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%.

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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.

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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.

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{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

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{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.

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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.

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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.