preComputer Science Packages

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A. Jorge Garcia/CALCPAGE

P.O. Box 263

Coram, NY 11727 – 0263

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preCS Package.

The purpose of this package is for you to get a copy of my QBASIC LabBook!

My students’ preCS preparation consists of a full year of study.

The first quarter follows my QBASIC LabBook which consists of 8 units that take about 5 days each for the students to complete. There is a Unit 0 which introduces some rudimentary BASIC and the Input-Process-Output, Top-Down Programming model. The remaining units cover from decision structures and loops to arrays and graphics in DOS. We do not cover files here as QBASIC files are cumbersome. We also do not cover advanced algorithms such as searching and sorting. This is a good intro course to get the student used to sequential programming techniques. Depending on your pacing this could be a quarter or a full semester course. The way I pace it is I have Honors kids complete 2 programs a day after a one day intro to each unit. Regents track students do only one of the two programs each day. With this pacing we cover the QBASIC LabBook in one quarter. Then we do, as time permits, an optional final project involving graphics, the Game of Worms and the Game of Life. If you want a slower pace, then you could make this a semester course where every student does every program, one program per day.

The second quarter is based on An Introduction to Programming Using Microsoft Visual Basic Version 5&6 for Windows from www.lvp.com!

The second semester is based on Owen Astrachan’s Tapestry text (www.cs.duke.edu/~ola) and Cay Horstmann’s online labs for Computing Concepts with C++ Essentials (www.horstmann.com) using GCC and Linux. I also highly recommend Roger Frank’s archive of C++ programming projects (www.rfrank.us).

The second year of this CS curriculum is the Computer Science class that will, starting next year, follow up with Cay Horstmann’s Computing Concepts with Java Essentials as well as the Litvin’s (www.skylit.com) Java Methods AB and the labs in those texts using Java SDK 1.4.1 (www.sun.com) and KNOPPIX. I haven’t had a chance to use them yet, but I bet Roger Frank’s Java labs are great too! Don’t forget Chris Nevison’s cs.colgate.edu/APCS Unofficial AP CompSci WebSite!