AP CS A Exam

Good luck to all on the upcoming AP CS A Exam!

As I have taught the course for nearly twenty years and spent many years studying exam trends as a grading reader, a grading leader, and consultant, I am aware of the main topics to cover, but I really focused heavily on four main areas with my students in prep for this year’s Free Response section.

1.  ArrayList of Classes / References –  there is always a question that requires students to work with an ArrayList<NeverSeenThisClassBefore> that involves lots of drilling down to get to the various pieces.  You must be comfortable with abstraction to handle this type of question.  Working with GridWorld helps!  Working with lists of integers and doubles will not be enough.  Go all of the way back to 2006 and you can see where this whole question thread started.

2.  Make a Class from scratch – you may have to implement an interface or extend an abstract class, but probably not.  That type of question went away about 5 years ago.  More than likely, the students will have to extend Bug or Critter to make a new class that will involve method overriding and such.  Pretty simple, but requires some practice.  You could get an APLine question, but most likely, it will be a GridWorld question.

3.  Processing an Array – this could be an array of classes like last years Horse[] question, but who knows.  2012 was the first year the AP exam had an array of classes / references.  Most of the time the array question just involves some algorithmic stuff with numbers like finding smallest, largest, difference between smallest and largest, etc.

4.  Matrices – matrices are back and boy am I glad.  I love the matrix – what a great movie!  Last year was the hardest matrix question in the world – you had to count 255s!  This year will probably be more like the route cipher from 2011.  I have prepped my students on Matrix[SomeClassFromMars][SomeClassFromMars] as I assume that a matrix of classes would throw a serious curve ball at most students.  I also did some work with transposition ciphers as I really like ciphers.

I will post comments after I see the actual Free Response questions next week and let you know if I was close or not even in the ballpark.  I have been very accurate with my predictions in the past.

If you want to see slides I have used as AP Exam review slides in the past, I have some of those posted that you can download.

If you like my humor and want to spend a week hearing more about how I prep students to rock this exam, check out my workshops over the summer.

Finish Strong and Rock the AP Exam!

AP Comp Sci 2-Day in San Antonio

Judy Hromcik and Glen Martin will be conducting a 2-Day AP Computer Science Workshop in San Antonio on February 1-2 in conjunction with the College Board’s San Antonio Math & Computer Science Conference.

It should be a rocking event with lots of great information for all!

The event will be held at the Omni San Antonio Hotel at the Colonnade in San Antonio, Texas.

Registration Link  –   https://apps2.collegeboard.com/olrWebApp/olrWebApp/meetingDetail.do?meetingID=3071302013

http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/AP-SWROFlyer.pdf

Sign up and enjoy the fun!

If you are looking for summer workshops, check out my AP SI listings for the summer of 2013

AP Computer Science SIs – return;

Well,
All 3 of my AP SIs have concluded.  I had a great time at all 3 stops and look forward to doing a few summer institutes again next year.

This year, I started each SI with Scratch and Jeroo on the first day and then moved on to GridWorld and lots of Java.  I spent considerable time on arrays and ArrayLists as those topics constitute a huge part of the exam.  We worked with arrays and lists using graphics, games, and cross-curricular focused projects.

Time was spent discussing ways to show students how important Computer Science skills all to other disciplines and to students considering a degree other than Computer Science.  We read articles each day, like the ones I post here on this blog and discussed the relevance of talking about articles in class.

I just received a link to a great article about Stanford Computer Science and the changes they have made.  It is a great article and makes me feel great about many of the changes I have made to my curriculum over the last 3 or 4 years.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Post AP Exam Humor

Well, another AP exam has come and gone.
The 2012 exam is now in the rear view mirror.

This year’s exam is proof that you will never get the Bugs out of your code no matter how hard you try.

Having tortured my students with over 600 practice M/C questions ( Moodle makes this sooooo easy ) and volumes of Free Response questions, I felt the need to blog a bit about the comments I heard after the exam ( more than 48 hours after the exam ).

It never fails that after spending hours working to help students prepare that there will be handful of comments that upon hearing make you laugh and cry at the same time.  I have embellished these just a bit to protect the innocent and to slightly increase the humor factor.

These comments are in decreasing order of humor or pain – however you quantify them.
Please do your best to infer the extreme level of sarcasm in my [anecdotal bracketed] mental responses.

DISCLAIMER – All comments were heard 48 hours after the exam.

#5 – “We had to write programs all year long with Bug[], Dog[], Cat[], Alien[], Aardvark[], Chicken[], and Alligator[] arrays, but never any Horse[] arrays.”
[ I clearly blew it on this one.  How could I have not know to make a Horse[] array lab?  Arrrgggh!  ]

#4 – “What do you guys mean that you should always put private on instance variables?”
[This is only to prevent other goofballs from destroying your data from afar – the danger is apparently much closer. ]

#3 – “You should never in your life override an act() method!”
[Yes, all classes have act methods that are sacred and free from that nasty process called overriding and the multitude of assignments we did where we overrode act were just figments of your imagination. ]

#2  –  “I made sure to return on all parts of the Free Response – even from the void methods!”
[ My motto is if all else fails and are you are unsure what to do – just return.  Works almost every time.  Duh!]

#1 –  “We had to go through matrices over and over again and even had to count up all of the 5s in one matrix lab, but we never had to count up all of the 255s.”
[Once again, I clearly blew it  – I was way off by a whopping 250!]

I hope you enjoy this humorous post and also hope you have a great summer!
Enjoy the AP Reading if you are going and look me up if you need a Great AP Summer Institute!

Cheers!

AP Summer Institute – Houston #2

AP Summer Institute #3 is history.
I had a huge group in Houston from all over the US.
The workshop started on July 18th and ran for four days.
The Region Center in Houston always has great food.

We covered tons of material, including Scratch, Jeroo, GridWorld, and lots of Java.
We discussed teaching with Codes and Ciphers, teaching List Processing using multiple environments, and using GridWorld games like Sliding Puzzle to teach Object-Oriented Programming.

Attendees came all of the way from Ohio, Arkansas, Texas, and Massachusetts. All sorts of folks attended, including an Astronomer, Fortran Programmer, and multiple former Disney employees. It was a great group of people and it was nice to get to know them all.

I am currently conducting an AP SI in Fayetteville, Arkansas at the University of Arkansas.
See all of my workshop dates and available materials.
Follow my travels across the US to my workshops via my son’s travel blog.

AP Summer Institutes Underway

My AP Summer Institutes are under way.
The June 6-9 workshop in Houston, Texas was a blast.
We covered tons of material, including Scratch, Jeroo, Alice, GridWorld, and lots of Java.
The food and conversations were great!
It was fun to meet people from all over and make some new friends.

My next AP SI in in Kentucky running from June 27 – July 1.
See all of my workshop dates.
Follow my travels across the US to my workshops via my son’s travel blog.

Game Programming

Game Programming is very popular and many high schools offer some type of Computer Science course that includes a bit of game programming.  Scratch can be used to teach some basic game programming as can Kodu.  Unity is another great tool for 3D game programming that now will run on Android.  I teach quite a few games in my AP CS A class using GridWorld and Java Graphics with a bit of GUI.  I have used GameMaker a few times with mixed results.  Also, C# and XNA work great for game development and there are lots of materials readily available for free – check Alfred’s Blog.  Pygame is great and allows you to create some really nice games using Python.  The options for game programming are numerous and games really do get students excited and motivated about learning Computer Science.