05/17: The final exam and semester letter grades have been
posted to the
grades.cs.umd.edu
server.
05/08: If you haven't done your course evaluations yet, just
a reminder to visit
www.CourseEvalUM.umd.edu
before May 13th.
05/04: Don't forget that we are doing an in-class activity on
Thursday of this week, and if you have a laptop that you can bring
to class, that would be useful. I will have loaner laptops as well,
so if you don't have a laptop, that won't be a problem.
05/02: Project 6 has been posted. We will
see how to do the last stage in class on Tuesday.
04/29: Google Books Project and Settlement -
Good or Bad?
04/26: If you ran the installer for P5 before today, when you
get to the MarqueeExample.shtml file, it will say something about
applets in it. You can ignore or delete those lines in that file.
I originally was going to have that stage use both the marquee and
a java applet (to compare and contrast) but decided not to do applets.
You can just put the marquee in where it says "Applet Here" if you
have the version of the file that mentions Java applets.
04/23: The
project 5 deadline has been extended until
April 30th. Please don't forget about the
3rd in-class discussion which will
still be on April 28th.
04/12: If you've been following the "First Dog" stories and are
curious, you could use the whois command to find out things like how
firstdogcharlie.com was created on April 10th, and the owner is listed
as "Domains by Proxy" which appears to be a company that helps you
hide your personal info if you buy a domain
(their website has
more info).
04/10: I've posted an updated version of the glossary in the
class material section and have highlighted the more recent terms.
It shows some more examples of some of the key terms that we've
encountered in class. I've also updated the
grades.cs.umd.edu
server with the project 3 grades - I'll have the grading sheets
in class next week.
04/09: Project 5 has been posted.
I've also posted a link to the HTML document that we worked
on today in class under the class notes. Once you have it
up in your browser, you can right-click to view the source
to see the HTML itself.
04/08: I've updated the
grades.cs.umd.edu
server with the second in-class discussion and the past few clicker
days. I've also posted some example exam questions in the notes area.
04/02: When I changed the paper due date to April 9th from
April 7th, I forgot to check the University list of dates. I have
changed the due date to April 14th instead, but I strongly
suggest that you finish it sooner rather than later.
04/01: Here is a link to a
story about the very long piece of music that
I mentioned in class yesterday.
An excerpt of one of his other works
(4'33") is currently available for free on iTunes
(I don't know when they will start charging again).
03/29: Project 4 has been posted, and a correction
has been made to the paper description regarding the paper length.
03/25: Note to Mac OS users - if you have OS X.4 and need to
download a paint program, you'll probably want Paintbrush 1.2 since
the later versions require OS X.5 to run.
03/12: I will not be having my office hours at 3:30 today
but I will be on campus tomorrow if you need to see me before
break starts - just send me e-mail to schedule an appointment.
03/08: I have posted the exam grades to the
grades.cs.umd.edu
server.
The exam reflects the inclusion of a slight positive adjustment.
Exam grades are "out of 100" but since there were more than 100
points available, the maximum has to be set on the site as the
highest score obtained. When semester grades are computed, the
exam will be scored out of 100 in my spreadsheet with points above
that as bonus points.
The median exam grade was an 83.
I will return the exams in class on Tuesday.
03/04: I have updated the office hours list. Monday and Wednesday
office hours will start at noon for the rest of the semester.
03/04: Project 3 has been posted.
Due before 7:59pm on Thursday, March 26th.
02/26: In the optional text, the chapters/sections that we have
seen are Chapter 1,3,4(1-5),5(1-4),6,7,8,9(1-8),10(1-5,7,8,10,13).
In the posted notes, we have gone through all of the topics so all
of the postings are good to review in general if you have not been
reading them as we've covered each topic.
02/24: I have posted some example questions and an example glossary
under the class material page, and posted the readings for Tuesday's
in-class discussion that will take place after the exam on the
in-class discussions page.
02/24: In TeraTerm, to configure it to be able to have a "backspace"
key working, go to the SETUP menu, and then the KEYBOARD option from
that menu - it should allow you to select which (backspace or delete) to
send to the remote host when you type in locally.
02/20: The VoIP application Skype was mentioned in class yesterday.
You might find this article about
Skype and China interesting.
02/17: I've posted a number of notes files - we will be discussing
some more UNIX commands as well as looking at the pico editor
and talking a little bit about text messaging and start e-mail on Thursday.
Next Tuesday we should finish the e-mail topic.
02/12: I have uploaded the clicker points from Tuesday to the
grades server we
will be using. You should be able to login with your
University login and password. As the semester progresses, the
clicker "Max" will increase to reflect how many points have been
available so far. I will also add project grades, etc. as things
are graded throughout the term.
02/11: OIT has renamed some things, so when you are doing Task #6
of the project, on the activation page you want to activate TerpConnect
which includes activating your GLUE account.
02/06: I have set up the
submission server.
Please let me know if you encounter any problems when logging
into it.
02/05: I have posted
today's set of slides.
I will be posting an office hours schedule soon.
02/03: I will have office hours tomorrow (Wednesday) from 11:30
to 1:30 and will have a weekly office hours schedule posted tomorrow
afternoon.
02/03: Project 1 has been posted.
The submission server will be set up at the end of the week once
the drop/add period is over, but you can work on the project tasks
already. Please read the description details carefully before
beginning the tasks.
01/27: Due to campus closing today at 12:30pm, our first class session
has been cancelled.
Please read the Class Syllabus before class on
Thursday. I have also posted a
set of slides with some overview and
definitions
that I'd like you to skim before class on Thursday so that we
can hit the ground running.
We will be using classroom response devices (known here as
clickers)
this semester. You will need to purchase either a ResponseCard RF Keypad
or a ResponseCard XR Keypad. These can be purchased at the University
Book Center, or
online at http://store.turningtechnologies.com/ using code gGRS
to access the UM-discounted
online store. They are also available at the Maryland Book Exchange
on Route 1 in College Park.
Once you have your clicker device, you will need to register your clicker's
"Device ID" at your
my.umd.edu page
under the "Academics & Testudo" tab.
We will not have required books for this course. There will be a
number of web-based readings to take the place of a book that would
have been required in the past (this is to help offset the cost of the
clickers). There is an optional textbook for the course - I will
discuss this during the first class session.
For the first day of class, I'd like you to try to find a
trustworthy article that talks about cellular service on the National
Mall on Inauguration Day and tell me whether or not you think I was able
to post pictures from my iPhone to my photoblog.
One place to start might be
searching Google News but please
feel free to start your search elsewhere. You only need to find one
article that you feel is trustworthy.
Some things to keep in mind to help you better manage your time well:
There will be six projects this semester to guide you in gaining
hands-on experience with the technologies we discuss.
There will be one due approximately every other week.
The amount of time that each
project requires varies based on the project and the student, but
times on individual projects have ranged between 4 and 20 hours in
the past according to different students.
Successfully completing all of these projects not only contributes
directly to your semester grade, but should also help better prepare
you for the written exams.
There will be five or six in-class discussions, each with several
readings in advance. These will be spaced out during the semester.
In a typical "paired discussion" session, you will be assigned
relevant readings in advance, and then in class will be placed into
groups of two and given a worksheet for that discussion. At the end of
the discussion session, some of the issues will be summarized and
highlighted with examples observed while the discussions took place.
There will be a paper in this class. It will be a series of two
or three essays in response to specific questions, and will be based
on readings assigned in class. The total length is expected to
be 6-9 pages.
There will be two semester exams, and a cumulative final exam.
Question types include providing definitions of technical terms,
explaining the application of terminology, providing commands to
accomplish specific tasks in a commandline operating system,
writing HTML, comparing/contrasting tools that we have discussed,
and identifying which technologies connect to specific societal
issues.
The Internet has become a central part of our society in the past
decade. The technology is ever-changing, yet it builds on
foundations that date from the late 1960s.
Some of the goals of this course include:
Understanding some of the history behind the technology we use
today, the paths taken to arrive at our current technological point, and
how we might be able to envision future paths and prepare for new
technologies as they unfold based on this history.
Learning the relevant terminology and the underlying concepts of
today's information technology systems to better understand the workings,
and in some cases the risks, of higher-level applications we may use on a
daily basis.
Understanding what goes on "inside the box" and "behind the network"
to be more informed users of technology, and to be more prepared to help
guide the future development and use of technology.
Exploring different operating systems (both graphical and command
line) to see similarities and differences.
Being able to use the tools and information available on the
Internet to gather ideas and facts.
Understanding issues and technologies related to the protection of
copyright and intellectual property, as well as the rights of the users
and consumers of copyrighted material.
Organizing and formatting information gathered both on and off the
net in a professional manner using software packages (such as a
spreadsheet) for the personal computer.
Considering the societal impact and implications of today's
technology-rich world.