Friday, March 26, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 32

I asked students to publish a personal webiste using their H drives.

None did.

SOFT6007 Publishing a Web Site

If you save a file called index.html in the root of your H drive, your folder becomes web accessable. This is a very easy way to publish a website.

The URL for the site will be
http://mcom.cit.ie/students/kcomp_7_y1/R00012345/
where R00012345 is your student number.

Have fun!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 31 A

Some students did some work. But most were too full of that Friday feeling.

SOFT6007 Class 30 A

We looked at CSS.


We looked again at the French Songs CSS exmaple. There's a good bit of CSS in there to decipher.

We took a look at some examples of using CSS to layout a page, that got progressively complex. The final example could be used as a basis for much of Assignment 2.
Float1 Float2 Float3 Float4 Float5 Float6 Float7


I asked students to watch this YouTube tutorial on CSS.

SOFT6007 Class 31 B

Students started work on some CSS pages of their own.

Some students had questions about Assessment 2.
It's worth 40%
You will need forms. If you want to make a start on forms over the Spring Break everything you need can be found here (notes) and here (video)

Some students didn;t do any work at all. I'm not anyone's mammy.

SOFT6007 Class 30 B

I asked students to watch this YouTube tutorial on CSS. But there was no sound on the machines in the lab. So that didn't work out.

We looked again at the French Songs CSS exmaple. There's a good bit of CSS in there to dechipher.

We took a look at some examples of using CSS to layout a page, that got progressively complex. The final example could be used as a basis for much of Assignment 2.
Float1 Float2 Float3 Float4 Float5 Float6 Float7

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

SOFT6007 EV COM1 Assessment 1

We did an assessment

I am not happy that some students did not take seriously the instructions prohibiting communication. This is very serious. These students should consider themselves to be on Yellow Cards.

The plan to do some work after everyone was done didn't work out.

That puts us a bit behind. Students should watch the videos of the day time classes thta dealt with CSS and check the blog over the break for any updates.

The specification for Assessment is online. But we didn't get to talk about it. Student should try to make a start on it.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 29

We looked at the spec for Assessment 2 and discussed it a little.

The projector wouldn't play nice so we had to make do with the printouts Colin brought. We looked at a CSS example. html css

SOFT6008 Class 32

Some serious debugging.

Monday, March 22, 2010

SOFT6008 Class 31

Students continued work of the assessments and on cookies.

Students who have finished the assessment this week should get it to me before the break. There is a good chance I would be able to give early feedback. Any deficiencies can be corrected before the deadline.

SOFT6008 Class 30

We looked at cookies

The handout I gave out in class has some important points in it that I did not discuss in class.

Video of class Slides

SOFT6008 Class 29

Students worked on coding pages for the Assessment.

I advised students that they will be expected to meet with me and talk me though their code as part of the assessment process.

Friday, March 19, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 28

We continued our look at CSS

Slides css.pdf

Thursday, March 18, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 26 A

Not much going on

SOFT6007 Class 27 A

We were in C128

Didn't seem to be a whole lot of work going on.

Some students asked about the assignment specification. I should have that very soon.

SOFT6007 Class 27 B

Not much going on really

SOFT6007 Class 26 B

We were in B219. This timetable arrangement will be permanent.

I couldn't find anyone who was doing actual work. I don't know how to force people. Perhaps once I specify the assignment things will pick up.

SOFT6007 EV Week 07

17 March was a holiday.

Don't forget the exam is next week.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 25

We started a bit late because the project would not talk to Colin's laptop.

Only 5 students were in class.

We looked at Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

SOFT6008 Class 28

We looked at how to modify the CSS properties of page elements on a form using getelementbyid. This can be used to highlight user inputs that to not comform to requirements.

formvalidation.html

Monday, March 15, 2010

SOFT6008 Class 27

More coding.

The Assignment 1 specification was locked down and the deadline set at noon on 12 April 2010.

SOFT6008 Class 26

More coding. More debugging.

If I even have to design a debugging course, I will use JavaScript as the language. There are so many banana skins to slip on.

SOFT6008 Copying code

Students should be careful about sharing code. Giving your code to another student could be considered cheating. Since it can be difficult to know what is OK and what is not, it is safer if you never swap code.


Alumnos no deben compartir individual codigos. Facilitar tu codigo a otro alumno podria ser considerado una falta. Debido a la dificultad para distinguir lo que esta permitido y no permitido la norma a seguir es no compartir tu codigo.

SOFT6008 Class 25 Extra

Since students stayed on working in the lab, I stayed too.

I won't call this Class 26 though, because that would confuse my number system. We now have an extra class in hand in case I am missing some day.

SOFT6008 Class 25

Students worked on their code and I helped with debugging.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

CCAD



We talked briefly about flickr and YouTube.

Students spent a lot of time fiddling with their blogs.

I explained how podcasting worked and how to find sonline resources using the iTunes Music Store. Making podcasts is a bit complicated. Audio podcasts are easy enough, but video is more work. We had a quick look at the kinds of things iMovie could do.

I gave out an article on Podcasting.


Video
of some of the class.

Friday, March 12, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 24

We moved to C128. Attendance was poor so there was no danger of running out of room.

Few students seemed interested in doing any work. So my theory about a lab being more productive than a classroom was incorrect.

From what I could gather, only one student did anything even remotely related to work for this module.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

SOFT6007 EV Week 06

We looked at how to use tables to make the layout of pages more interesting.

We moved to C128 so students who wanted to could use Photoshop. Most did in fact.

The exam will be in IT2.3 in two weeks time.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Wiki CIT

Hi Guys


The delay in the faculty programmatic review opens up the possibility of doing it in a different way. Normally the inputs into the process are very small number and not very diverse. In fact most of the inputs come from ourselves.


What if we were to open it up to the review process and make it completely public? In computing we are very good at getting input from industrial sources, but we could cast our net even further. What if very early on we invited input and discussion from any interested stake holders, be they students, industry contacts, parents, or whoever. Most of the stake holders in science and engineering are very computer literate and would be able to use any web based tools we chose to make use of.


We could attempt to start with a blank slate for how things should look and get the community of interested parties to devise out strategy and programmes for us. Of course, some publicity would be required to get people interested, but that is a good thing anyway. A lot of thought would have to go into the kind of tools we use and just how open we make ourselves, but I think it could be done. We don’t have the resources to develop new tools, but even off the shelf tools (e.g. wikis and blogs) could help us achieve something.


Perhaps there is insight out there that our current review methods cannot capture. Perhaps there are important things simply not on our radar. If we cannot hope to find them, maybe they can find us.


For starters, imagine a website where ANYONE could start the process of designing a module at CIT. Any serious proposal with enough support could be shepherded through the approval process at CIT and eventually offered. Imagine if you were to scale up that kind of thinking. Once you start to think in that way, a variety of possibilities and opportunities start to present themselves.

SOFT6008 Class 24

Students continued coding and I went around helping them out. Over complexity seems to be the common theme running through students' code.

For the credit card check digit I am expecting students to only worry about 16 digit numbers, like we have in Ireland.

Monday, March 8, 2010

SOFT6008 More Check Digit Fun

IBAN
EAN
ID Numbers from aruond the world
French numbers (en Francais)

SOFT6008 Check Digit Test Cases

Here are some data to use as test cases for the check digit exercises.

IE-PPSN

These numbers are valid in theory
5313197L
1234567T
1234567t
0000000W
0000071w

ES-DNI

These are valid numbers
03457393-X
03457393X
03457393x
03405999-K
70240341-C
70259948-P
70259948p

If these test cases give you trouble read the small print on the ParseInt box!.

I have noticed that in real life Spaniards tend to insert separators between groups of digits to make the DNI number easier to read and it is common to put a dash before the letter (as above). To accommodate this your code should strip out all useless characters from the input before looking at it more closely.

Ensure that your code insists on the correct length
007-X is not valid. But 00000000-X is.

Euro Banknotes

Just take some from your wallet. There are fewer than 26 countries that issue Euro banknotes some some letters never appear at the start of a serial number. Accounting for this would require some very inelegant code. We can't have inelegant code!

Be sure to check some serial numbers that have a zero immediately after the letter. If that gives you trouble ParseInt may be to blame.

SOFT6008 Class 23

Students continued to work on the exercises. The check digits are proving to be a real test of programming skill. There is a lot of cluttered thinking about.

Interesting Article from the Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0304/1224265557558.html

SOFT6008 Class 22

Students carried on working on the various exercises

I advised students to write the FizzBuzz program just to get their brain muscles ready for the algorithms they are trying to code.
 FizzBuzz:
"Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of five print “Buzz”. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print “FizzBuzz”."

SOFT6008 Class 21

We lokoed at some more check digit calculations: Euro, EAN, DNI, Finnish ID

We looked some useful JavaScript functions

Saturday, March 6, 2010

CCAD

I had an interesting class in CCAD with art teachers taking a masters course. When I say interesting, I mean interesting for me. It's interesting to present what it is you do to people from a different background and see how they apply to what they do.

I talked about blogs and how they work. Then I outlined how blogs could be used in education. There were lots of interesting questions from the floor. That's always good.
CCAD01.m4v

I got each student to set up a blog. We didn't make as much progress as I would have liked because the machines were acting up a tiny bit. [My guess is something to do with the proxy server]. Some students who were not confident with IT had their confidence dented even further, even though  actually they were doing great and doing everything correctly. So students will have to customise their blogs and add the blog list from home.

Towards the end I gave a short talk on blogging for artists. My challenge to practicing artists is to share the process of their art making so that we can have a better understanding of the finished product, and to contribute something to this society that has invested a lot in their education. If art and artists are going to matter, then they are going to have to speak up. Sitting in your bedroom making nice things is just therapy.
CCAD2.m4v

Notes: CCAD-blogtalk.pdf artist-blog.pdf

Friday, March 5, 2010

SOFT6007 Class 20

There was a class going on in C170 when we arrived and the participants looked like they hadn't a notion of moving. Rather than throw them out, only to discover 2 minutes later that the projector wasn't working, I moved the class to C128. There we had a PhotoShop lab and students worked away on getting to grips with the various tools.

I reminded students about the exam on Thursday next.

Of course C128 can't hold the 40+ students in the class. But attendance on Fridays is so poor that we didn't have a problem.

We might do this again from time to time since there may be weeks when labs are more use than lectures.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

SOFT6007 Assessment 1

We will have an in-class assessment on Thursday 11 March.

1100 - 1300 IT1.3 Group B
1600 - 1800 IT2.2 Group A

Students must attend their assigned lab group. Should arrive early. If there are no enough machines in the lab you may have to sit the subsequent sitting. Erasmus students and evening students may attend any sitting, provided there is room.

It will be an open book assignment to build a web page. The details of the page will be specified on the day.

Assessment 2 is worth 20%.

SOFT6007 Class 19 A

We continued our look at PhotoShop. I demonstrated the use of the clone stamp tool, and made a navigation bar.

I talked about the cost/quality tradeoff in Save for Web 

SOFT6007 Class 18 A

I was late to class. We moved to C128 and that delayed us even further. But there's PhotoShop in C128 so it was worth it.

We looed at the various tools and palletes in PhotoShop.

SOFT6007 Class 19 B

We moved to C128 and saw photoshop in action. I demonstraded the clone stamp tool at work and made a navigation bar from a collage of postage stamps.

I talked about the cost/quality tradeoff in Save for Web  

SOFT6007 Class 18 B

We had an express class in Photoshop. I quickly went through the main tools, and explained layers.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

SOFT6007 EV Assessment

Assessment 1 for evening students will take place on Wednesday 24 March.

I will post more detail to this blog as soon as I have a clear picture of what form it will take.

If you cannot make that even due to work committments please contact Colin. It may be possible for you to do the assessment with the 9to5 students during the day.

SOFT6007 EV WEEK 05

 We looked at PhotoShop and went so far as to make a navigation bar.

You can download a 30 Trial version from Adobe.com

If you are interested in PhotoShop there are hundreds on online tutorials out there. It's a genre at this stage. So much so that someone even made a comedy series. Check out You Suck at Photoshop for the laugh.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

I Gotta Feelin' (it might work)




Tonight I sent an email to a few heads of department proposing they chip in for a prize fund for the best CIT response to this YouTube video. The video should showcase both the college AND the students' department. I figure 500 yoyos should be enough of an incentive. It'll be interesting to see if they go for it. It's a bit mad, but it would be good fun.

SOFT6007 Class 17

We looked at how tables can be used for page layout.

We examined sample page 5 and sample page 6

SOFT6008 Class 20

We looked at some more check digit algorithms: ISBN-10 and PPS Numbers.

Students worked away on the various exercises afterwards.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Re: The Revolution will not be in B219.

Hi *******
I don't know if I could come up with the answers by myself. So far I mostly just have the question. But I imagine students spending 9 to 5 is the one large open space lab for the most part. They might have 6 projects over the semester. Maybe1 every two weeks or maybe they overlap. They might be running an online clubs' hoodies business on the side. Assessment would be by portfolio where they demonstrate that they have met each learning outcome.

We would see lecturers in this lab with students, but there would be no lectures. Lecturers would leave exhausted.

This lab would be noisey.

Perhaps we could have coffee in the art college and see the studio spaces there.

In terms of subject streams maybe we could be more thematic. Instead of architecture, and programming, and databases what about vague themes like communication, memory, logic?

Students would work in small teams that last a short time. They might use blogs, and wikis, and Scrum development techniques from day one.We would see their robots, their games, and class parties on YouTube.

The security guards would regularly send snotty emails asking us to remind students that they have to be gone by 10 every night.

And least one project would require them to work in a group with students in another country.

With a big brainstorming session we might be able to come up with more
ideas.

Colin M

Colin Manning, Dept. of Computing
Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland


On 1 Mar 2010, at 12:10, "*********" wrote:
Hi Colin
What would the revolution look like in a report format - how do we this?


Subject: The Revolution will not be in B219.

Hi Guys



When we discussed the common first year plan at last Friday's meeting I expressed disappointment it wasn't radical enough. Since we were all a bit tired I don't think the issues I raised got the attention they warranted. In the time I had I did not do a very good job of articulating what I had in mind. So I'll try again now.

If the question is "What 10 modules should all computing students study in their first year?", then the 10 modules proposed make for an excellent answer. If the question is "What is the department's radical and innovative plan for revitalizing the teaching of computing at CIT and in Ireland?" then "these 10 modules" doesn't cut it.


By concentrating on issues like in which module and which semester should students learn about loops, we are missing the point. It's more important to ask what would possess a student to ever want to know or care about loops? So far the best we have come up with is that in the exam at the end of the semester there might be a problem to solve involving loops. Instead we need to figure out what problem do loops solve? We need to give that problem to the students at the very beginning and then let them the figure out that they need loops. Only after we have generated a demand for that knowledge, should we meet it. We should not give students knowledge and then give them questions. We should give them questions and then give them knowledge. Instead of trying to figure out how best to force feed students, we should be trying to make them hungry. It is not enough to consign problem based learning to implementation and delivery detail. It must be hard-wired into the design of programmes from the get go. It's not salt to be sprinkled liberally throughout, it's the meat!


I'm attaching an article on Olin College in the US. I've circulated this two or three times already over the past few years. So I promise not to do it again. It covers a lot of the things I am thinking of. And yes, of course, they have gazillions of dollars and we feck all. And yes, there are 200 reasons why it wouldn't work for us. And yes, the way we do things now is very comfortable.


Colin M

SOFT6008 Class 19

We looked at function,  loops, and arrays.

I talked about user input validation and we looked at the Luhn formula for credit cards.

Students should see the SOFT6008 podcast for more classes covering today's material.

Notes:
JS02 PPT PDF
JS03 (we didn't do cookies yet)
JS04

Paper handout:
Checksum handout

SOFT6008 Class 18

We looked at forms.

Notes: forms.html

SOFT6008 Class 17

Students worked away on exercises.