What programming environment do folks recommend? Eclipse IDE seems the number 1 in general. Have people used Eclipse with APCSP? Do you have other IDEs you’d recommend? Is everyone using Javascript with code.org’s curriculum? How is that to work with in Eclipse? I’ve tested it out, had to add some plugins to get it all working. Thanks!
John Ranta
New Hampshire
Hi @jranta
Code.org’s AP CSP course is built around the App Lab development environment built into Code Studio. App Lab uses javascript as the foundation of the programming with a couple things changed from normal javascript to make learning easier. In addition App Lab has the block to text transition which allows students to program in either one. App Lab being integrated into Code Studio allows for step by step to teach programming. You can check out how this looks in Version 1 of the curriculum at studio.code.org/s/cspunit3. You can check out App Lab at code.org/applab.
Best,
Dani
Okay, thanks! This helps. JR
Hi @dani When students are working in Applab, where can I find answers to each section’s activities? Thanks!
@carly_buch are you working in the studio.code.org’s programming unit (unit 3)? If so, they have an “auto-check” feature that will check that students followed directions and will give students a “green circle” and the OK to move on. Obviously with any auto-check feature, it isn’t perfect. Some teachers check student code themselves in the teacher dashboard***. For me, I just walk around constantly and keep an eye on the students who might be motivated to try to sneak around the auto-check features. For the most part, students WANT to understand how to do the task and they can see if they got the desired result by matching their picture to the goal picture.
Does that help?
***If you have a teacher account and your students are registered in the course, you can see their work in the dashboard. If you don’t have an account, it might be helpful to make one so you can see student progress that way.
If you want to learn a little bit more about what that “auto-check” – we call it “validation” does – you should read the section on Unit 3 validation from our Oct. Newsletter.
http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=cabadc8d10a257f2cd70c583e&id=8c31f6f276&e=879c07b354
TL;DR - it doesn’t check the output. It doesn’t guarantee correctness. It checks the student to code to make sure they a) wrote something (i.e. can’t get a green check for doing nothing) and b) to the greatest degree possible that if we asked them to use a function or write one with a specific name, that they did so. For example, if we asked students to write a function called turnAround, we can check that during the running of the program they called turnAround() at some point.
Hi @carly_buch
Are you looking for the students individual answers to each programming puzzle? Check out this helpful video about Code Studio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQY8fb2OV4 . In the video you can find information how to set up classes and how to view student work. Check out the times below if you want to skip to those sections specifically.
5:59 – viewing student progress
7:08 – viewing student work
In addition there are sample solutions to all many of the programming levels in the Teacher Answer Viewer the pulls out on the right in each level. Try out this level: https://studio.code.org/s/csp3/stage/4/puzzle/4. It has a solution.
Best,
Dani