🔮

Unit 2 Overview

How can control flow allow for user interactions?

Overview

In this unit, students learn to make their sketches respond to actions taken by the user, from moving the pointer to clicking or touching it over a certain area, to typing on the keyboard. The if statement is introduced. The map function is used to convert inputs into useful ranges.
For the final project, students create an expressive drawing tool in the vein of MS Paint.

Blueprint Foundations Student Outcomes

Abstraction
  • Describe how I might use patterns to express an idea.
  • Describe different things I tried in order to achieve a goal.
    Explain why I chose to include the specific components of my prototype over others.
    Explain characteristics or patterns that informed a function or an interface I created.
  • Explain why using patterns is necessary when creating with a computer.
Algorithms
  • Describe how instructions can have different outputs depending on inputs.
  • Demonstrate the benefit of using an event, conditional or loop in my prototype.
    Explain how a function I prototyped can be used by someone else.
    Suggest changes to an algorithm that impacts my family or my community.
  • Compare and contrast how conditionals or loops were used in classmates’ prototypes.
    Teach someone the difference between instructions and an algorithm.
Programming
  • Experiment with the commands of a programming language.
  • Describe the changes I made after testing at least three parts of my program.
    Describe how I used community research to make technical decisions in the creation of my prototype.
  • Discuss what can and cannot be done with a specific set of commands.

Suggested Duration

2-4 Weeks

Prerequisites

Unit 1 Material

Assessment

Formative Assessments are given during each lesson.
Summative Assessments include the Light Switch Game and Drawing Application.

Overview of Instructional Materials

Below we have broken each learning activity down into succinct lessons. We have also structured lessons to promote best practices in pedagogy and student engagement, as well as including our own suggestions for implementation.

Sequence of Lessons

LA1 Draw With Mouse
LA2 Hover & Click On Things
LA3 Press Keys
U2LA1.1 - Conditionals and If Statements
U2LA1.2 - Conditionals and If/Else if/Else statements
U2LA1.3 - Logical Operators (AND/OR)
U2LA1.4 - Draw with Mouse
U2LA1.5 - Map Function
U2LA2.1 - Hover & Conditional Statements
U2LA2.2 - Rectangles Clicks
Mini-Project - Light Switch Game
U2LA3.1 - Key Presses and Conditionals
Final Project - Drawing Application