I was away from class today, but I was confident that my classes would be gracious hosts to the Guest Teacher who took my place.
In the short time that my students have been my students, they’ve established a reputation as polite, respectful, and cooperative. And with great volunteer Student Hosts lending a hand, I know that the HTML clean-up scheduled for today’s class was productive and worthwhile.
I look forward to seeing everyone again on Monday!
2010-10-29
2010-10-28
SPTN
One of the greatest pleasures of teaching is the opportunity to meet the parents and guardians of my fabulous students at Student Parent Teacher Night.
I thank everyone who took the time to meet with me this evening. It’s a long evening—but so worthwhile!
I thank everyone who took the time to meet with me this evening. It’s a long evening—but so worthwhile!
2010-10-27
Natural selection
Wow! Am I ever impressed by my students’ progress in the Selection unit! They’ve really understood the power that’s unleashed when programmers can specify alternative actions within their code.
We’re moving through the unit much more quickly than I’d thought possible. I guess that Mr. Darwin was right: my students are selecting naturally!
We’re moving through the unit much more quickly than I’d thought possible. I guess that Mr. Darwin was right: my students are selecting naturally!
2010-10-26
Sequence? Check! Selection …
teach_relational_operators
put "Questions, comments, concerns (y/n)? " ..
get student_response : *
if student_response = "n" or student_response = "N" then
% go on to new material
teach_selection
else
% review old material
teach_relational_operators
end if
put "Questions, comments, concerns (y/n)? " ..
get student_response : *
if student_response = "n" or student_response = "N" then
% go on to new material
teach_selection
else
% review old material
teach_relational_operators
end if
2010-10-22
The sounds of silence
Hello students, my old friends
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision of Studio 218
From boring music we could wean
Was the vision that was planted in my brain
And still remains
Within a lab of silence
—with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel
2010-10-21
There’s more than one way …
… to tackle a programming problem, and today we looked at an organic process that takes the problem statement as its core and works outwards.
Some of my classes have made outstanding progress in a short time (take a bow, Class C!), and I’m delighted by their newly acquired understanding and skill!
Already, they’ve been able to show me that there’s more than one way …
Some of my classes have made outstanding progress in a short time (take a bow, Class C!), and I’m delighted by their newly acquired understanding and skill!
Already, they’ve been able to show me that there’s more than one way …
2010-10-20
An intriguing date and a highly interrupted day
All of the interruptions were for a good cause, but among the Community Service Assembly, speeches by the impressive candidates for grade-9 representative to the Student Leadership Council, review of the Super-power Autobiography marks, and balloting for the grade-9 rep’s position, there was no time for Turing!
Luckily, tomorrow we’ll be able to pick up where we let off on Tuesday. Tomorrow’s 10-10-21 isn’t quite as intriguing as today’s 10-10-20, but we’ll make up for it with some intriguing new programming adventures!
Luckily, tomorrow we’ll be able to pick up where we let off on Tuesday. Tomorrow’s 10-10-21 isn’t quite as intriguing as today’s 10-10-20, but we’ll make up for it with some intriguing new programming adventures!
2010-10-19
A super-marker needs super-powers!
I always knew my students were great, but now that I’ve read all about their super-powers, I realize that my students are super-great!
Alas, their teacher has no super-powers, and so it’s taken a long (long!) time for their hard work to be marked. But now the results are in, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with my super-classes.
I may not be a super-marker, but I’m super-lucky to now know the stories of so many super-heroes and super-villains!
Alas, their teacher has no super-powers, and so it’s taken a long (long!) time for their hard work to be marked. But now the results are in, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with my super-classes.
I may not be a super-marker, but I’m super-lucky to now know the stories of so many super-heroes and super-villains!
2010-10-18
We’re in to input!
As much as we love Victoria Windsor, there’s a limit to the number of times we want to see her name. So it’s great that we’ve now learnt how to add variables, assignment statements, and keyboard input to our programs!
These small additions to our toolbox greatly expand the type and sophistication of the programs we can now write. Without a doubt, we’re now in to input!
These small additions to our toolbox greatly expand the type and sophistication of the programs we can now write. Without a doubt, we’re now in to input!
2010-10-15
Is it better to give or to get?
It’s all well and good to write programs which contain only constants, but running them is boring: the results are always the same!
Instead, we want to write programs with variables so that the program’s results will vary.
But variables are not enough: we need a way to get variable data into those variables—and that’s where get comes into play. With get, we can get information from the keyboard.
And with variable information from the keyboard, we can see that it’s much better to get than to give!
Instead, we want to write programs with variables so that the program’s results will vary.
But variables are not enough: we need a way to get variable data into those variables—and that’s where get comes into play. With get, we can get information from the keyboard.
And with variable information from the keyboard, we can see that it’s much better to get than to give!
2010-10-14
The case of the disappearing asterisks
Today we saw the importance of detail in every aspect of programming. What a simple task we had: display a single asterisk in each of the four corners of a run window. But it wasn't so simple, because some of the asterisks kept disappearing!
To be successful programmers, we need to think of all the details and try to trace, in our minds, the actions that we instruct the computer to take.
If we can, in our minds, think like the computer “thinks,” then we’ll be able to solve the case of the disappearing asterisks!
To be successful programmers, we need to think of all the details and try to trace, in our minds, the actions that we instruct the computer to take.
If we can, in our minds, think like the computer “thinks,” then we’ll be able to solve the case of the disappearing asterisks!
2010-10-13
Stepping up! Stepping out!
I was delighted with the progress most of my students made with yesterday’s homework. Students are really stepping up to the responsibilities of high school: they understand that homework gives them opportunities to learn additional material and to consolidate the work done in class. They’re displaying a real maturity and will be successful learners!
We’ve also been stepping out with Turing fundamentals: we’ve almost got output under control—and soon we’ll be stepping in to input!
We’ve also been stepping out with Turing fundamentals: we’ve almost got output under control—and soon we’ll be stepping in to input!
2010-10-12
The ins and outs of output
We’re all pretty happy to be continuing our introduction to programming with Turing. It’s one of my favourite programming languages, and I can see that my students are catching on quickly!
Today we looked at some details of output—you can guess that input will follow shortly!—and the sophistication of students’ questions showed that they’re really on the ball!
I was delighted by the perceptive questions asked today in class—students are listening with critical ears and working hard to ensure their understanding. What teacher could ask for more?
Of course, so far we’ve looked just at some very basic features of the language—just the ABCs, really. But with these basic features we’ll soon be writing some pretty clever stuff!
I’m looking forward to seeing my students’ entry into output!
Today we looked at some details of output—you can guess that input will follow shortly!—and the sophistication of students’ questions showed that they’re really on the ball!
I was delighted by the perceptive questions asked today in class—students are listening with critical ears and working hard to ensure their understanding. What teacher could ask for more?
Of course, so far we’ve looked just at some very basic features of the language—just the ABCs, really. But with these basic features we’ll soon be writing some pretty clever stuff!
I’m looking forward to seeing my students’ entry into output!
2010-10-08
Celebration!
Today we had lovely parties to celebrate all of our hard work!
Well done, everyone!
Have a great long weekend!
Well done, everyone!
Have a great long weekend!
2010-10-07
Charting the accomplishments
Who can believe it? In only a month, we’ve mastered coding webpages by hand, validating and uploading websites, and the definition of dozens of important computer science terms!
Today we saw how to chart both the webpage development process and the program development process—and we wrote our first programs in Turing!
I don’t know about you, but I think we deserve a party to celebrate our great success!
I couldn't be prouder of, or more impressed by, the hard work and significant accomplishments of my students. And tomorrow, I’ll be delighted to celebrate their remarkable success at our first class parties.
These hard working folks are really on the charts, now!
Today we saw how to chart both the webpage development process and the program development process—and we wrote our first programs in Turing!
I don’t know about you, but I think we deserve a party to celebrate our great success!
I couldn't be prouder of, or more impressed by, the hard work and significant accomplishments of my students. And tomorrow, I’ll be delighted to celebrate their remarkable success at our first class parties.
These hard working folks are really on the charts, now!
2010-10-06
The power of programming
Yesterday’s blog posting was fun to create. I had wanted to write something in binary code, but I hadn’t wanted the tedium of coding each character of the post by hand—so I wrote a program to do the work for me!
I wrote the program code in Turing, the great language that my students will soon learn. The program took each line of my text and converted it to a bitstring—then I posted those strings in my blog!
Today, I introduced students to the notion of decimal equivalents of bitstrings and provided them with an abbreviated ASCII chart. Using that chart, they decoded yesterday’s blog posting.
01010100011010000110000101110100001000000110100101110011001000000111010001101000011001010010000001110000011011110111011101100101011100100100000011011110110011000100000011100000111001001101111011001110111001001100001011011010110110101101001011011100110011100100001
I wrote the program code in Turing, the great language that my students will soon learn. The program took each line of my text and converted it to a bitstring—then I posted those strings in my blog!
Today, I introduced students to the notion of decimal equivalents of bitstrings and provided them with an abbreviated ASCII chart. Using that chart, they decoded yesterday’s blog posting.
01010100011010000110000101110100001000000110100101110011001000000111010001101000011001010010000001110000011011110111011101100101011100100100000011011110110011000100000011100000111001001101111011001110111001001100001011011010110110101101001011011100110011100100001
2010-10-05
0100 0001 0101 0011 0100 0011 0100 1001 0100 1001 0010 0000 0101 0010 0111 0101 0110 1100 0110 0101 0111 0011 0010 0001
0101 0100 0110 1111 0110 0100 0110 0001 0111 1001 0010 1100 0010 0000 0110 1101 0111 1001 0010 0000 0111 0011 0111 0100 0111 0101 0110 0100 0110 0101 0110 1110 0111 0100 0111 0011 0010 0000 0110 1100 0110 0101 0110 0001 0111 0010 0110 1110 0111 0100 0010 0000 0111 0011 0110 1111 0110 1101 0110 0101 0010 0000 0110 0010 0110 1001 0110 1110 0110 0001 0111 0010 0111 1001 0010 0000 0110 0001 0111 0010 0110 1001 0111 0100 0110 1000 0110 1101 0110 0101 0111 0100 0110 1001 0110 0011 0010 1110
0101 0100 0110 1000 0110 0101 0111 1001 0010 0000 0110 0011 0110 0001 0110 1110 0010 0000 0110 1110 0110 1111 0111 0111 0010 0000 0110 0011 0110 1111 0111 0101 0110 1110 0111 0100 0010 0000 0110 1001 0110 1110 0010 0000 0110 0010 0110 1001 0110 1110 0110 0001 0111 0010 0111 1001 0010 0001
0101 0100 0110 1000 0110 0101 0111 1001 0010 0000 0110 0011 0110 0001 0110 1110 0010 0000 0110 1110 0110 1111 0111 0111 0010 0000 0110 0011 0110 1111 0111 0101 0110 1110 0111 0100 0010 0000 0110 1001 0110 1110 0010 0000 0110 0010 0110 1001 0110 1110 0110 0001 0111 0010 0111 1001 0010 0001
2010-10-04
If patience is a virtue …
… then my classes are certainly virtuous!
Today we almost completed the Basic Computer Glossary, and I’m grateful to my patient students. With good humour, they’ve been marching with me through the terms that comprise the strong foundation we need for the exciting programming unit which awaits us!
While we’ve been marching through the terms, my enterprising students have been polishing their HTML and CSS coding skills. Standing with those polished skills on the strong vocabulary foundation, my students will be super-ready for programming! (And as you know from reading their autobiographies, they’ve all got super-powers, too!)
Today we almost completed the Basic Computer Glossary, and I’m grateful to my patient students. With good humour, they’ve been marching with me through the terms that comprise the strong foundation we need for the exciting programming unit which awaits us!
While we’ve been marching through the terms, my enterprising students have been polishing their HTML and CSS coding skills. Standing with those polished skills on the strong vocabulary foundation, my students will be super-ready for programming! (And as you know from reading their autobiographies, they’ve all got super-powers, too!)
2010-10-01
Yikes! No Studio 218!
Yikes! We couldn’t have Studio 218 today because we’ve still got important board work to complete—but Studio 218 will return next week!
Today, we quickly reviewed some useful Notepad++ and HTML validator options, and made good progress with the Basic Computer Glossary.
And Class A elected Lisa as their class rep to the SLC. I’m certain that she will do a fine job representing her peers, and I know that we’re grateful that Naeem also stood for election. Thanks, again, to both!
No Studio 218 today, but Democracy-in-Action 218!
Today, we quickly reviewed some useful Notepad++ and HTML validator options, and made good progress with the Basic Computer Glossary.
And Class A elected Lisa as their class rep to the SLC. I’m certain that she will do a fine job representing her peers, and I know that we’re grateful that Naeem also stood for election. Thanks, again, to both!
No Studio 218 today, but Democracy-in-Action 218!
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