Final Blog Post

Final Blog/Class Reflection

After being in Computer Programming for a year, I feel like I have learned a lot and that my programming skills have made vast improvements. I guess that doesn’t really mean anything, being that I had never programmed before the class, but I still feel like I came out with something to show for a year of work. Even though we didn’t get very deep into some of the programming languages that we worked with, I feel like I have a solid base on top of which I could easily add to. If nothing else, I think that this class has really helped me get a basic understanding of how computers think and get me started on some basic programming skills that I will most likely encounter again at some point in my life.
I thought that the curriculum that we covered was not only interesting, but was easily applicable. By easily applicable I mean that it was pretty easy to imagine how I would use the skills I was learning in the future. I also thought that it was presented to us in an easy to understand and manageable way. I really appreciated how manageable it was because with all of the other classes that we were taking and all of the outside stuff we were doing it was nice to have a class with little-to-no homework that we still learned stuff in. I also thought that most of the labs were fun. I thought that Jeroo was pretty entertaining in itself, but that the straight up Python labs that we did were kind of boring. I think that they were effective in teaching us Python but I think they could have easily been more fun to do. Personally, I thought that the funnest part of Python was looking at all of the different colors of text once you were done. Finishing with AppInventor was probably one of my favorite parts because AppInventor was really cool because we got to make games and apps for Android, which was sweet because of how useful it was.
In terms of the class, I thought it was structured really well, even though Mr.Stephens was remaking the entire course (as he told us about 100 times at the beginning of the year). The segway from Jeroo into Python was nice and also pretty smooth. Although it did seem like AppInventor was kind of out of the blue, but it was still really awesome. I think that the class did a really good job of introducing me to the world of programming and computers and such. Everything was pretty easy to chew, with maybe the only exception being lecture days. Lecture days, although useful, were normally kind of boring (no offense). I felt like the slides were almost more helpful as a reference to use when doing that labs, as opposed to learning for the first time off of them. I think a really simple way of making the lecture days slightly more interesting would be, frankly, better powerpoints. It wouldn’t make a world of difference, but I think it could help hold our attention for the little bit before a slide change. The ones that we were given kind of looked like they had been thrown together at the last minute without any real effort being put into them (which I’m sure is not the case). Though I think that the slides that directly involve the viewers are helpful (like the “are these two the same” slides). Other than that, I thought everything was delivered in a good, learnable way.
Lastly, I thought that Mr. Stephens as a teacher did a great job. He was really nice and funny, but also really approachable. The way that he would make himself available to you if you needed help was really nice, and the one-on-one conversations I had with him were always really helpful. Thanks Mr. Stephens for making this class awesome.

Severin

5/13 App inventor

This week we started working with Android App Inventor. I thought that this was really cool, not only because we got to make games like Whac-a-mole, but also because it was something with realistic, familiar and real life application. Although I'm sure the other stuff that we've learned it Python is really important for advanced Python programming, it was kind of hard to envision myself using those skills in real life. This, although I may not become an app maker, is really cool because I'm making things that I use every day. I really look forwards to other things that we'll be able to do, especially when we make really fancy looking apps.

Severin

5/6 Lab 10

This week we pretty much worked on lab 10 all week. It was probably one of the hardest labs that we've done so far, but I think a lot of things clicked while working on it. In the process of programming the lab I feel like I made a lot of personal progress, which was good because for a while I was kind of worried that I wasn't getting everything, but I feel much more comfortable with it now. Some of the dictionary/tuple stuff was tripping me up. Some of these labs have definitley helped more than others, and this was one of the more helpful ones.

Severin

4/22 Processing

This week we started working with processing. It was really cool. The code was kind of tricky to understand because it was written in Javascript, with which I am unfamiliar, but you could do some really cool things with it. I enjoyed the end products much more than that with python. Python's ending result are kind of boring, but with processing you wind up making something that looks really cool, although it may not be as applicable. I also liked how you could export some of the things that you did into applets, and then view them without having to open up the processing window.

Severin

4/15 lab 9

This week I was really only in class two times. I missed a class for a doctors appointment but it wasn't hard to get caught up again. We were working on lab 9 when I left and barley any progress was made when I got back. Although it proved to be fairly hard/confusing, we finally finished lab 9. Working with matrices was awkward and still is a little bit, but I feel like I'm starting to begin to get comfortable with it a little. I am not really sure why some one would use matrices in the real world but I suppose they would for some reason or it wouldn't exist.

Severin

4/1 lab 8

This week literally all we did was work on lab 8. For two grueling days we slaved away in front of the blisteringly bright computer screens as our retinas slowly sizzled in our eye sockets. Even after a solid three hours of collective computer programming classes we were not finished, although we drew closer and closer to the solution. We freed our code of all error statements. We ran test cases. Everything seemed in order, except for one thing. Every time the user entered a lower and upper bound, the program gave "None" as an output. "How is this possible?" we asked our selves. But before we could approach what seemed to be the final obstacle, we were banished from the classroom for four long, long days. Upon our return we will triumph. We will conquer this adversary as our ancestors conquered their Scottish lords that waged war on the weak.We will not surrender. We will not roll over. WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL WE ARE DONE!!!

Severin

3/25 strings

This week we started working with strings and lists and ranges and things. Most of it makes sense so far, though the first lab was somewhat confusing. I currently am not sure why you would want to cut up sentences and only print out some letters in the real world. When is this actually used? When ever we ask my Algebra teacher that he just replies rocket science, which I'm not really convinced uses all of the concepts that we learn. Sometimes I think it would be interesting to know how this is used in the real world outside of school. Also this week I bombed the strings quiz, as did most people around me. I really hope that there are other quizes this six weeks or that you curve it because that is gonna bring my grade down by a considerable amount. I don't know why, but I normally don't do to well on these quizes, even if I understand the concepts.

Severin