APP INVENTOR 11/23/2015
0 COMMENTS WRITE A REFLECTION ABOUT THIS GROUP PROJECT WITH 3 QUESTIONS IN MIND: 1. HOW DID AGILE DESIGN AFFECT THE SUCCESS YOUR GROUP HAD ON THIS APP INVENTOR ACTIVITY? WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY WITHOUT AGILE DESIGN AS A STRUCTURE? Agile design was an enormous part of this entire process because it allowed for my partner and I to reflect meta-cognitively on the successes and failures that we had each day. The best part of agile design was that it allowed us to reevaluate our goals and processes at the end of each day (or sprint), so that we could adjust our future goals for components that we wanted to work on more later. If we didn't have this agile design as a structure, we probably would have ended up deciding goals a couple minutes before we started actually working. This would have created immense amounts of havoc and confusion throughout the project, and I can guarantee that we most likely would not have finished with an aesthetic application at the end of the sprint designs. Moreover, ultimately the major successes we had came from collaborating with each other in order to determine what we needed to spend more time on to reach our goals by the end of the deadline. We successfully communicated in backlogging and prioritizing different sprints. 2. WHAT ASPECTS OF AGILE DESIGN LED TO INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY? WHICH SLOWED YOU DOWN? DID YOUR GROUP WORK COLLABORATIVELY OR WAS ONE PERSON A WORKER AND THE OTHER A WATCHER? EXPLAIN. The ability to export our projects onto each other's computers allowed us to increase productivity because it allowed one person to continue progressing through the application while the other person worked on checking on the backlogged goals and continued to shape the model of the application as a whole. The aspects that slowed us down included not being able to work together on one computer (such as Google Docs), so we had to copy paste blocks over to each other's computers by hand. This wasted a lot of precious time and would've been better if we had the ability to work together on the application all at once. Our group worked collaboratively, and we were successful mainly because we communicated on the things that we needed more work on and the things that we were ready to progress onto in the next sprints. A lot of this progress simply came from motivation and an eagerness to make this application work. Because this Android app was applicable to us in the real life world, we were determined to work well and build an app that could actually help our community in the future. 3. HOW DID YOUR SECOND ATTEMPT AT AGILE DESIGN DIFFER FROM THE FIRST? WHAT VARIABLES WERE CONSTANT, WHAT CHANGED? We believe that the second attempt at agile design was much more complex and difficult in comparison to our first agile design. We thought that Scratch was much easier to use than MIT App Inventor, which necessitated logistics and deeper meaning behind blocks. Many variables were constant; for example, my partner and I worked together again, and we believe that we were successful again because we have solid communication between each other. We know exactly what we need to do to help improve the next sprints and holistically, our entire application. On the other hand, variables that changed included the different block and app designer features that we used. It was similar in that the codes affected other codes, but completely different in that many of the variables were different. For example, the variable names were all changed, and this time, we could actually tangibly see the changes that we made on the tablet. ATTACH A ZIPPED FILE OF YOUR APP INVENTOR SPRINTS TITLED NAMEAPPINVENTOR.
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killing_cecil.zip | |
File Size: | 867 kb |
File Type: | zip |
PLTW CSE
SCRATCH 9/13/2015
1. HOW DID AGILE DESIGN AFFECT THE SUCCESS YOUR GROUP HAD ON THIS SHORT SCRATCH ACTIVITY?
Agile design allowed my partner and I to adapt to specific problems that we encountered in our earlier sprints. For example, in our case of "Killing Cecil," we ran into the problem of ending the game without allowing the user to keep spamming the space bar to gain more points. The more sprints we had, the more adaptability we had to change our original goals to make them coincide with our plans and process goals. Having the analysis portion of the scratch game allowed us to use meta-cognitive analysis and look back at what we did wrong and what we could improve on. We looked at glitches and bugs and were able to fix them by accommodating our specific goals to fix the problems that
we faced throughout the process of creating the game.
2. HOW CAN YOU APPLY AGILE DESIGN CONCEPTS INTO OTHER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES?
We can apply agile design concepts to real life especially in the goal-setting category. This goal-setting process allows us to look back and evaluate ourselves and our successes. This self-analysis helps us see our progress as a growth of a student. I can set goals for English presentations, due dates, when to allocate time for studying and college apps, etc.. This could help me become a more organized person in the future, as I progress into not only college, but also the business and job world. Ultimately, this agile design can allow me to use my "agility" and flexibility in changing my goals to fit what I am pursuing in life.
3. WHAT ASPECTS OF AGILE DESIGN LED TO INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY? WHICH SLOWED YOU DOWN?
The aspects of agile design that led to increased productivity included setting a deadline for our goals. These deadlines pushed us to strive for success, even in times of confusion or potential backlogging. We knew that we had to get our game finished as well as possible, which kept us on task and allowed to us to productively work in the best of our manners. Some aspects of agile design that slowed us down was the fact that we could not work together on the same sprints at the same time on different computers. For example, the scratch game does not allow us to save games and both log on at once (such as in the case of Google Docs). Thus, we had to work alone and then combine the scripts when we both figured out different ways and methods to implement our strategies.
SCRATCH 9/13/2015
1. HOW DID AGILE DESIGN AFFECT THE SUCCESS YOUR GROUP HAD ON THIS SHORT SCRATCH ACTIVITY?
Agile design allowed my partner and I to adapt to specific problems that we encountered in our earlier sprints. For example, in our case of "Killing Cecil," we ran into the problem of ending the game without allowing the user to keep spamming the space bar to gain more points. The more sprints we had, the more adaptability we had to change our original goals to make them coincide with our plans and process goals. Having the analysis portion of the scratch game allowed us to use meta-cognitive analysis and look back at what we did wrong and what we could improve on. We looked at glitches and bugs and were able to fix them by accommodating our specific goals to fix the problems that
we faced throughout the process of creating the game.
2. HOW CAN YOU APPLY AGILE DESIGN CONCEPTS INTO OTHER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES?
We can apply agile design concepts to real life especially in the goal-setting category. This goal-setting process allows us to look back and evaluate ourselves and our successes. This self-analysis helps us see our progress as a growth of a student. I can set goals for English presentations, due dates, when to allocate time for studying and college apps, etc.. This could help me become a more organized person in the future, as I progress into not only college, but also the business and job world. Ultimately, this agile design can allow me to use my "agility" and flexibility in changing my goals to fit what I am pursuing in life.
3. WHAT ASPECTS OF AGILE DESIGN LED TO INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY? WHICH SLOWED YOU DOWN?
The aspects of agile design that led to increased productivity included setting a deadline for our goals. These deadlines pushed us to strive for success, even in times of confusion or potential backlogging. We knew that we had to get our game finished as well as possible, which kept us on task and allowed to us to productively work in the best of our manners. Some aspects of agile design that slowed us down was the fact that we could not work together on the same sprints at the same time on different computers. For example, the scratch game does not allow us to save games and both log on at once (such as in the case of Google Docs). Thus, we had to work alone and then combine the scripts when we both figured out different ways and methods to implement our strategies.
snodazefunctionfinalcopy.py | |
File Size: | 4 kb |
File Type: | py |
PLTW CSE
PYTHON BRANCHING
PYTHON BRANCHING
- Explain your list sets. What are they? How are they interwoven?
- Explain your if/elif/else statement. How does your function sort through the many values in your list?
- What issues did you have as you coded your function? How were you able to work through these issues?
story.zip | |
File Size: | 3107 kb |
File Type: | zip |
PLTW CSE
PYTHON STORY
1. Did you enjoy this real-world example of Python code? Why?
Yes, I enjoyed this real-world example because it allowed use to view three different aspects of Python: coding, adding images, and drawing your own images. Ultimately, it gave all of us a sense of the way Python works, even if it was a simple design. It showed us how code works in the real-world, especially on the topic of computers responding to users.
2. How did your group work together (or) did you enjoy working as a solo designer? Why?
The code was on my computer, but we both added our mathematical intuition through the different lines and shapes that we drew on our title page. I copy pasted the code for the images, and Arpan helped find pictures and proofread the pseudocode. I liked this because it allowed us to work efficiently when we could only work on one computer.
3. What could our next step be as individuals, groups, class, school?
I would like to take this further and incorporate further if-else statements nested inside of our while loops, so that if you answered no to a question, the same exact question wouldn't have kept running over and over until the user said yes. This made the story seem choppy and with more time, we could've made it work. Further, we can apply all of these Python codes to games.
4. Who is your story audience meant to be? What would your story be rated?
Our story audience is to people that have light humor and can take a joke. It's mostly to target teenagers that are preparing for a date and can view two sets of options as something that could affect the outcome of a date. Our story would probably be rated PG.
5. Anything stand out to you about the work of your peers?
I enjoyed that my peers included humor in their stories and could use this Python opportunity to learn and also have fun at the same time. This makes Python more of a hobby, rather than a school assignment that we are forced to do. Ultimately, it looked like everybody had fun creating this stories, which made all of the stories stand out holistically, because they all took different spins off of having light humor.
6. Which of the stories in my three classes was your favorite? Why?
My favorite story was the Bryan Smolarek story created by Jim and Trevor. They added a satirical view of poking at teenager hormones and their willingness to skip practice to talk to girls. It shows a funny aspect of high school and teenagers' desire to talk to as many girls as possible, despite the consequences. It created an atmosphere of high school, which many of us can relate to.
PYTHON STORY
1. Did you enjoy this real-world example of Python code? Why?
Yes, I enjoyed this real-world example because it allowed use to view three different aspects of Python: coding, adding images, and drawing your own images. Ultimately, it gave all of us a sense of the way Python works, even if it was a simple design. It showed us how code works in the real-world, especially on the topic of computers responding to users.
2. How did your group work together (or) did you enjoy working as a solo designer? Why?
The code was on my computer, but we both added our mathematical intuition through the different lines and shapes that we drew on our title page. I copy pasted the code for the images, and Arpan helped find pictures and proofread the pseudocode. I liked this because it allowed us to work efficiently when we could only work on one computer.
3. What could our next step be as individuals, groups, class, school?
I would like to take this further and incorporate further if-else statements nested inside of our while loops, so that if you answered no to a question, the same exact question wouldn't have kept running over and over until the user said yes. This made the story seem choppy and with more time, we could've made it work. Further, we can apply all of these Python codes to games.
4. Who is your story audience meant to be? What would your story be rated?
Our story audience is to people that have light humor and can take a joke. It's mostly to target teenagers that are preparing for a date and can view two sets of options as something that could affect the outcome of a date. Our story would probably be rated PG.
5. Anything stand out to you about the work of your peers?
I enjoyed that my peers included humor in their stories and could use this Python opportunity to learn and also have fun at the same time. This makes Python more of a hobby, rather than a school assignment that we are forced to do. Ultimately, it looked like everybody had fun creating this stories, which made all of the stories stand out holistically, because they all took different spins off of having light humor.
6. Which of the stories in my three classes was your favorite? Why?
My favorite story was the Bryan Smolarek story created by Jim and Trevor. They added a satirical view of poking at teenager hormones and their willingness to skip practice to talk to girls. It shows a funny aspect of high school and teenagers' desire to talk to as many girls as possible, despite the consequences. It created an atmosphere of high school, which many of us can relate to.
HTML AND CSS
Throughout my experiences through HTML and CSS, I have learned an immense amount of information. Starting from as little as understanding the structure of the website to even beginning creating my own HTML and stylus sheets, I believe that my idea of the web has transformed completely. The web is not just some magical process that occurs. It is rather a block of complex code that lays out the entire Internet in a specific manner and a form that is conveniently usable to a user.
Some of the troubles I had included getting the navigation to go across on the top (I later realized that it was just a simple fix by creating the width of the "nav" div the full 1240 pixels). Also, I underwent trouble getting the pictures to go across the entire screen horizontally. I was able to fix this by altering the pixels of every single picture. It took some guess and checking, and I ended up with some pictures being at 268 pixels in order to minimize the white space on my html website. The styling was fun in that it allowed me to mimic the actual University of Pennsylvania website and its structure of the home page website. The coding was ultimately a fun task because I had the ability to change the padding until I liked the way it looked. The one thing I could have improved on is including links into my actual navigation. I forgot about that until it was too late, so I wish I had included that. In all, I enjoyed going through the entire process of coding and guessing and checking and creating my first website in my entire life!
Throughout my experiences through HTML and CSS, I have learned an immense amount of information. Starting from as little as understanding the structure of the website to even beginning creating my own HTML and stylus sheets, I believe that my idea of the web has transformed completely. The web is not just some magical process that occurs. It is rather a block of complex code that lays out the entire Internet in a specific manner and a form that is conveniently usable to a user.
Some of the troubles I had included getting the navigation to go across on the top (I later realized that it was just a simple fix by creating the width of the "nav" div the full 1240 pixels). Also, I underwent trouble getting the pictures to go across the entire screen horizontally. I was able to fix this by altering the pixels of every single picture. It took some guess and checking, and I ended up with some pictures being at 268 pixels in order to minimize the white space on my html website. The styling was fun in that it allowed me to mimic the actual University of Pennsylvania website and its structure of the home page website. The coding was ultimately a fun task because I had the ability to change the padding until I liked the way it looked. The one thing I could have improved on is including links into my actual navigation. I forgot about that until it was too late, so I wish I had included that. In all, I enjoyed going through the entire process of coding and guessing and checking and creating my first website in my entire life!
upenn_Website.zip | |
File Size: | 1480 kb |
File Type: | zip |
BIG DATA5/1/2016
0 COMMENTS
Data is a powerful tool and can be used in many ways. Create a post that explains how technology and data are related:
Website Link: http://www.gapminder.org/
0 COMMENTS
Data is a powerful tool and can be used in many ways. Create a post that explains how technology and data are related:
- Legislation
Big data can be used to analyze what has worked with the public in the past. As the famous motto says, past determines present, so big data will allow us to have a good prediction of what we can expect from legislation in the future. On the other hand, with Gapminder, we can analyze traffic deaths to cell phone usage, which may ignite the desire to begin more legislation on cell phone use. Thus, legislators can use this extrapolation of big data to effectively create useful laws and regulations. - Historical examples
Big data allows us to use historical examples such as the Civil War and 9/11 to determine the effects of war on the economization and industrialization of the United States and holistically, the world economy. For example, Gapminder allowed us to see the major drops within the 1860's and then the 1940's due World Wars, which also correlated with the same exact dips within income per capita and the economy. These historical examples ultimately allow us to see the effects of each war and their consequences on the economy. - Career options
Big data allows us to determine what career paths have taken off and what career paths will take off in the future. For example, in this day and age, we can see that jobs that revolve around technology and computers tend to have higher average salaries. Thus, with an upwards trend between computer scientists and average salary, the public can see the careers that will make the most money and can take a career path based upon how many employees of that specific job is needed. - Programming languages
Coding can be used with big data because people are able to use coding programs such as C++, Java, Python, RobotC, etc. to compile big data into patterns and relevant organization. For example, the data from the graphs can be put into words and programmed for users to find trends and correlations. - Visualizations
With big data, we can use Gapminder's graphs to visualize the trends that have occurred in the past decades or centuries. For example, we can analyze two specific variables and how they have changed over the time periods. This can lead into analysis on things that can benefit humans' value of life. - Analytics
Analytics will allow us to extrapolate the data given and find the meaning within the future. Because the past is the past, and we are focused on the present and future, we can use the data from the past centuries to determine what we can do in the future to aid us in our economy, medicine, and value of human life. Furthermore, analytics portrays to us a holistic composition of the topics listed above and permits us to make conclusions on how to improve our conditions for the future.
Website Link: http://www.gapminder.org/
gapminder.zip | |
File Size: | 1090 kb |
File Type: | zip |
Final Thoughts
Least: Gapminder; all of the trends seemed pretty obvious and common sense. The only part of that activity that I took away was that big data allows us to conclude patterns about the environment and holistically, the world.
- Your progress as a computer science student
- Understanding of Scratch, App Inventor and Python
- Thoughts on agile design
- How you might use this knowledge in the future
- Your favorite - or least favorite - activities
Least: Gapminder; all of the trends seemed pretty obvious and common sense. The only part of that activity that I took away was that big data allows us to conclude patterns about the environment and holistically, the world.
- Suggestions for future students and your instructor
- Expectations for the EoC test and use of college credits
- Questions?