The Classroom

It's been so long I can't say anymore. Geometry might give you some insight into why Trig is important. But I don't think either path is necessarily the right one. My advice, though, is to solve a lot of problems. Even if you have to find them yourself.

My HS was not very good with trig and calculus, so I had to scramble a bit when I hit college.

Actually Calculus wasn't a common HS course then (around 1960).

And there was no such thing as advanced placement in any subject.

s. patroller

Did they have CS back then in high school?

Buffy

No. There weren't any available computers then. There were only a few in existence, actually. Very big, very expensive.

Millions of $$ and maybe 3K of ram.

Filled rooms. Other rooms were filled with air conditioning for the computers.

s. patroller

what got you interested in CS then?

Buffy

The computer room had a raised floor for (a) all the cabling between components and (b) piping in cold air.

I had finished my doctorate in math and there weren't any teaching jobs available. So I looked to computing. Self taught.

Learned FORTRAN and then BASIC.

There are no guarantees that what you study will provide jobs when you are ready. It is just a fact of life. But it works out over time. Some people graduate into a good job market and others not.

It is why you want to enjoy what you study as the enjoyment may be the main (or only) payback for a while.

Ben I.

1:42 PM

@Buffy If the mods do it, then it becomes a permanent substitution, so that a future user who tries to create "tests" gets redirected to "examinations"

@s.patroller I thought you were a college kid, or even younger. I didn't realize that you had a college-age kid yourself!

Buffy

2:44 PM

@BenI. I missed that connection.

Aurora0001

2:54 PM

@BenI. Only if you create a synonym as well; if you just use the mod merge tool without creating a synonym, the tags will be remapped and that's it - no side effects.

Ben I.

3:30 PM

@Aurora0001 Well yeah, but that would be the point :)

@Buffy It wasn't based on anything said in this room, but from a question he posted elsewhere

Peter

4:04 PM

@GypsySpellweaver That was a great read.

@Buffy I graduated in '08, right at the start of the recession. Could not be more true. Never envisioned 10 years in I'd be teaching CS.

@BenI. Congrats on the HNQ. Today has been my biggest day of rep gain in weeks, probably even months. Feels good to get back in the game. I may ask a question today, but I don't think it'll get HNQ status since it's a bit more specialized.

Ben I.

Well, if you post it in the sandbox first, it increases your odds dramatically ;-)

Peter

Maybe I will take advantage of that. Drafting it now.

Feedback wanted in the sandbox: cseducators.meta.stackexchange.com/a/406/76

Ben I.

4:24 PM

@Peter I think it has great HNQ potential. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to help it get there

If you have a self-answer, that can help. As a general heuristic, 2 upvotes + 3 answers within an hour makes HNQ. If we already have one, then add 1 to each of those numbers. (3 upvotes + 4 answers within the hour). If we already have 2, then 4 and 5

That's not factual, it's just observational.

(I just fixed those numbers)

Halp! I haz question!

0

A: The Question Sandbox

How to collect and grade Xcode work I am preparing to teach an intro to app development class this summer using Swift and Xcode. I will be using Apple's Intro to App Development with Swift curriculum and iBook. For most of these high school students, this class will be their first exposure to pr...

Peter

4:42 PM

Good to know. It is narrower in focus, so I'm not sure what wide draw it would have, but you never know.

Buffy

4:52 PM

@Peter I'm not sure that all useful answers need to ref Xcode or Swift. It is a more general question, I think.

Peter

Potentially, but my immediate concern is how to work best with Xcode specifically. I have what I found to be a good workflow with GitHub/GitHub Classroom in other courses, but given the IDE, this one feels different. That said, I'd welcome a revision that broadens it, but still addresses Xcode.

Ben I.

5:06 PM

When I briefly taught Android, I had a similar problem, and I was not at all sure how to deal with it. It wasn't just the Java files; it was the hundreds of tiny XML files, intents, graphics, Java files... the whole thing had to be built within the IDE for it to make any sense.

Peter

That's exactly the dilemma I am facing. I can always walk around and test them on the simulation during a "grading" check, but that takes time from the limited scope of what I have in class.

Buffy

Hmmm. They could all give you their iPhones over the week-end. ;)

Peter

5:23 PM

Hahaha. I'm sure they'd love that.

Buffy

6:45 PM

@BenI. I'm guessing that the solution has to be that you agree (mostly with yourself) that you will only look at some things and not others. It may be that what you look at is the final app as it is running and only sort of "skim" anything else. Think of it as making sausage. You don't really want to know.

Even though I've always used Macs and iDevices, I don't like one platform solutions. So I haven't tried to learn any of the apple-sanctified development languages.

I'm pretty sure that Swift is cool, but so is, say, Scala.

Buffy

6:58 PM

@Peter, how many times a week do you interact with the students? And how long is each session?

And, are the projects they do all the same or a different one for each student? Or some other combination; pairing, ...

Peter

The class will consist of 3 weeks of 5 hour classes/day.

Some projects will be the same while some will allow for some creative license/freedom/individuality.

Buffy

7:30 PM

Hmmm. Each session is 5 hours?

Or I don't understand.

3 sessions, each 5 hours? or 75 total hours of class?

Peter

7:50 PM

Yep. Each session is 5 hours. We meet every day for 3 weeks straight.

So yes, 75 hours.

Buffy

Impressive.

You should probably include some of these answers in your question.

Peter

Will do. It's how we power through a semester's worth of time and ostensibly content during the summer.

Buffy

8:22 PM

If you are looking for an interesting project that might work well on small screens, look here:

6

A: What would be reasonable to include in an Introduction to AI class for a 7th-8th grade after school program?

I don't have a lot of insight into your overall problem, but there is a resource you might consider. There is a simple game, The French Military Game, in which a person plays against the computer. The totality of game information is small enough that the computer can remember every position in ...

Mithrandir

@GypsySpellweaver [meta-tag:featured] = featured

Buffy

@Mithrandir. Hi Gandalf. How's the third age working out for you?

We are all wizards here, of course.

Mithrandir

Third age ended long ago...

Buffy

for some, maybe.

Mithrandir

I believe we're more in like the Seventh now ;)

Buffy

8:26 PM

Ah. I'll try to catch up.

Mithrandir

Hey @Peter! I was wondering, is there any particular reason you stopped providing answers over on Literature.SE?

Buffy

@Mithrandir Do you know anything about obscure sci fi? I'm looking for a title/author that I lost.

Mithrandir

Ooh, I spy a Smelly. I'm afraid that the IPS bots kicked you out of the Closet. Sorry about that

@Buffy your best bet is probably to ask a story ID question on Scifi.SE.

user1111 knows tons of obscure stuff.

Buffy

TY

Peter

@Mithrandir As lame is it sounds, life. When I dove in full force last year, I had a lot of free time since it was summer. Once the school year kicked into gear, that along with even this site haven't nearly gotten the attention they have deserved.

But once again, the summer is fast approaching, and I do hope to post both there and here with a bit more consistency.

Mithrandir

8:35 PM

@Peter No worries, living your life is important. It's totally all right, I was just worried we scared you off or something :)

Peter

Oh no not at all. Anything but.

Mithrandir

That's good.

Peter

I'll make a concerted effort to check on posts there with greater frequency. Thanks for reaching out. I do appreciate it.

Gypsy Spellweaver

@Mithrandir Any way to make the tag get the coloring to show that it's a mod only tag as well? That's what I was aiming for. Thanks for the meta part at least, however.

Mithrandir

No, that's not possible in chat.

Gypsy Spellweaver

8:42 PM

@Buffy Now I have to watch that list and see if I know it.

:(

Buffy

@GypsySpellweaver Posted:scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/185808/…

Peter

10:31 PM

0

Q: How to collect and grade Xcode work

I am preparing to teach an intro to app development class this summer using Swift and Xcode. The course will consist of daily, 5-hour class meetings over the span of 3 weeks. All development will be on Macs out of necessity; some will be school-issued devices, but some will be the personal device...

Thanks @Buffy for asking question that spurred the addition of helpful information

I have another question cooking about AP labs

I wonder about the quality of non-AP provided labs

This was year one of AP CS A, so I'm trying to assess - with student feedback - my feelings on Magpie, Picture, and Elevens

We are back in business people...

Experience with teaching iOS development? Come answer our latest question about Xcode! https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/4636/how-to-collect-and-grade-xcode-work #xcode #AppleEDUchat

Tweeted by cs_educators on April 17, 2018 at 10:38 PM

Hark! A question!

0

Q: How to collect and grade Xcode work

I am preparing to teach an intro to app development class this summer using Swift and Xcode. The course will consist of daily, 5-hour class meetings over the span of 3 weeks. All development will be on Macs out of necessity; some will be school-issued devices, but some will be the personal device...

grading assessments

Peter

@BenI. @Buffy I'd love your feedback on this sandbox question: cseducators.meta.stackexchange.com/a/407/76

re: AP labs

Halp! I haz question!

0

A: The Question Sandbox

AP Labs Beyond Magpie, Picture, and Elevens The official course description for AP Computer Science A, a high-school level course focusing on OOP using Java, requires a 20-hour lab requirement. College Board provides three labs ready-made for teachers to use in class -- Magpie, Picture, and Elev...

Peter

11:20 PM

In addition to tweeting, my goal is to get a twitter bot going. At one point someone had instructions on how to get it going. Anyone still have that available?

Transcript for