Sunday, September 21, 2008

Scorching Through the School Year

This year is my busiest ever. Of course that means that the year is flying by at a speed approaching a Subaru WRX sizzling a rally course. [I was playing Colin McRae 2005 last night with CJTurt--hence todays blog theme].

Yesterday I worked all morning developing a scoring guide to use for students to grade themselves on their AP Java programs. I'm trying to use JUnit testing, but I'm not quite there yet. I also wrote a test study guide and worked on the chapter 2 test for the Java Software Solutions book.

But all of that work was just for one class. I still have IMP planning to do, and I need to write a test for my Intro to Programming class.

I only have three preps. So why am I so busy? Well, two of them are classes that I'm teaching for the first time ever, and the Intro to Programming class is my own creation, mostly. I'm also using technology like never before, so I have to keep class web sites up to date, answer emails, post student work, etc. In time this will make me more efficient--and I must admit that I'm doing more pre-class work this year, so my classes are going much smoother than in the past. Still...busy, busy, busy.

Okay, back to work. It's before 6 a.m. on a Sunday and I'm the only one up. Prime time to get some work done.

6 comments:

Leigh Ann said...

Hey Rich,

If you need some help with the JUnit stuff just let me know. Send me the class you want the students to write and I'll send back some sample tests. It might help too if you tell me what the objectives for having them write the class were (focusing on if statements, return types, or more complex than that)

Hope your year is going well!

Unknown said...

Hi Leigh Ann!

Part of the problem is that the early programming assignments are not really OOP projects. They're just a simple class with a main method that prints something to the screen.

When we start writing actual classes with methods I think it will be pretty easy to do the testing. I'm experimenting on it right now. If I can't get it working, I will drop you an email.

Thanks!

Leigh Ann said...

Rich,

I created a google groups for people who wanted to use Jam Tester and JUnit (http://groups.google.com/group/using-jam-tester) and Glen Martin wrote some information about how to get info in and out of System.in and test it. That might help.

Unknown said...

Nice!

I've joined the group!

Richard

Anonymous said...

Just for the record... rally games are real fun to play with Richskyline. especially when u beat him:) :)


CJTURT

Unknown said...

You got lucky. Instead of enjoying my new record time I botched it all up and crashed 25 feet from the finish line.

Shouldn't have swerved around the pedestrians on the left side of the course. Next time they're toast and the championship will be all mine. :-)