Tuesday, October 28th

Today was the first real class that I had in a while. Before I left to Poland, we spent the class doing presentations, and so I didn't do any work. After that, I spent the week in Poland and missed a class. And so today I started to work again and to get into the rhythm of things once more.

When I came into class, I talked to Mr. Daly. We went over my final quarter report, and I decided that I would continue coding in this upcoming quarter. I told Mr. Daly that I wanted to work on a project but I wasn't sure yet, and so he helped me by showing me some Greenfoot scenarios on the Greenfoot website itself. I can now see examples of cool projects that people have done in the past and maybe even base my project off one of theirs.

But even before working on my own project, I decided that I would finish the Joy of Code videos.

After talking to Mr. Daly, I got back to the Joy of Code. I started exactly where I left off- a video about timers. It brought us all the way back to the turtle project. I watched the video but to be honest did not find it very interesting, and also it was a bit complicated.

Next I watched a video about loops. As usual, it gets more and more complicated every time. But I understood (as Michael Kölling explained to us that it was a crucial part of coding) that it was very important for me to learn about loops if I wanted to code in the future. I payed very close attention to this video. There are three videos about loops, and they all involve a scenario that is the brick breaker game. In the first video, we only learned about how to make the first row of blocks be created in the world. It was much more complex than I imagined it to be. But I will keep watching and being attentive because it's important.

In the next few classes I hope to finish the Joy of Code series.

End Of Quarter Report Quarter 1

End of  Quarter October 2014	Please answer the questions fully in the spaces below.
Name	Ruben Chocron
Module	Coding (Greenfoot)
Has the atmosphere in the class changed since the first half of the quarter? How has it changed?	I believe that it has. I think that near the end of the quarter we all knew each other better in the sense that we all knew what each one was doing. We all now were into the rhythm of the class and knew where to get resources if we needed them.
How have your experiences been different in the second half of the quarter? Are you more or less satisfied with your progress? Are you doing more of less work out of class?	In the second half of the quarter I have had good experiences. I really got to work and write lines of code that got longer and more complex as time went on. I am absolutely satisfied with my progress. I am doing more work in class, but working outside of class at home occasionally.
What advice can you give to students who are about to start on the module that you are just finishing? What can you say that would help them have a more effective learning experience?	One piece of advice that I would give would be to be patient and re watch the videos more than once. To learn the code, you will make mistakes which will sometimes frustrate you. Stay patient. Also, re watching the videos helps you to learn more and to fix mistakes.
What will you have achieved by the end of the module? What will you have learned? What projects will you have completed?	By the end of the module, I hope to have finished with the Joy of Code videos. I hope to learn how to code better, and continue creating projects. I don't know what projects yet though.
What have you learned about yourself as an independent learner learner? Do you make goals that focus your learning? What do you do to make sure you reach those goals.	I learned that I often need outside help. I do make goals for myself and it does help me focus on my work and my learning. To make sure I reach those goals I set myself a time limit, and it makes me work faster.
Imagine that you want to employ a person with the kind of information technology skills that you have.  Write one paragraph describing the skills that you (as the employer) are looking for. Start the paragraph like this.. Our company is looking for someone who…..	Our company is looking for someone who knows the basics of coding. Someone who can use basic computer programs like the office series, who can do basic editing for movies.
Have you contributed in any ways to the other members of this learning community?	I have. I have helped others whenever they needed my help throughout the quarter.
What module would you like to take in the second quarter? Please explain your choice.	I would like to continue with code. I want to improve my coding skills and even code with real Java code. I want to create my own projects.
Your teacher will be entering a grade-in-progress in PowerSchool for end-of-quarter (mid-semester). He will be considering your performance in terms of theassessment guidelines. At this stage he will be asking about the extent to which the statements below apply to your performance in the course.	Highlight the word(s) that you think describes your performance. Look at the statements in the left column.Comment on your performance in each area. Use the questions as guidelines.
Typically this student makes effective use of class time by increasing his/her competence and confidence using software that he/she has chosen. Are you using your time effectively? Are you learning each time you come to class? Are you becoming more competent and confident?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I am always working in class. Always watching videos, always coding, always on task. I always learn more every class about the code.
He/she attends all class sessions, coming and leaving on time, making sure to make up missing time by working during free periods or at home. Have you missed class this quarter? How many times? What have you done to make up lost time?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I always came to class on time. The few classes that I missed I always watched videos at home to make it up.
His/her oral communication during class is focused on the learning tasks that he/she is engaged in. Are your conversations in class focused on your learning tasks? Do you distracted and gossip?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I barely ever talk with friends in class. It is a class where everyone is own his or her own. When I do talk to someone, it's about Greenfoot.
His/her written communication (logs, e-mails, and reports) are done according to deadlines and contain enough information for the teacher to understand what he/she is doing, what kinds of problems he/she is facing and how he/she feels about his/her learning experiences. Are you consistently doing your blogs? How does your BLog keeping compare to the first half of the quarter? Are you providing more details of your learning? Do you take care to express yourself clearly and use conventional grammar and spelling? Do you uses visual elements in your blogs to illustrate your work?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I mostly keep blogging consistently. It happens that throughout the quarter I missed some blog posts and posted them late. My blog posts were thorough throughout the quarter, and I always talked a lot about what I learned and what I planned to do in the future. I did include visuals in a lot of my blog posts.
During class he/she remains focused on the task at hand and generally respects the integrity of the learning environment for all students. Do you stay on task throughout the block? Do you effectively resist temptations to use the computer for unrelated activities (other homework, e-mail, facebook, youtube, sports results, music etc.)? Do you resist temptations to take unnecessary breaks, arrive late, leave early?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I stay concentrated throughout the class. I never use facebook or anything of the sort. I tend to come on time and leave on time also.
He/she has positive attitudes towards acquiring technology skills, and makes a conscious effort to acquire new skills and apply them in meaningful ways. Have you found ways to apply your skills beyond classroom exercises?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I've shown others my skills in coding. Sometimes I look at Alex's AP computer science work and I understand a tiny bit of the code. One time I helped him solve a problem at the beginning of the year.
He/she is an independent learner, who tries to solve problems by himself/herself, but finds effective ways to overcome problems using a variety of other resources. Have your become more independent as a learner? What resources are you using to learn effectively?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I am an independent learner. I use the resources that I have around me whenever I need them. However, a lot of the time I get very frustrated when I need help because I don't like being stuck or having a problem.
He/she is respectful of all members of this learning community and his/her behavior is in compliance with all school policies, in particular the AUP (Appropriate Use Policy) and Academic Honesty Policy. Are you respectful, appropriate, honest?	inadequate adequate good outstanding I am always an honest and respectful student.
Your grade will take into account your performance in the above areas and also..  The amount of documented learning time that you have spent in and out of class. The amount and/or depth of material that you have covered
If full attendance, coming on time, being on-task, and leaving on time (not including any work outside class) represents 100%.Estimate what time percentage have you put into this class? (take into account any documented work that you did in school outside class time, or at home)	96%. I was working consistently throughout the quarter well and did everything that was expected and even more.
To what extent will you have completed your module by the end of the quarter? How far did you get? What chapters did you cover? What projects have been completed?	I have completed about 90% of my module. I still have a couple more videos of the Joy of Code to watch and then I will be done with those series of videos.
What was your last grade-in-progress (see PowerSchool) To what extent does this grade reflect your overall performance A - (95) - Outstanding B - (85) - Good (the descriptions above apply to me) C -(75) - Adequate D - (65) Inadequate	88%.  I believe that this was a good grade as it was a grade in progress, but now that we've reached the end of the quarter I believe that I deserve an outstanding great as I've worked very very hard throughout the whole quarter.
This is an appropriate course for this student and the performance of the student is such that it can be said that the student is meeting the standards well. His/her work, on the whole, is good. How would you rate your overall performance during the quarter? Please explain.	inadequate adequate good outstanding I have worked hard the whole quarter. In class, I spend my time working hard and learning about code. I never fool around in class and respect other's learning environments. I kept up to date with the blogs almost all throughout the quarter. And even out of class, at home, I watched a few Joy of Code videos for the sake of learning just a few more things and to get ahead.
What could you do to improve your performance in the second quarter?	I could be more attentive to the blog posts and try to post them more on the day of the deadline rather than a day or two later.
What module are you interested in doing during the second quarter?	I want to continue code. But I find that photoshop is also very interesting.
Is there any other information that you would like to provide your teacher to help decide on your grade-in-progress for the quarter?

Monday, October 13th

Today in class, there were four presentations. Mine, Tommy's, Hannah's and Toren's.

I think that I did well in my presentation. But apart from that I can't say anything, as Mr.Daly and the others are the judge of that.

When tommy presented, nothing was really new to me as he presented about Greenfoot right after me. Most of what he said was the same thing as me, apart from the fact that he explained more code than I did. I thought that I should've added code to my presentation at first, but then I realised that I would've confused anyone who was not doing code. I think that not everybody understood what Tommy was saying in his presentation. I know that if I hadn't learned code this quarter, I would not have understood much.

Hannah's presentation was interesting. I finally got to see something else that people were doing in this class besides Greenfoot. I found that what she did was very cool, actually. It looks interesting to learn and entertaining at the same time. After her presentation, I am debating whether or not I should try Photoshop next quarter.

Toren's presentation was also intriguing, but I was a bit confused. I understood that the program she was using ( Blender, I believe?) was a very complicated program to create animation. I think that animation is cool to be able to do, however it requires a lot of patience. From what she showed us, throughout the quarter she managed to work on two projects: a fireball, and a piece of wood being chipped off and Toren's name remaining. I am not criticising her rate of work; I can tell that to do only two (what seems like) small projects in the quarter, it must take a long time to do. I would never have the patience to work with a program like that. I like to do things that happen right away- which is why I enjoyed Greenfoot.

I think it was an interesting first quarter of the year. I definitely learned a lot. However, I'm not sure if I will continue with Greenfoot. Maybe I will start to work with Photoshop. Either way, I am not sure right now and I am going to Poland this Friday. I will keep up with the work and I will be posting on the blog the end of quarter report as soon as I can.

Tuesday, October 7th

Today was I class where I simply worked on the presentation. As planned, I didn't learn any new material or watch any new videos. I worked on the powerpoint presentation that I am going to present to the class on Monday the 13th of October. I got quite a lot done.

Apart from that, there is nothing really negative to say. Everything that I'm doing is almost exactly according to the plan, and if I continue to manage my time everything will go well. All I must do now is finish working on the presentation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Friday, October 3rd

Today was not a productive class at all. We came to school from 8-11 AM. When we got to class, we talked about the presentation and went over the rubric, so already half the class had passed by.

Right when I was about to start working, my laptop starts to lag and freezes completely. I had to restart it, and since it is a Mac, I had to wait a good 10 minutes for it to restart. When it was finally back on, there were 5 or so minutes left and so I started watching a video about using timers in the game.

That's all I did today. I also learned that I will be presenting on Monday the 13th.

Wednesday, October 1st

Today I watched 2 videos. I re watched the end of the video about dealing errors, and so that cleared up a few things for me. After that, I watched video #26 which was about inserting text into the world.

It turns out that we continued to work with the Ball world.

In the video about text, we learned about simply inserting text into the world. This text could say whatever we waned it to, could be placed wherever we wanted it to be placed. A text like this could be placed with the purpose of telling the player the instructions of the game. For example, in the ball world, we added text that said : "click the mouse to add balls". And it was as simple as that.

We also added text that moves during gameplay. That is supposed to move during gameplay. We added a new actor subclass like with the instructions, called "counter". We made 3 method inside the counter class: the Counter one ( constructor), an addScore one, and an Update one. In the Update class, we made the visuals, and in the Counter constructor, we used those parameters and also made sure that the counter would start from 0. In the addScore method, we simply added 1 to the score.
Although we created a counter, it was nothing like the one we had to deal with in the Turtle World, and in the end, we didn't even put it to use as it was much more complicated and the video was simply about adding text.

This is what the world looks like:

The next video that we watched was about object interaction (a very complicated video). It didn't even use the Ball world and used one that he had created himself and it was like a brickbreaker game without the bricks. He talked for a long time and I did not really understand all that he said...
When I watch videos like those I get very confused, and sometimes even frustrated. I don't understand anything, and when I asked some other people that used Greenfoot they said that they were also confused. Aren't these things maybe a level above what we know?


Apart from that, today I made a decision. I've decided that I won't be doing something specific to show for my presentation. The reason for that is simply that I won't have enough time to finish it, and I don't want to present a project that's half finished. I will still have lots of things to talk about.