SOFT6007 FC Lab Group B

Only four students turned up. Students go to grips with classes, IDs, and float. Some even played with positions.

SOFT6007 FC Lab Group A

I had hoped to move on with the CSS but because we didn't get a chance to implement the classes last week, I held off.

A good few students watched videos of the classes they missed. But that's something they could have done before today.

SOFT6007 ITS1/DCOM1 Class 20 ITS Lab

We looked at the float property and the position property. I went to C128 and added some images with transparency to the set of graphics for use in Assignment 2.

I will look into moving us to C128, even if only for an hour a week.

Educational Triage

I was discussing a student with a colleague a few weeks ago and she made a comment that got me thinking. She said “Oh, I’m not a bit worried about him. He’s not going to be here next year anyway”. That reminded me of triage.

On the battlefield, or where there are mass casualties, medical treatment is rationed so that it does the most good. Incoming casualties are sorted into different categories. Systems vary, but generally there are those casualties who are likely to be fine without immediate treatment, those who would benefit from treatment, and those who are so badly injured that they are likely to die irrespective of the treatment they receive. They are usually assigned green tags, red tags, and black tags respectively.

I wonder do lecturers (myself included) engage in educational triage. Does there come a time in our dealings with students we categorize them into those who will be fine anyway, those who need our intervention, and those who are so far gone that there is no point wasting our time on them. Are students walking around with invisible triage tags attached, that only lecturers can see? Is this fair? Or is it just pragmatic? Like battlefield medical attention, lecturers’ attention is finite. And as class sizes and workloads increase, it is becoming scarcer.

Should every student get the same amount of attention? Should those who need the most get the most, or should it be allocated where it can make the biggest difference.

What if we make mistakes? On the battlefield being classified as beyond help is fatal. If a student is written off in error and not given much assistance, he is likely to fail.

It’s interesting to think what signals or vibes we might be using to categorize students, consciously or subconsciously.  For me the question “what am I supposed to be doing?” is like bullet wound to the head. YouTube and Facebook during lab time are like serious infections.

And of course educational triage requires an additional category not seen on the battlefield. Those seriously injured students who refuse medical treatment by not turning up to class, put themselves beyond the reach of the help they need. What colour tags should we use for them?

SOFT6008 Class 20

We discussed tomorrow's exam a little.

There will be 3 questions.
Q1. (50 marks) Will be a checksum validation and DOM manipulation, with some code missing. Fill in the blanks. Having implements all the checksums from the notes, would have been good practice. If you didn't getting a look at someone else's would be good. [If you use dropbox to swap code make sure you identify it as someone else's so that I don't feel like you are passing it off as yours]

Q2. (25 marks) Will be about cookies

Q3. (25 marks) Will be write a javascript function that does ... It's something that could be in any language, but just happens to be in javascript.


In designing the exam I have tried to give average students a good chance of passing, while giving excellent students a change to do very well. Weaker students may feel time pressure. So we will try to start on the dot at 1700 and go all the way to 1800.

SOFT6007 ITS1/DCOM1 Class 19

RGB recap. LAB, CMYK, GIF

SOFT6008 Class 19

I gave out a printed version of the sample exam that was online. I talked through some parts of it, but didn't give much away.

I said "you wouldn't want to make assumptions about the length, based on the size of the box" and actually expected to get away with it.

Module Design Course

We looked at how to write learning outcomes and the different taxonomies. There's more than one!

First part of the assignment is due Friday week, so I must actually start working on it. Like most students, I have codded myself into thinking having it done in my head is enough.

SOFT6008 Sample Exam

Completing this exam would be good practice for the in-class exam this week. However completing all of the exercises would be the best practice.

Students should complete all the DOM games, try to get cookies working, and implement all the checksums outlined the notes.

SOFT6007 COM1 Class 19

We revised RGB, and then looked at Lab and CYMK. Then we started to look at GIF. I think I lost the crowd today. Maybe the slides are a bit disjointed. We'll pick up again with GIF in the next class.

Animated GIFs: The Birth of a Medium | Off Book | PBS

SOFT6007 DCOM1 Class 17 Lab

We added CLASSes to the TDs in the timetable to color code the lectures. Students were on the ball and got this done very quickly.

SOFT6007 ITS1/DCOM1 Class 18

We looked at how to represent color digitally. We discussed Hue Saturation Brightness (HSB) and Red Green Blue (RGB)

SOFT6007 COM1 Class 18

We looked at how to represent color digitally. We discussed Hue Saturation Brightness (HSB) and Red Green Blue (RGB)

SOFT6008 Class 18

We looked at the HTML5 Canvas. It's more of a gimmick really. But it might be possible to do some interesting things with it. I'll put links to the site, and examples here later. I promise! If I don't, hassle me.

SOFT6007 COM1 Class 17 Lab A

We looked at how to classes and IDs work and I asked students to color the subjects in their timetables by adding class attributes to the TD tags. A number of students completed this work and left early. Others who did not finish it left early also. That's not very wise.

SOFT6007 FC Class

We had a 1 hour lecture. Only about 10 students turned up, which is interesting seeing as there are people trying to get into this class and can't because it's full.

I offered to do some revision in advance of the exam, but students seemed happy enough. So we looked at how to add class attributes to the td tags of the timetable.

The exam on Tuesday should take about 40 minutes to complete. I don't expect anyone will be stuck for time.

SOFT6007 FC Lab B (2 hours)

Students coded an image map.

In the second hours I flew through CSS and asked students to apply styles to their timetables. Some managed to make a start in the time that we had.

SOFT6007 FC Lab A (2 hours)

We coded up image maps for the first ~half of the class.

In the second part I tore through CSS, and asked students to maybe try applying to their timetables at home.

SOFT6007 Class 17 ITS1 Lab

We added classes to the TDs in the timetable. This allowed us to target individual classes with seperate colours.