COM1-CMOD6001 23

This morning was the deadline for the submission of the paper. In addition to the electronic copy e-mailed to Colin, students were expected to also deliver a hard copy by this morning. Many students did not. These students are now late.

The standard CIT penalty for being late is 10%. Students who are late now have one more week to submit a paper copy and matching electronic version. The penalty is applied weekly so there is no incentive to submit any earlier than necessary. Students are, however, welcome to submit their papers at any time.

If you were on time but you feel that if you had an extra week your essay would yield higher marks even with the 10% penalty you are free to re-submit. Please advise me if you intend to do this so that I can hold off correcting your essay until you decide.

The penalty for being an addition week late will be 20% of the original mark. After that week the penalty is 100%, that is you will get nothing.

Students were expected to write an essay on the topic that had been randomly assigned to them. Students were not free to switch topics without prior permission. Students who attended class so infrequently as to not even have a topic were not free to write on any topic of their choice. The list of topics assignments that I have is here.

If you do not yet have a topic you should request one by e-mail or (God Forbid!) come to class. You may submit in time for the next deadline for a possible mark of 90%.

Web Publishing 26

The project in B217 wasn't working so we squatted in C123 for the hour so at least the time was constructive.

I gave out a list of all the assessment components for this module and the weightings. These components are more detailed than the course schedule.

Web Publishing 25

I arrived a little late. Studenst were working away. Most groups are on the right track although I think more thought needs to go in to the structure of the sites.

Quite a few students were missing. There are job placement interviews today.

I left early because I too had a job interview!

COM1-CMOD6001 No CIT lecture today

I have a meeting at 1515 and can't be certain I'll be done for 1600. When I'm finished I'll call over to the classroom. But if you don't need me for anything you need not come to class.

Web Publishing 24

{Monday was a holiday in case you're wondering where those entries went}

We revisited mystery meat navigation using Colin's own crimes against web design.

We look at some more tips from Krug's book.

We looked a number of websites to see how they handled the five persistent navigation elements Krug speaks of.

And now that Amazon has abandoned tabs we settled on the ESB site as an example of tabs.

Watch this blog in case there is a mid-week timetable change

Mumps (zapalenie opon mózgowych)

There have been a number of suspected cases of mumps in CIT over the past week. The MMR vaccine is available free of charge in the Medical Centre.

The vaccine is especially important if are a male who hasn't had the mumps and you are planning on making babies in the future.

COM1-CMOD6001 22

We looked at tips for giving presentations.

Students will be giving presentations in groups later in the semester. The default composition of the groups expects that students doing the same essay will be in the same group. However some groups may not be viable, since some students have clearly decided to not participate in this module.

Slides

Web Publishing 23

{Thursday}

The computer in the classroom wasn't working so I had to fumble around a bit for a Plan B. So we didn't really get started until 30 minutes past. I gave out printout of the notes we'd been using so far. I also gave out the slides based on the "Don't Make Me Think" book.

Slides:
Elements
Don't Make Me Think

COM1-CMOD6001 21

I sorted out door access for students who had their cards with them. I'll try to organize the others when we are next in a lab.

Students met in their project teams and had a meeting. I expect to see the minutes of those meetings in the group blogs. Minutes should reflect who was present and who was not.

We discussed some possible structures for the murder mystery evenings.

Web Publishing 21 & 22

I arrived to class 5 minutes late. However people were clearly doing great project work in groups so I left everyone at it.

I reminded students to document their work as they went. Records of meeting should appear on each group's blog. I am as interested in the development process as I am the finished product. So it's important for marks to document the process.

I sorted out door access for students who had not already done so themselves.

Web Publishing Essay Topics

Firewalls (technical, not ethical) - Peter C & Davy D
Video Streaming (technical) - Shane D & Florence K
Is TV Dead? (non-technical) - Stephen H
Blogger vs. WordPress - Becky Yu & Olga L
Open-Source Solutions for e-commerce
Goodle Adsense & AdWords - Leanne A
Podcasting - Wallace K & Neil B
Introduction to Chinese character coding & unicode - xiaodan liu
Web Site Localization - Felix W
Internet Crime (some technical) - Stephen P & Patrick O
Setting Up a Web Server at Home - Giuseppe B
Technical Approaches to Multi-Lingual Web Sites


Students should e-mail their choice of topic to Colin. Students who think up their own topic should check with Colin first that it's a topic that would work and yield a decent grade.

Students sharing a topic with someone else should be careful about discussing it lest their papers end up being too similar.

Students are welcome to send Colin a rough draft for early feedback.

Web Publishing 20

We looked at some more tips from JJ Garrett's book. Powerpoints slides later.

The paper is due at noon on Friday 7 November. e-mail to Colin before then. Min 1500 words. If you submit early I might be able to give you feedback that you could use to improve your paper.

ITS1-CMOD6001 05 & 06

I asked students to set up a multi-author blog for each project group. Some students didn't know what group they were in.

I asked students to hold a meeting and enter a report of the meeting into the group blog. However many students were missing and some groups had only one member. I asked the partial groups to meet with each other.

I think I will talk to Deidre about the composition of groups. Some students are clearly not interested in taking this course seriously.

Access to Labs

All computing students should now have access to the computer labs. However each student's card must be updated in order to work. There are a few special hotspots around campus that can update cards. The handiest one is in the C corridor next to the comms room. Obvioulsy any attempt to gain access top the comms room will not succeed, but the card will be updated in the process.

This doesn't actually work. I'm on it!

COM1-CMOD6001 19A & 20A

Most students were still not in project groups so I forced the issue. Students formed groups, set up multi-author blogs, and e-mailed me the details.

Some students went to the canteen for "meetings". Find by me as long as the work gets done.

COM1-CMOD6001 19B & 20B

Most students were still not in project groups so I forced the issue. Students formed groups, set up multi-author blogs, and e-mailed me the details.

Some students worked on a different module altogether.

COM1-CMOD6001 18

I gave out some handouts about grammar and punctuation.

Students with the same paper met and discussed their approaches.

I gave another warning about plagiarism.

COM1-CMOD6001 Paper Extension

The paper is now due on October 31 at noon.

Web Publishing 19

Only two students turned up to class. Normally I would give class anyway under such circumstances. But I didn't have the energy today. I know that's not much of a reward for those who did turn up.

COM1-CMOD6001 17

{Wednesday}
We talked aboutthe structre of the essay. We did a paragraph exercise.

At the ne dof the class there were a lot of very useful questions.

Web Publishing 16

{Tuesday}
We looked at JJ Garrett's Elements of User Experience and briefly examined each of the 5 planes.

Web Publishing 17 & 18

First the first half of the class students held group meetings.

In the second half students took the Online Media Law course at newsU. It's vital that student log out of this site when finished. After taking the test students should send the results to Colin's e-mail.

ITS1-CMOD6001 03 & 04

The networked drive was not working so that caused a few problems.

We had a quick look at the internet, MS Word, and MS PowerPoint based on the self-assessment sheets that students filled out before. We didn't look at the windows stuff because of the lack of a drive.

Students did the powerpoint exercises.

We'll try to look at spreadsheets next time.

For the last half hour we played the zoom game outdoors. It was too sunny to be inside!

COM1-CMOD6001 15A & 16A

We looked at PowerPoint and spreadsheets.

I gave out handouts 16, 12, 13, 83, 84, 61. But we didn't discuss them.

COM1-CMOD6001 15B & 16B

We looked at PowerPoint and spreadsheets.

I gave out handouts 16, 12, 13, 83, 84, 61. But we didn't discuss them.

COM1-CMOD6001 14

We looked at some more job descriptions and their requirements.

I gave out the spec for Assignment 4.

I gave out a list of common mistakes students mistake when writing. But we didn't really go through it.

Web Pubishing Paper Ideas

Firewalls (technical, not ethical)
Video Streaming (technical)
Is TV Dead? (non-technical)
Blogger vs. WordPress
Open-Source Solutions for e-commerce
Goodle Adsense & AdWords (both!)
Top 20 Tips for Website Usability
Podcasting
Introduction to Chinese character coding & unicode
Web Site Localization
Internet Crime (some technical)

Web Publishing 15

I got an e-mail from the Students' Union saying that students will not be available for class until 1500 because they are protesting. So I don't expect to have class today.

COM1-CMOD6001 Information about Friday's Class

Last Friday some students summarized for the class the requirements of they job description they were assigned. Tomorrow's class will provide a second chance to students who did not turn up last Friday.

Students who did not attend last Friday and who do not attend tomorrow, will not get full marks.

Students who attended last Friday and were asked to contribute but did not (Jobs 25 & 33) should also make sure to attend tomorrow.

The marks of all other students who attended last Friday, will not be affected by their attendance tomorrow.

Web Publishing 13 & 14

What did we do? Anything specific? Someone remind me in the comments.

COM1-CMOD6001 13

We played the zoom game. Some students could help but cheat.

Getting in the Builders

No one could tell me anything about the construction that's going on outside my office. It's like a big secret or something. Given that the CIT PR machine sends around e-mails and magazine articles to announce the opening of an envelope, it's surprising that there wasn't more fanfare.

I eventually found out everything I wanted to know at the Cork City Planning Office. And I got my main question answered - yes. All of the trees will go.

Web Publishing 12

We talked a bit about the assessment for this course. Students are expected to come up with a topic for the paper and send it to me for approval. Eventually students who have not selected a topic will be assigned one.

Students should try to form a project group this week. I recommend group sizes of 6, but students may do as they wish.

We will sort out the new members of the class in the labs tomorrow. If you want to be in the class it is important to turn up, as it is possibly over-subscribed.

We talked about usability. We looked at ryanair.com and iberia.es and identified some usability issues. Students are expected to identify a web site with usability issues and describe how they might fix them. This should be posted to the blog.

We looked at metrics. How do we measure the success of a site? We looked at google anylitics very briefly. We'll come back to that.

I didn't properly explain what click-thru-rate is. It's the number of people who click on a an ad divided by the number of people who see it.

I gave out Garrett's Elements of User Experience handout, but we never go around to talking about it.

Notes:
Garrett's Elements
Powerpoint ppt2008-10-07.ppt

ITS-CMOD6001 01 & 02

This was my first class with ITS1.

I gave out self-assessment forms for PowerPoint and for speadsheets. We'll look at those in a subsequent class.

Students set up blogs and added the other students in the class to their blogrolls.

Canteen Muppets

I hate canteen muppets even more than I hate bus muppets. Sometimes the canteen is very busy and it can be difficult to find a seat. Some people's solution to this problem is to keep a seat with their bag while they are in the queue. Although this alleviates the probelm for them personally, it exacerbates the problem for everyone else.

Imagine if everyone kept a seat for themselves as they went in to the canteen. If they spent 10 minutes in the queue and 15 eating their lunch, the overall seating capacity of canteen would be only 60% of what it would be otherwise. No wonder it's hard to find a seat.

Bye Bye DNET & DCOM Hello ITS

My allocation has changed and I am no longer teaching CMOD6001 to the DNET/DCOM group. However I now have ITS1. I will see them for the first time today.

COM1-CMOD6001 11A & 12A

We looked at Windows, Word, and the Internet and covered topics identified by sdtuents last week on their self-assessment forms.

I can our self-assessment forms for PowerPoint and Spreadsheets. We'll fill the gaps in knowledge of those applications next week.

COM1-CMOD6001 11B & 12B

We looked at Windows, Word, and the Internet and covered topics identified by sdtuents last week on their self-assessment forms.

I can our self-assessment forms for PowerPoint and Spreadsheets. We'll fill the gaps in knowledge of those applications next week.

COM1-CMOD6001 10

This morning we looked at some of the jobs that had been given out for the job & modules exercise. I asked a number of students to outline what the job they were assigned was about and what modules might be required in order to get it.

Many students were missing so we did not investigate all of the jobs I had chosen in advance.

Most students submitted the assignment on time. A number of students were able to type their submission using only three keys: CTRL & C for copy, and CTRL & V for paste.

Web Publishing 11

We had a brain storming session of ideas for projects. Four project groups would be optimal.

COM1-CMOD6001 09

We talked about reasons for being at college. Students completed exercise sheets 6 & 87.

We recapped what is expected for the job description assignment that is due on Friday morning at 0600, and what will be expected of students in class on Friday.

We talked a little bit about time management. Students completed exercise sheets 75 & 76.

I briefly outlined what assignments are coming up. There will be a paper, a presentation (group), and a project (group). I will give more details of those next week.

Students were reminded to keeping blogging and to make at least one entry per week.

Web Publishing 09 & 10

We spent time setting up blogs. This was a pity because had spend time on that already.

Towards the end of the class students remotely logged in to a server, created a folder, and FTPed a simple page. They were then able to view the page in a web browser.

Some students we hindered by their total lack of competence in HTML. They will probably have to revise the notes they made in previous modules.

In the next class we will brainstorm about possible projects. Since we appear to have 17 students I will be proposing 2 project groups.

Web Publishing - Blogs

These are the blogs of the students in the class. You should add them to your blog roll.

florencecit
wallacekareeba
helen-liu-helen
leannescollegeblog
mydcom3year
peteranthony1
lovethedice
felixwunderlich
ciaranosullivan
motherwaysblog
notorious-string
dadeodugbose
beckysiboyu
olgalinek
gius78
daviedee
jbumba
darraghpaul
neilo12
xzemx
dbesteva1


{This post have been modified to accomadate new students. List last updated 08 Oct 2008}

Web Publishing 08

(30 Sep 2008)
We started a little late because the machine in the classroom couldn't connect to anything and so I had to do a Shank's mare file transfer.

We had a class on how to transfer files from a local machine to a web server.

notes:
unix-ftp.ppt
Unix ftp man page printout