December 17, 2010

   Today we prefected our bouncing ball assignments and finished our run window tracing assignment.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 16, 2010

   Today we prefected our bouncing ball assignments and finished our run window tracing assignment.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 15, 2010

   We completed our bouncing ball assignment with fellow classmates.  We have another assignment.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 14, 2010

    Today we had a test review, and got our test back.  We are also learning how to do character graphics.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 13, 2010

    Today we had a test.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 10, 2010

     Today is our last catch-up period for now.  We have to be 4's by the end of this period.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 9, 2010

     Today we got into groups of four and caught up on our knowledge so far of Turing.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 8, 2010

   Today we got into groups of four and caught up on our knowledge so far of Turing.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 7, 2010

    Today we had a long lesson on functions.  For homework we have to review assignments 10-24 and add functions anywhere necessary.  We also have to make a function for "nextConsont" for assignment 9 mod.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 6, 2010

     Mr. Arkin came back today and gave us a thirty minute crash course on substrings.  We also got an introduction to counted loops.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 3, 2010

    Tomorrow Mr. Arkin is coming back, and hopefully will explain substrings to us.  Until then, i will try to finish my way through the rest of my substring assignments.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 2, 2010

   Today we had a work period to review substrings and practicwe for the quiz tomorrow.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

December 1, 2010

   Today we had a work period to review substrings and practicwe for the quiz tomorrow.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 30, 2010

    Today we had another work period and made substantional progress on the substring assignments.  We are also preparing for our quiz on friday about substrings as well as our programming unit test that got moved to next week.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 29, 2010

     Today we had a free period and a supply teacher.  We have to start stubstrings by previewing the substrings page.  We are also encouraged to start the substring assignments.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 26, 2010

     Today we got to see some epic turing programs written by Mr. Arkin himself.  He said that we had to do something similar for our culminating activities.  We had another work period and I managed to understand arrays and repetition assignment 12 mod as well as assignment 13.


Your Student,
Ziyi Shao 

November 25, 2010

    Today, we discussed about whether or not dropping out of French after grade. 9 was a smart idea or not.  I saw another side of Mr. Arkin.  Afterwards ,we discussed about why we might not be understanding this class.  Mr. Arkin had a list of three skills successfull programmers should learn and possess.  Read precisely, break steps up, and visualize how the program works.  We discussed different ideas with the repetition assignment 8 as well as the modification of repetition assignment 12.  I still didn't quite understand arrays before but now i think i can efficiantly incorporate it into my work.  We got like 15 minutes at the end of class to work on/catch up on our assignments.  We have to prepare for our test next week. 

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 24, 2010

    Today is Mr. Arkin's birthday.  So happy birthday Mr. Arkin, I hope you have a great one if you read this.  Today we had our official introduction to arrays and learned about the keywords array and of.  For homework we have to do a modification of repetition assignment 12 incorporating arrays into the assignment.  We have to catchup for a test next week.


Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 23, 2010

     Today, we got our marks back for the printer comparison project.  Then we had a lecture about what we are doing wrong and how to fix it.  Apparently some people put special character entities for simple things such as numbers and periods and commas.  I was a slight victim of that because i put special character entities for entities that were already on the keyboard such as the dollar sign and the colon.  I learned that Mr.Arkin only expects us to use special character entities for things such as "curvy" apostrophes.  Also, I lost one level because one of my links to the HTML validation pages didn't work.  I have now learned to always check my page before i submit it for marking.  As Mr. Arkin likes to say, "shooting the arrow and not seeing if it missed the target" or something along the lines.  The rest of our class was a work period in which most of us used to change our printer comparison assignments to met the standards of the processing guidelines.  For homework we have to do assignment 12 which is a bit tricky and review the processing guidelines because Mr. Arkin was so disappointed because our work did not meet the standards.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 22, 2010

    Today we had a free work period and made substantial progress on the repetition assignments.  For homework we had to do up to assignment 11 which i finished in class already.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 18, 2010

     Todays homework is going to ruin my long awaited long weekend by giving us this new project due on monday.  

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 17, 2010

    HOLY COW!!!! Today's homework is so annoying! First of all, how the heck are you supposed to figure out the square root of a number without a calculator, memorization of all of the square roots or through trial and error?!?!?!? Furthermore, how are we supposed to incorporate "mod" into this program?!?!

     During class, we deskchecked our partner's program for repetition assignment 6.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 16, 2010

     Today we had a homework check. I did not print out my homework. I guess i should start writing down my assignments from now on.  We also had to fill out a feedback questionnaire about ics class.  Anyways, we basically had a work period and for homework, we have to complete repetition assignments.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 15, 2010

      Today we got our midterm marks back.  It was so nervewrecking.  During class, we had a work period in which we made substantial progress towards our repetition assignments.  We also got to listen to music during the work period because last friday was basically a lecture day.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 12, 2010

    Today we had our official introduction lesson to repetition and learned about the keywords exit, look and when.  We copied down some interesting programs in class and for homework, we have to modify one of the model answers.  We also have to do repetition assignment 1 and two and a modification of question 2. 


Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 11, 2010

    Today was Remembrance Day. We had assemblies according to the grade group.  Apparently we are grade 10s in Mr. Arkin's class.  Anyways, we got our programming test back and i got a 79%.  Normally i would be upset over this mark like the true over-achieving Asian I am, but considering the fact that most people got 60% or lower makes me appreciate my mark more.  I understand why i got a 79% because we reviewed the test in class and came up with model answers for the questions.  We also reviewed this accumulators and counters arithmetic mean simple program we wrote yesterday.  For homework we have to get our parents to sign the test. 


Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 9, 2010

            Today we had a longer than usual Q&A session to review and prepare for the programming unit we're going to have tomorrow.  We also had a brief introduction about counters and accumulators that I am still not one hundred percent clear on.  For homework, we have to study for the test tomorrow obviously.  I hope my hard work would pay off and get a good mark on it.  Wish me luck, I will probably need it. 

Your Student,

Ziyi Shao

November 8, 2010

     Today we completed our posters with the code analysis and presented it.  Afterwards, we displayed it proudly out in the hallway.  We are also doing the same thing to our partner's code ( in my case Ror's code) for selection number 7.  For homework i have to study for our programming unit test we're going to have on Wednesday.  


Your Student,
Ziyi Shao  

November 5, 2010

    Today... WE DON'T HAVE HOMEWORK.  ( except for this which is more like a journal really... )
We continued on identifying all the functions in assignment six.  We also are going to do something because of something that cannot be leaked onto the internet.  We're holding it on Monday and i have to bring food.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 4, 2010

     Today we did desk checking on one of Mr. Arkin's "model answers" for assignment 6 on selection that had spelling errors in it.  We also had to identify all of the functions in that assignment.  For homework we had to desk check three of our selection assignments. 


Your Student, 
Ziyi Shao

November 3, 2010

    Today was bring your kids to work day and i spent 10 hours with my dad watching him work.  This means that i along with most of the grade 9 population did not attend school.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

November 2, 2010

    Today is a very special day.  One hundred and ninety five years ago,  George Boole ( the creator of the boolean expressions that is the foundation of modern technology) was born.  We celebrated his birthday in class today as well as studied case statements that are very much similar to if statements.  We also were introduced to new keywords such as case, label, and of and a little bit of loop statements to prevent negative balances.

Your Student, 
Ziyi Shao

November 1, 2010

     Today, we went over question 9 together.  I never realized that i was so incorrect with my answer.  For homework we have to preview selection (II).  We also have to change our wikispaces account settings so that every time someone changes or makes a new discussion page, we get an email.

Your Student,

Ziyi Shao

October 29, 2010

    Today we got a work period and a supply teacher.  I worked on validating my HTML for my website and substantional progress for selection because the assignments 1 to 7 are due on monday.  I think i am going to do all of them because i am very busy the next week. 

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 28, 2010

    Today, I was away for a science field trip.  The people that were present had a free work period so I don't have any homework.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 27, 2010

     Today we had a review of the selection assignments.  We had an introduction of new boolean operators such as and, or and not and another introduction on if latters.  We got our quiz back and i am glad i got level four.  I guess the hard work paid off.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 26, 2010

     Today we got our first ICS pop quiz.  It was actually pretty easy.  I didn't exactly fill it out properly or put any finishing details, but i don't think i failed. We got an introduction to selection and learned some keywords such as if, then, end and else.  For homework we have to do assignments 1 and 2 which i find pretty easy considering i already did question one in class.


Your Student,
Ziyi Shao 

October 25, 2010

   We learned how about tracing the exertion of code which is supposed to be the most important thing we're gonig to learn.  We were taught the difference between arithmetic operators and relation operators.  We did a lot of desk checking today which is supposed to be "thinking like a computer".  We also learned the boolean expressions on Turing consisting of false and true which are also keywords.  For homework we need simple programs that demonstrate arithmetic and relational operators.  We have to do some desk checking and preview  Selection.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 22, 2010

     Today, we were wrapping up input.  I am so relieved.  Input was so terribly confusing at first.  Now, we're going into bigger and harder things.  I don't know if i should be happy about it or not.  At least i am pretty familiar with input now.  I read the page for selection and it was all gibberish to me. Hopefully Mr. Arkin would give us a better explanation of it tomorrow.  We learned how to change the color for our programs with the pre-defined procedures.  

Your Student,

Ziyi Shao 

October 21, 2010

   Today, i got my autobiography marks.  I AM SO ECSTATIC.  Although i know i should strive for better marks, i am pretty content with my 84.  Also, we discussed about different ways to solve the problems for assignments in input.  We got the very long and elaborate easy way, and the very complicated brain-boggling sophisticated Hannah way.  It didn't really help me to better understand the assignments, but it was fascinating how Mr. Arkin solved it.

Your Student,

Ziyi Shao

October 20, 2010

   We didn't do anything today because we were at a assembly.

Your student,
Ziyi Shao

October 19, 2010

    Today we worked in groups of four (then eight) on a hybrid of question four.  It was kind of difficult because we were not allowed try it out using turing but with our own brains...For homework, we are going to review our homework and create a better version of our last 5 input assignments.  We also have to do the sixth question for input.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October, 18, 2010

     For homework i have to catch up with homework.  We have to do the input assignments number 4 and five and follow the programming guidelines.  In class we learned about the different sections: declaration, input, processing and output. 

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 15, 2010

     Today we got new glossary terms including variable, constant, declared constant, parameter, argument and assignment operator.  For homework we have to review operators, documentation template and programming guidelines. I hope we don't have a test or something. We also have to do input assignments 1-3 which i have no idea how to do.


Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October, 14, 2010

   Today we reviewed our homework from yesterday.  I didn't notice until now how much i got wrong. Also we got new glossary terms such as procedure, function and so forth.  We also tried to figure out why an askerisk on each corner of the page would not work and Ryan got it.  For homework we have to do a program that consists of asterisks along the border.   

Your Student,

Ziyi Shao

October 13, 2010

      We added new terms into our glossary today.  We learned some words such as concatenation operator, output-field width and comma.  Although copying notes is kind of brain wrecking, but it helps me understand programming better.  I still am wondering what programming really is.  Is it really typing built-in code into a program called Turing? For homework we have to read and copy/take notes from sequence and subprograms from touque.ca.  Also, we have to do assignments 1-3 from character graphics.  I don't know why but i think im doing every wrong.  Anyways, bye bye for today.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 12, 2010

     Today marks the first official day of our programming unit.  We learned very simple built-in keywords for the text editor "Turing".  We completed a assignment called Outputs.  Today felt like the second day of our HTML unit where Mr. Arkin shoveled a whole bunch of information into our confused brains.  However, with some new knowledge acquired from our HTML unit, i could better understand what he was talking about.  If it wasn't for our first unit, i would be really confused like before or maybe even more confused than before.  However, i do not understand how what we are learning is actually programming.  All we are doing is typing built-in commands into a program such as put ("Hello.").

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 8, 2010

   PARTY!!!

Octover 7, 2010

     Today, we learned the process of programming and the process of making a webpage.  I found out that it isn't that different.  We also tried out some simple keywords and built in functions on this program called Turing. Tomorrow, we are having a party to celebrate our completion of the html unit and entering our programing unit.
I don't know what to bring yet, because it was such a short notice and i don't really have anything that isn't half eaten at home.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October, 6, 2010

    Today we learned what ASCII redux was.  We also filled in a worksheet on the different 8 bit byte binary codes for different characters.  We found many shortcuts for memorizing capital and lowercase letters as well as the spacebar.  We used that worksheet to help us decode Mr. Arkin's blog written in binary code yesterday.  It is actually kind of easy although I'm probably not going to agree with it when we get deeper into the subject.

     This is what Ror and I came up with,
ASCII Rules!
Today, my students learnt some binary arithmetic.
They can now count in binary!




Your Student,
Ziyi

October 5, 2010

   Today, we were almost finished our basic computer glossary.  We are also given a catch up day to validate all of our works and collect more small pictures.


Your Student, 
Ziyi Shao

October 4, 2010

     Today we added some more terms into our basic computer glossary.   We have to post our validated version of the updated basic computer glossary and find small pictures for each glossary term.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

October 1, 2010

     We installed Notepad++ today.  Oh my gosh, it is such a big improvement from notepad or Notetab Light.  It changes color and everything so it is easy to distinguish between the tags and the actual words that would show up.  We learned how to validate our HTML more efficiently with the option: show source, outline or verbose output.   WE also have to continue our basic computer glossary.  We have to find small images for our glossary to illustrate glossary terms.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

September 30,2010

     We started the say with SFTP instructions because many people ( including myself ) had difficulties connecting to filezilla yesterday.  We had a extension on the computer glossary for our website.  We need another computer glossary and im going to upload it tonight.  We're having studio 218 tomorrow.  I think i might volunteer to become the DJ next Friday.  We'll see.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

September 29, 2010

    Today, i finished my glossary.  I am really happy and i feel very accomplished.  I learned my lesson with the superpower assignment to never drag on a assaignment.  I used a lot of different definition resources.  I am planing to go to lab 235 at lunchtime.  Also, although i finished everything, i can't access the FTP account...

September 28, 2010

   Today, we refined our glossary page and i learned that i had to alphabetize everything... it took a lot of work, but now it looks more organized.  I also am planning to make links to every alphabet.  Although that wouldn't really make a difference, i think it'd be cool, and plus i need to improve my marks considering i got a zero on my superpower assignment.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

September 27, 2010

     Today we learned about html lists that consist of <ol> (ordered), <ul> (unordered) and <dl> (definition).  We learned about it because we are going to make a glossary of definitions we accumulated throughout the classes.  Today, we brain-stormed the definitions and tried to explain them as best we can.  We also have to search up the formal definitons from web sources and we need about 5 different sources.  Mr. Arkin also introduced us to this cool program called Dropbox that can replace our USB that i forgot to bring one day which caused me great inconvenience.  For homework, we have to make a skeleton of our class glossary and we have to put it into the dropbox. 

Your student,

Ziyi Shao 

September 24,2010

   Today was an regretful and certainly erasable day.  I didn't get my peer marking sheet or my validitated version of my html through.  I finished everything...30 minutes after he closed the ftp.  I wished i was more time efficient.  I hate my life right now.  If i had 30 extra minutes, i would've finished.

September 22, 2010

     Today, we learned about the hierarchical file structure and about linking to files in various locations.  We also extended our knowledge of the peer-marking form as Mr. Arkin elaborated it.  We also continued working on the assignment and trying to finish before Friday.  I still have to continue to check for link errors and spelling/grammar mistakes.   I have run out of ideas for my superhero assignment so i think that all i have on the site is about as much as it is goingto get.  I also learned how to indent my paragraphs using em1 on the html page.


Your Student, 
Ziyi Shao

September 21, 2010

    Today was just another day of working on our index page and our superhero autobiography. I got some pictures on my autobiography and corrected the link from my index page to my autobiography.  We learned about how to make our webpages look more professional.  We learned about where to use pixels and points and the importance of linespacing.  We also have to spell check our work.  I also added a boarder to my website, it looks a lot better & less bland now.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

September 20, 2010

    Today, we had a brief introduction to the client-server structure and about the protocols : http and ftp.  We learned/ reminded of the differences between the development directory and the production directories.  I tried to replace my "s and 's and :s and ;s with special HTML character entities.  We also learned about the importance of increasing the line spacing of your text is hard to read instead of just using larger font.  Our projects are due in Wednesday so we're going to be extremely busy the next few days.  Also, we have to be careful for grammar and spelling errors because Mr. Arkin is picky apparently.  We also have to check out the marking scheme again for this assignment and the peer marking scheme.  I worked and stressed about the index page and the superhero assignment for many days and I hope my hard work pays off in the end.  By the way, does anyone know if emoticons are allowed in our blogs? I hope so, because i like using them.

Your student, 
Ziyi Shao 

September 17, 2010

     Today was a fun & special day.  We got to listen to music as we worked.  We learned about special character entities such as &heart; which is a heart.  Also, "s are not correct if you put it on your website you need a special entity to make it look curved and real.. We also discussed about the special use of hyphens and dashes and semi-colons to make our writing look more professional.  Also, we can't use emoticons -inserts unhappy face- Another thing special about today was that i finally checked out our teacher's (Mr. Arkin's) blog. For homework we had to search up "understanding client server architecture and continue working out our superpower autobiography.   

Your Student, 

Ziyi

September 16, 2010

     Today i got me index html validated.  I am so happy.  I learned that i have to ask more questions in class.  Also, we learned about keyboard shortcuts such as alt- D which goes to the desktop, and shift - q which is quit.  Allen also taught us how to be able to see two windows stacked side by side. We also have to continue working on the superhero assignment.  And we have to read typography -->word-processing guidelines. Thats about all today. I'm going to hurry and do my superhero autobiography now.

Your student,
Ziyi Shao

September 15, 2010

     In computer science class today, we copied a trouble shooting checklist that Mr. Arkin wrote for us on the board.  We went through nine trouble-shooting questions which were relatively easy.  We defined a rule for variations of basic elements.  For homework, we are going to keep writing our superpower autobiography, and we have to bring a printed validated index page and css to class.  I am getting excited because my website is finally looking like a website and not some thing off of wordpad ^^ 


Your student, 
Ziyi shao

September 14, 2010

     Today we learned how to make a production directory file.  Mr. Arkin also demonstrated how to use the html and css validation.  This is the only thing i understood how to do right after he taught us how.  We also worked in partners to indentify what we didn't know.  I can say that i don't understand most of the things he taught us but the partner thing helped slightly. =)  Now i am going to start writing my superhero assignment.

Your Student,
Ziyi Shao

September 13 2010

     Today was a very low day for me, my head hurt and i had cramps all day.  Needless to say, i did not perform very well in class.  Along with the other classmates i simply stared at the teacher as he tried to explain to us what a hierarchical file structure is, and demonstrated how to work Filezilla.

     He also demonstrated HTML and CSS validation which i am not really sure how to do.  I tried it and they said that it was invalid but they did not specify where the error occured. For homework, we had to post our index.html thing along with our wikispace id and a link to our blogspot.  I have no idea if i failed to do so or not, i sent it a couple of times, but it gave me no confirmation that it went there, and if it did, it was not noticible.


     Also, concerning the super hero assignment, i went into a writers block for the weekend and could not choose between two superpowers : being able to freeze time so that only you are moving, or to be able to melt things with my palms.  What do you think? which one should i choose? =)


your student, 
Ziyi Shao

September 10, 2010

     Today's class was a long day because it's a friday and computer science was the last period of the day.  All we did was explore with html & css with the limited knowledge we have (just like yesterday).  Even so, i think that this computer science stuff (html formating and css) is starting to make sense and i think i'm actually liking it, a lot. 8D  I feel crazy & not myself for saying this but i wish that we will learn some new css and or html format soon.  I'm excited to learn more about this subject because it is something different compared to all my other classes.  We get to learn cool codes. =)
 
     Also, concerning the superhero assignment, i will finish writing the written part of the essay by monday.  I still don't have a clear idea for what kind of super power i will have.


your student,
ziyi

September 9, 2010

     Today is the third day of school.  Mr. Arkin wasn't teaching today so Ms. Ecker filled in.  We were just experimenting with our html in preparation for making our website.  I struggled for most of the class because appparently i copied the css example wrong because i wrote "(" instead of  "{".  I tried so many different things before i found out.  Such a tiny mistake caused so much fustration and stress.  However now i know what i did wrong and i got it right.

     Even though i had trouble with the css and the rel link, it was still a lot easier than what i expected it would be yesterday.  It made a lot more sense after i applied it in real life thtan when it was just Mr. Arkin demonstrating.  After i corrected my mistake, i experimented a lot on different colors, i like the pink and blue, and pink and green combo the most.  I still don't know how to make my background into a picture or how to animate my words like some of the other students in my class but will try & experiment at home.

     Also, concerning yesterdays homework, after i wrote the blog, i started to understand the content because i copied it on a separate sheet of paper.  I guess it was just because i had messy handwrting. xD

your student,
ziyi shao

September 8, 2010

     Today was so confusing because Mr. Arkin tried to cram three classes into one.  We learned about basic HTML, CSS, FTP, and aquired new glossary terms.  We learned about what the html and css are made of; tags, containers, & elements are the only ones i can identify right now.  We also learned basic knowledge like html is for content and css is for css.  I think i copied my html or css example wrong or something, i need glasses...  Well, no one said that computer science was going to be easy, so i guess i kind of expected it to be hard, BUT NOT THIS HARD. ;(  I think i will reread and re-write all of my notes for today and hope that i'll understand even half of it.  If I still can't get it after he comes back, I'll be sure to ask Mr. Arkin about it.  @___@

your student,
ziyi shao

September 7, 2010

     Today, Mr. Arkin gave us a brief introduction of himself and of the class.  He answered some questions that the class had about school and computer science.  Of course, the most important thing he told us was where the washrooms were, because if we didn't know it would be complete CHAOS. =9

     For homework, we have to review the class website with my parents.  It took forever to get my parents to review it with me, but in the end they did. ^^ We also had to create accounts for two sites  which are Wikispaces.com and Blogger.com.  I also checked out and bookmarked touque.com.  I read the daily log and previewed the super-power assignment.

     I think that computer science will be a fun and unique class.  I read over the super-power assignment and I'm extremely excited to start the project.  Also, this is my first time blogging, and i think its kind of fun and i'll do it more often ( even if Mr. Arkin doesn't make us). =)

your student,
ziyi shao