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Syllabus contents: Collaboration: The Gilligan’s Island Rule
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Fluency With
Information Technology |
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Syllabus |
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Students will learn the knowledge and
acquire the experience necessary to become fluent with information
technology. Fluency with information technology implies a level of
understanding about Information Technology in which a person can effectively
apply computers, communications and information resources to solve personally
relevant problems. (See Vision or Being Fluent With Information Technology, National Academy Press, 1999.) The class will
cover the three types of knowledge required for fluency – skills, concepts
and capabilities. The class will be project based and will
use information technology extensively. All lab sessions are on-line.
Students will work both individually and in teams. The topics to be introduced are -- Skills -- Email with Pine, Web browsing
with Netscape, word processing with MS Word, spreadsheets with MS Excel,
database use with MS Access, campus databases, graphics editing with Adobe
Photoshop and general MS Windows utilities Concepts -- operation of a computer, operation
and organization of networks, structure and organization of data, databases
and archives, digital representation of information, encryption, privacy,
copyright, algorithmic thinking, computer modeling, limitations and
universality of computers. Programming in VB6 includes variables, data types,
expressions, assignment, conditionals, procedures, parameters and iteration. Capabilites -- managing complexity,
sustained logical reasoning, debugging, testing, thinking abstractly about
one's use of information technology, communicating about IT, and possibly
dealing with unexpected consequences. It is recommended that students who
expect to use personal (off campus) computers for "100" homework
purchase the UW Internet Connectivity Kit (UWICK) suite.
Required Readings Two books will be used in the class: Lawrence Snyder, Fluency With
Information Technology, 2000, course notes available at Professional Copy
'N' Print, 4200 University Way, NE.
Cost is $11.05 plus tax. Kerman & Brown, “Computer
Programming Fundamentals with Applications in Visual Basic 6.0”,
Addison-Wesley. Available at the
University Book Store. The homework and tests will be weighted
as follows: Collaboration – The Gilligan’s Island Rule Students are encouraged to study and
learn together. Another student is often the best resource for working out a
complex computation or understanding a difficult concept. However, in CSE100 all documents turned in to fulfill assignments
must be the exclusive work of the person submitting them, unless otherwise
stated. In order to allow students to work together, yet submit
assignments that represent their own thought, the Gilligan’s Island
and the Freedom of Information rules are adopted. The Gilligan's Island Rule: You are free to meet with fellow students(s) and
discuss an assignment with them. Writing on a board or shared piece of paper
during the meeting is acceptable; however, you should not take any written (electronic
or otherwise) record away from the meeting. Everything that you derive from
the collaboration should be in your head. After the meeting, engage in at
least a half-hour of mind-numbing activity (like watching an episode of
Gilligan's Island*), before starting to work on the assignment. This will
assure that you are able to reconstruct what you learned from the meeting by
yourself. The Freedom of Information Rule: To assure that all collaboration is on the
level, you must always write the name(s) of your collaborators on your
assignment. * Gilligan’s Island was a 1960s
sitcom that set the standard for dim-witted TV. Seinfeld or anything
more intelligent, e.g. some PBS programming, also works for this purpose.
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