Computer Science and Software Engineering, otherwise known as CSE, is the first-tier computer science course offered at Pattonville. It is for beginning programmers and for those who don't even know what code is. SO... if you don't know code, or you only know the basics, this is the class for you.
What You're Going to Do and What You're Going to Learn
Scratch
The first project students undertake in the CSE class is to make a small game in the program Scratch, a drag-and-drop coding platform. Scratch enables students to get a taste for what programming is like while also teaching the very basics of computer science that they will need to create larger programs later on the class.
Example:
App Inventor
After students learn the basics of programming in Scratch, the class moves on to another drag-and-drop programming platform: appinventor. Published by Google and MIT, appinventor allows for people to produce Android Applications in a drag and drop environment. Front-end, user interface design, as well as back-end programming go into this project. Students will further learn about conditional statements as well as variable roles, and be introduced to the concept of global variables.
Example:
Python
With the completion of the appinventor project, students will move onto learning the Python language. Considered to be one of the best beginners languages, students will be introduced to hand coding variables, conditional statements, and loops in Python. Several small scale projects will take place during this phase of the course, including the creation of hangman game. Students will also learn about Python libraries as well as how to read and use language-specific documentation.
Example:
Tkinter
As a segway between learning Python and beginning studuing web development, students use the Tkinter Python library to create Graphical User Interfaces. It is here that students will begin to learn Object-Oriented programming techniques, including the differences between objects, attributes, and methods, as well as events and events-handlers. Studenst will continue to work on using documentation to better their programs.
Example:
Web Development
The web development unit begins with students learning about Internet Protocols, data transfer, and, basically, how the internet works like it does. From there students begin learning basic HTML and CSS programming, as well as some very basic Javascript. A theoretical knowledge of the application of the PHP and MySQL languages is also introduced. The unit culminates in student production of a website, utilizing HTML, CSS and other web development languages.