3-9 December 2012

                I finished Jeroo this week.  That is, I am now done with the projects within the unit, and theoretically ready for the final exam.

                Overall, I found Jeroo simple enough (simple=! easy, though), but I also understood that Jeroo is not the beginning of our study of Python, as I had thought, but rather a separate unit to function as an introduction to programming.  I’m not sure whether such a unit was required, given we did recently finish Scratch, but I suppose there’s a natural progression.  Jeroo was definitely better at making us solve problems than Scratch.

                Also, we talked about the university course, but I’m not allowed to further discuss that.

                Finishing Jeroo has left me with free time in class, which I don’t think I’m using usefully enough.  Actually, I think the Jeroo unit revealed the great problem of timing.   Students work at different speeds.  Therefore, we have people finishing days apart in a unit that only lasted a few days.  It’s fine for a very unstructured class, of for a short unit like Jeroo, but timing was a problem in the university course and it’s a problem now.

26 November-2 December 2012

                After Thanksgiving break, this week marked the return of Computer Programming, now with Jeroo replacing Scratch.  I’m not sure how to classify Jeroo, exactly; basically, it uses the bases of a programming language (in our case Python) to allow one to control kangaroo-like creatures on islands and their encounters with nets, flowers, water, and each other.

                The basic types of command are name.action().  The name must be that of an existing Jeroo, which are defined at the program’s start; the actions can be predetermined, or they can be methods one defines in a separate screen from these predetermined actions such as hopping and picking flowers.  “If” and “while” are also adjustable.

                In sum, we have now officially moved away from the university course, after a total of two people raised official objections (I think it was two).  It’s too early to judge the move, though.

12-18 November 2012

Hooray for confusion?!

I still don’t know if we’re staying on the university track or switching to Python, and (probably) won’t until after Thanksgiving Break.  Either way, we didn’t switch to anything this week.  We continued programming in Scratch instead.

The main focuses this week, if I remember correctly, were Loops and Lists.  Loops in Scratch are chunks of code that are repeated multiple times- effectively a space-saving measure.  Additionally, the “forever” block can be used to repeat something forever, and similarly the “forever if” and “repeat until” blocks can be used to repeat something depending on external conditions.

Lists are basically a type of variable.  Unlike standard variables, which contain an element (perhaps a word) that is basically indivisible, lists contain several elements (perhaps letters) that can be manipulated individually.  Another way, then, of looking at lists is as a collection of variables, a “basket” that variables can be added to and modified within; this is the more intuitive way of looking of lists.  In any case, lists can be used to store actual lists (such as a group of players) or- like variables- to keep track of something within a more complex system.

5-11 November 2012

                This was a week of Scratch.  As I gain more experience with the visual programming language, I’ve started to like it more.  Liking it, admittedly, is not the same as thinking highly of it.  One can create a stopwatch in Scratch, sure, albeit with some difficulty; perhaps one can create almost anything in Scratch.  But I’m not sure it’s a good educational tool.  Then again, I know very little about programming….

                The other big news this week is that we might be switching away from the university-credit coursework because it’s too easy.  There’s reason in this argument- this has been, probably, the easiest course I’m currently taking, and not the most interesting, though it’s had its ups.  At the same time, I’m rather worried for what such a turnaround might do.  Time will tell, I suppose.

29 October- 4 November 2012

                This week in brief: Test, survey, programming.

                I suppose that’s not enough detail, though.

                The test was like any test.  The fact that it didn’t impact our grade made it pass by quicker, and by decreasing the stress probably improved my result.  That being said, the class day was a waste by most standards: we didn’t learn anything, and we didn’t get graded on what we already knew.

                Day 2 brought the survey.  It consisted of a bunch of pointless questions on whether we are interested in CompSci, whether we’re sexist, whether we’re scared of bullies, etc..  I hope we won’t have to do this often.  We also started the programming unit.

                I’m not sure how I feel about using Scratch.  On the one hand, it’s apparently capable of doing plenty of actions, and it’s easier to use than a text-based programming language.  On the other hand, it’s a visual language that seems to oversimplify a complex topic.  Maybe it is fitting for a Computer Science- not Computer Programming- course, but I can’t get that excited about it.  (And we don’t have a project.  How in the world do we not have a project for the PROGRAMMING unit?)

22-28 October 2012

                It’s getting tiring to say we worked on Peano Advertising again this week.  But we did; the project is now done.

                It would be fitting, in a sense, to talk about my thoughts on the project.  I already did that, though (in brief: it was a mess, but still relatively fun/educational).  Therefore I’ll just mention that we finished the week by observing others’ projects.  There was a Dr. Pepper ad, a generic environmental ad, a Coca-Cola ad, a chicken restaurant ad, a card game ad, a band ad, a Chevrolet Corvette ad and our own BMW motorcycles ad.  None of the groups seemed to have a focused theme to their campaigns, besides perhaps a slogan. Most showed a good use of Photoshop and audio-editing software; the best one, in my opinion, was the Dr. Pepper image with penguins drinking Dr. Pepper.

                Oh, and we have an exam coming up next week.  I don’t particularly understand what it’s going to be about.  Interesting….

15-21 October 2012

                This was the penultimate week of the Peano Advertising project.  We studied compression and its algorithms, but most of the time was spent on getting together our “portfolios”.   The three pieces involved are the digital “interview”, the audio file, and the visual portion; this week, our group began work on the audio file.  Due to the whims of work distribution, this was done by my partners; I finished up my images and worked some on the digital interview.

                We also discussed the morality of digital “piracy”.  I definitely got the impression, from our debate with assigned sides, that most people agreed it was wrong- at least, in the general case.  Yes, sometimes one can’t get music or a movie legally, and then draconian laws are pointless; but the amount of people that really thought art as we know it could have evolved entirely in the public domain was encouragingly small.  All of this is not to say I don’t think copyright is broken, but maybe the fact that most of the class disagreed with digital piracy meant most don’t practice it.

                But I still doubt it.

8-14 October 2012

                This week, we continued the advertising project.  The project (entitled “Peano Advertising Wants You”) involves three portions: a digital “interview”, or essay, a visual ad and an audio ad.  The blog for last week already describes some of my misgivings about the project, so I won’t repeat them.  Instead I’ll say that, in the end, Photoshop is fun, and the project as a whole appears quite creative.

                Besides working on the project, we studied copyright this week.  It seems copyright, like heliocentrism, is going to be a topic that pops up in various classes this year.   Certainly, though, the  perspective of a Computer Science teacher on copyright is going to be different from a Fine Arts teacher!  Personally, my view on copyright is that it should be there, but significantly weaker (or at least shorter-term); perhaps then there would be less need for semi-copyright licenses like Creative Commons.  At the very least, it needs to be fair- say, copyright can’t go to anyone but the creator.

                We also looked at audio quality.  I have to say, a 250 Hz sampling rate sounds much better than I expected.  It sounds nothing like the original music, but that can be for the best.   Anyhow, there’s certainly quality lost when you compress music, but there’s a definite boundary between “bad quality” and “indecipherable quality”.

1-7 October 2012

                Last week, we finally got our real second project- a Photoshop+MP3 advertisement campaign.  It promises to be… interesting.  In the Chinese sense.

                The big problem that I see is that we are studying the impact of digital manipulation of images and sound on society- through, for example, the study of piracy or remixing.  But the project requires not so much knowledge of Photoshop’s impact on society, but rather knowledge of how to use Photoshop, and likewise for any audio editing program we wind up using.

                Much of what we studied in class has been directly useful.  For example, we looked at the difference between vector and raster images, or the difference between file formats.  Both are significant things that deserve to be learned, and both help with the fake ad campaign.  It’s just frustrating that, even more than in SciTech, we seem to have been thrown a problem and not all of the tools necessary to solve it.

                Though unlike that class, at least this is just one of several projects.

24-30 September 2012

This was a short week, and we didn't do too much in CompSci.  Our first task was to finish the last Conspiracy Theory presentation.  Sitting through it was easier than sitting through the earlier 7 presentations of the exact same matters, simply because it was separated by a weekend.

Still, it was boring.  It doesn't appear like there was any hidden secret in the project, and for the rest of the week we studied binary to an extent I already knew.  (Binary is a system of representing numbers that uses only the digits 1 and 0; the last digit indicates the number of 1s, the next-to-last the number of 2s, the 3rd-from-last the number of 4s, then 8, 16, and so on).  We have a new project dealing with representing numbers in binary; but frankly, like the rest of the week, it seems straightforward.

Well, I know this won't continue forever- Unit 1 started in a slow manner as well- so perhaps I should be savoring the relaxation instead of complaining about it.

17-23 September 2012

                This week marked the conclusion of our Conspiracy Theory project.  The solution to the identity theft case was surprisingly identical across the groups.  Was it really that easy a project, or was there a trick to all the information we could use?  I’m left with a strong feeling that something about the project’s straightforward nature was suspicious.  Still, it’s a school project, so perhaps it’s not worth thinking too much about.

                Fittingly, our group- like all the others- decided that the culprit in the theft was a conspiracy of five students.  It all seemed very neat, with every suspect being guilty and a lot of information- such as a series of poems- seeming out of place.

                Besides finishing and presenting the project, we studied mobile devices and personalization technologies- cell phones and cookies/privacy violations.  The former was mostly a repetition of matters I already knew, but the latter impressed on me the difference between first-party and third-party cookies.  Basically, one has cookies, which are small files downloaded from a site onto a computer.  First-party cookies are the useful cookies; they are downloaded directly from the site being browsed, keeping track of such things as preferences and whether you’re logged on.  Third-party cookies, meanwhile, are downloaded from some other site, usually advertisers, and track a user’s motion throughout the Internet.  The former fulfill almost all of the useful functions of cookies, and the latter the vast majority of their negative functions.

10-17 Spetember 2012

                This week, the scheduling was back to normal, and we had two CompSci classes in five days, featuring “collaborative documents” (wikis and Google Docs) and “digital manipulation” (Photoshop and remixes).  There seems to be a trend to make our subject sound more intimidating than it actually is.

                Throughout the week, we continued work on the Conspiracy Theory project, a mission to get to the bottom of an identity theft (of the “Fakebook” type).  So far, it really does look like a conspiracy theory, involving half a dozen malice-doers.  That seems hard to believe, but then again the whole scenario is fictional.

                “Collaborative documents” really impressed on me how utterly helpful wikis and Google Docs can be.  Effectively, they present a document everyone can edit simultaneously; in the case of wikis, there is also the possibility of having various pages link to each other in a web of information.  In effect, a wiki is a mini-Internet.  Wikis offer a lot of possibilities I have rarely used, and get at the core of the good digital technology can do.

                “Digital manipulation” is far less clear-cut in terms of morality.  Effectively, it is the act of modifying some visual work (image, music, video, etc.) using digital media.  The downside is that Photoshop is by now used everywhere, and it is rarely made clear when something has been digitally manipulated.  It’s frustrating not knowing what’s real; but then again, in the digital world, nothing and everything is real.

3-9 September 2012

So Computer Science has begun in earnest.

In a four-day week, we've had three CompSci classes.  This happened because of somewhat unbalanced scheduling; it was probably for the best, though, as it gave us time to understand half our classes in detail while not having to worry much about the other half.  (The homework caught up to me on the weekend....)

Most of this week was devoted to understanding the sheer power of change currently being unleashed by the Internet.  Social networks (Facebook and the like) featured prominently.  Social networks are a topic I have an uusual connection to- I'm part of the tiny minority of teenagers that doesn't have a Facebook.  I'm rather paranoid about how much total strangers can find out about me, and I feel no need to concentrate this information in a single place, especially as I see no compelling reason to join a social network.  It's somewhat shocking, then, just how popular they are and how fast they have grown.

What worries me is that social networks are becoming increasingly expected.  In fact, the digital world as a whole has become something unavoidable.  That's a problem- if we cannot function without an Internet connection, we are making our society depend on something that, in the end, doesn't always work.  The Internet is powerful, but fragile, which is not what a society's foundation needs to be.

If all of this sounds like an op-ed, that's because class so far has been about a topic- computers' impact on society- that is extremely divisive.  In fact, a large part of class time  has been spent in discussions, which have on occassion resembled debates.  Compared to most of my peers, I'm on the cyber-conservative side of the matter; but I fear that soon there will be no choice.