Monday, October 13, 2008

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.

Friday, October 10, 2008

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.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

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.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

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.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

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

Monday, October 6, 2008

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.

Friday, October 3, 2008

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.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Web Publishing 11

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

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

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