Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Ch 7 Test Postponed (again).
Now on Tue., Feb. 24


Thurs. Feb. 12 - Finish Turing Ch. 7 in class
Fri. Feb. 13 - P.D. Day
Tue., Feb. 17 - Begin Turing, Ch. 8 (Pixel Graphics)
Thurs., Feb. 19 - Class canceled (Parent Interviews)
Fri., Feb. 20 - Computer lab unavailable (new computers being installed). Meet in Rm. 231. Bring seat work (e.g. study for Turing test on Ch.7 )
Tue., Feb. 24 - Test on Turing Ch. 7 (Character Graphics)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Schedule for coming two weeks

Tue.     (Jan. 13) - Norton 27
Thur.  (Jan. 15) - Norton 27
Fri.      (Jan. 16) - Turing 7
Tue.    (Jan. 20) - Turing 7
            (No test allowed because of Civics test)
Thur. (Jan. 22) - TEST on Norton 27
Fri.      (Jan 23) - Turing 7

Friday, December 12, 2008

Test on Turing, Ch. 6 next Friday, Dec. 19

There will be a test on Turing, Ch. 6 next Friday, Dec. 19.

It is not intended to be challenging. There will be plenty of simple, straightforward
questions to be answered on paper, enough of them so that anyone who has studied the notes can earn a good overall mark on the test. Some of the questions will even be True or False! How easy is that?

Whether you find writing programs in Turing easy or hard, you do of course have to learn what is in your notes. That's obvious, right? It's not many pages to study. Check your answers against the .pdf file in the Pickup Folder.




Also on the test, in addition to the questions answered on paper, will be a few questions requiring you to write short programs in Turing. At least two of them are meant to be easy. They will simply ask you to write something like the programs in
-- the content of the chapter, or
-- the "Practice Exercises" in the Pickup Folder, or
-- the easier questions at the back of the chapter.

By the way, we will look at the questions at the end of the chapter in class next week and you will be give model solutions for all of them.

There will probably be one programming question a little more challenging, just so some people don't get completely bored.



DO NOT BE ABSENT. Yes, Friday is the last day before the holidays, but the class did not want the test on Wednesday, so it was postponed until Friday.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Turing, Ch. 6 - repetition (loops)

In Chapter 6 you learn how to create repetition in a Turing program.

Remember the repetition you created in Scratch using the "forever block"? In more traditional programming languages, such as Turing, a similar structure is known as an infinite loop. That is, it continues without stopping. We use infinite loops in later chapters with graphics to create endless patterns and colours on the screen.

More often you will want some sort of loop you can control not to go on forever. We will look at two:

-- the conditional loop, which ends when some variable meets a certain condition, such as a number becoming more than 100

-- the counted loop, which continues only the number of times you want it to.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Fri., Nov. 21 -- Turing again


You should have your Scratch project completed by the end of class on Thursday. Be sure it is named after yourself and ends with the .sb extension. (If your name is Barack Obama, your file would be named BarackO.sb). Leave a copy in the Dropoff Folder (Schreiber / TIK201)




On Friday bring your Turing textbook. We will do a quick review of Chapters 4-5, then begin Chapter 6: Repetition (Loops).

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Scratch assignment


You have a handout outlining a Scratch assignment, with a rubric telling you what you need to include in your Scratch project in order to get various marks. A basic mark of 60-70% should be quite easy to get.

Have fun!

You can work on the project for two classes.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Step 2--
Starting the Scratch 2 video tutorials

Our next step is to begin working with the videos under the heading Video Courses/Scratch 2, where you learn more advanced skills and can begin putting together some very interesting Scratch projects.

You can access these tutorials from the Pickup Folder (click on LearnScratch.htm) or online at http://learnscratch.org/

The file named ScratchLessons_TableofContents.doc in the Pickup Folder lists the topics covered in each video tutorial to help remind you of what is in each video and what skills you should learn. It lists the following topics for the Scratch 2, Unit 1 tutorials. We will begin them soon. (Don't be overwhelmed. They are not really any harder than what you learned already in the Scratch 1 lessons.)

Scratch 2
Unit 1

Lesson 1: Moving and Pointing
• understanding the x and y coordinates for the sprite
• using the go to x, y block to move a sprite
• using the go to mouse-pointer, sprite block to move a sprite
• using the point in direction x block to turn a sprite
• using the point towards block to turn a sprite

Lesson 2: Go and Glide, Changing Positions
• using the go to x, y position block to move a sprite to a certain position on the stage
• going to the mouse or another sprite
• using the change x by block to change the x coordinate of a sprite by a certain number
• using the change y by block to change the y coordinate of a sprite by a certain number
• using the set x to block to set the x coordinate of a sprite to a certain number
• using the set y to block to set the y coordinate of a sprite to a certain number

Lesson 3: Bouncing, Locating the Sprite
• using the if on edge, bounce block so that if the sprite touches one of the edges of the stage, it will change direction
• using the blocks x position, y position and direction to show the current position and direction of the sprite on the stage
• using the current position (x and y) and direction of the sprite in a script – e.g. forever if x position > 100

Lesson 4: Changing Costumes
• the Looks menu
• using the blocks switch to costume and next costume
• associating a sprite with multiple costumes
• the block switch to costume – its options
• creating an animation with the blocks switch to costume and next costume
• changing backgrounds using the switch to background and next background blocks
• importing backgrounds using the Backgrounds tab
• associating multiple backgrounds with a sprite

Lesson 5: Speaking, Thinking and Graphic Effects
• using the blocks say for x secs, think for x secs, say (continuously) and think (continuously)
• creating scripts with the above blocks
• creating graphic effects using the blocks change color effect by, set color effect to and clear graphic effects
• the change color effect by block – its options (color, fisheye, whirl, etc.)
• the clear graphic effects block
• the set effect to block

Lesson 6: Size, Presence and Layers
• using the change size by block to change the size of a sprite
• using the set size to % block to set the size of a sprite
• using the size block to show the sprite’s size on the screen or to include in a script with other blocks
• working with multiple sprites
• using the show block make a sprite appear on the stage
• using the hide block make a sprite disappear from the stage
• copying a script from one sprite to another sprite
• using the go to front block to move a sprite to the front on the stage
• using the go back x layers block to move a sprite back multiple layers