Week 10 (week of 11/5/12)

This week we learned about 2d matrices. They are simply an array of arrays. To go through them you use nested for loops. I wonder if you could make a 3d or 4d array and how you would go through those. Also this week we took the six weeks exam. I think the multiple choice was pretty easy but the free response was a little more difficult. Overall i think the test was at an appropriate difficulty for what we have done so far.

Week 11 (week of 11/12/12)

This week we worked on our arrays lab. It is a really confusing lab for me because i am unclear what each class is used for. Another challenging thing about it is how to convert the string to a matrix. I think i know how i would do it but the instructions are telling me to do something else. Maybe if i was clearer about the purpose of each class, it would make more sense.

Week 9 (week of 10/29/12)

this week we worked on the deal lab and the alice lab. Also I finished the coding bat problems. the deal lab was a little daunting at first because i thought we were going to have to create objects for each door and make the output more than just integers. but then after a more thorough read of the lab instructions, I understood that it was not even aproaching that level of difficulty. as we began work on alice, it is a relativly simple program that is really just helping me to learn the syntax. for me this is a great proggram because it is simple enough for me to easily learn the syntax, while at the same time feeling like im getting somewhere. It is also complex enough so that im not bored or zipping through it. I would say that for learnng a new topic, this lab is almost perfect, but could use slightly better //comment// instructions because the ones there confused me for a few minutes about what i was supposed to do next.

Week 8 (week of 10/22/12)

This week we continued the group labs. Alex and i completed gcd and began work on the three doors lab. The actual test part of the code was pretty easy. The test runner has proven much more difficult. I like the coding bat challenges. They are pretty much the definition of my skill level. I keep accidentally completing tasks without being logged in which is frustrating.

Week 7(week of 10/15/12)

This week we worked on the group labs. I thought it was an interesting concept, but i didn't find it to be useful at all except for that it kept me on task. I have my particular way of formatting my code and it bothered me to have someone else typing it for me and without my formatting. Also, i felt that my partner did not think the same way that i did so we approached the problem from two different, conflicting angles. When we started to go one way, one of us would have an idea that would work, just not with the route we were already taking. I feel that working solo would have been much more efficient for me. A cooperative technique that may work better for me is to work along side someone else and stop every 10-15 minutes and discuss our methods and questions.

Week 6 (week of 10/8/12)

This week we i missed a day for the great ideas field trip. The other day i worked on ifs and else statements in the calculator lab. The calculator lab was really quick and easy for me especially since i have the past experience with coding in python, which is remarkably similar. The coding bat problems are slightly harder but rather enjoyable. I like the instant gratification after writing a few lines of code. I am starting to feel overwhelmed with worksheets. They are hard to keep track of and there are many of them. I think a more effective and efficient/stress free way of doing worksheets is if they were electronic activities kind of like the quizzes on canvas. Even if it were just an electronic list that we could use to match up due dates and just whether or not we have the worksheet would be easier and more helpful then just handing out a pile of papers each class with a due date that was mentioned once.

Week 5 (week of 10/1/12)

this week I worked primarily on the book lab and the final. in the book lab, i didn't get a chance to finish however I was begining to better understand how objects work. I thought that the final was relativly easy. the only difficult part was when I was doing the free response and i didn't know how to make a toString method because i didn't know what it was or did.

Week 4 (week of 9/24/12)

This week i got a little behind by spending too much time working on worksheets and the turtle lab. The turtle lab was really difficult for me because I wasn't paying atention to the slide show and lecture on turtles. being behind on the turtle lab, I decided to work on it during the presentation on books. so now I have begun the lab on books but I have no clue what i am supposed to be doing or the syntax to do it.

Week 3 (week of 9/17/12)

This week I mostly caught up on my worksheets. I did do the coding bat labs as well. I felt totally unprepared for them. usually from the PowerPoint I know everything i need for the lab but these were the first labs that I needed the reference material. I guess it's probably just because strings have a bunch more methods than the objects we've worked with so far. Also I thinks strings are a lot less straight forward.

Week 2 (week of 9/10/12)

This week we worked on new java labs. I thought these new labs were realy interesting. It was cool that we could reference different programs that we created ourselves instead of just refrencing a pre-created program. what i didn't like was that we had to uncomment pre-written lines of code in one program. next time I want to learn the code to refference other programs on my own. also i would have preffered to write all the easy stuff into the main programm myself instead of only doing the programming in the refferenced program.

First Blog (week of 9/5/12)

This week we were introduced to java. so far java seems pretty simple. i was a little confused with the difference between number types.  eventually i figured out that double was really just another term for real number. lab 1 was pretty easy i think. i think it was good to do lab 1 because its repetativeness helped me really memorize the syntax that we were using. however i do feel like i am ready to move on to something else that involves for than just input and print statements.