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# General Announcement Emails Sent to CIS 101 Students
# Winter Semester, 2011, Professor Don Colton
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Mon, Jan 24, 3:30 PM, to everyone
Today in class we did the "3kids" exercise. 32 of 40 people completed
it and earned the oC point for doing online CGI programming. For those
that missed it, there will be another chance later.
There was a lot to learn. I was very pleased at the number of students
who were successful. Thanks for helping each other.
I noticed a couple of things.
(a) Pictures were not all the same size. You can include width='200'
height='300' or something similar in the ![]()
tag to force the image
to be a certain width or height or both. Try it.
(b) One person put a sleep 3 in their code. Please don't. Sleep 3
makes it look like your program is broken. Also, don't put anything
like $wait = in your CGI program. Test it from the command
line, not by double-clicking.
Wednesday we will talk about decisions, if, else, etc.
See you Wednesday! Bro Colton
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Fri, Jan 21, 3:20 PM, to everyone
Today's exam is graded, open for review, and copied into the
gradebook. Here are the gradebook scores.
9 8 7 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 0 0 0
At this point in the semester, 7 days gone, 30 left to go, you should
have, very roughly, about 20% of the points for your final grade. For
an A, 20% of 32 is about 6 or 7. So, those with a total score of 6 or
7 are on target to earn an A for the semester. For a D- you need 8
points. If you have 2 or more points, you are on target to pass the
class. If you are still at zero, you need to start visiting with the
tutors, available every afternoon right in our classroom, from about 4
PM to about 11 PM.
For Monday, please read up through chapter 15. We will be doing an
in-class Online CGI activity where you will be writing a program that
rolls dice (or something like that). It should be fun. It will provide
an opportunity to earn the oS, oP, and oC points. If you study in
advance, your odds of earning those points will be much higher. An
hour in class goes by pretty fast sometimes.
For Wednesday, please read up through chapter 18. We will be talking
about numeric decisions.
Have a great weekend! See you Monday! Bro Colton
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Wed, Jan 19, 3:30 PM, to everyone
Today in class I pretty much rushed through a "discussion" of
style. The main points are (a) mostly style consists of adding spaces
in the right places, (b) I am often picky because bad style makes
programs harder to read and understand, and (c) there will be style
questions on the exam Friday.
Before Friday, you should read all of Unit 1 of the textbook (pages
1-105 or so).
For Friday, the exam will cover:
1B :: String Basic
2B :: Number Basic
2S :: Number Story
3S :: Style Spacing
3B :: Style Block
I expect that everyone will pass 1B, 2B, and 3S, and that some people
will pass 2S and 3B.
A number of people already passed 1B, 2B, and 2S.
I plan to offer the exam during the first 30 minutes of class. Then I
will follow up by immediately grading on the overhead for the next 30
minutes. Those who are not interested can leave early.
Monday we will be doing an Online activity. Make sure you can still
log into your cPanel account. We will be building a dynamic web page
to display a randomly selected image, like a coin showing heads or
tails, or a dice showing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. This is covered in
Chapter 4. The activity will take pretty much the whole hour, and will
result in online points for oC and oP (if you don't already have it).
Wednesday we will start in on Unit 2.
See you Friday! Bro Colton
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Fri, Jan 14, 11:15 PM, to everyone
Good news. The quiz.colton.byuh.edu domain name is working again. You
don't need to use the Alt link. (Both still work at the moment.)
Good news. I finished grading the Final Exam we did in class today. 11
people got the 1B point. 15 got the 2B point (some via problem 2, and
some via problem 3). 14 got the 2S point. You can review the exam just
like we did in class. Feel free to alert me if I graded you
wrongly. This particular exam will probably be deleted in a week or
so. Later exams are typically kept so you can study from them.
Good news. You can also see the gradebook. Sadly the gradebook does
not reflect the points earned on the static webpage, but I will key
that in when I get back.
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Mon, Jan 10, 5:52 PM, to everyone
Today in class we covered chapters 2, 3, 5, and 6, mostly.
For Wednesday, please read up through chapter 7 (variables).
Your cPanel accounts on the is2 machine should be working. I found
three that seemed to have trouble, and we are working to fix
those. But the rest should be fine.
Wednesday we will cover chapter 4 and chapter 7.
Thanks! Bro Colton
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Sat, Jan 8, 8:14 PM, to everyone
I sent you a CIS 101 update Friday around 12:45 PM. Since then the is2
machine crashed.
The gradebook was wiped out, probably. It may take me a couple of days
to rebuild it. All grading I did before is backed up on paper, so
nothing should be lost. But for now you cannot check it.
As I said before, for Monday, please read chapters 2 and 3. In class
on Monday we will learn how to test a program at your computer. We
will also do a very short sample final exam and talk about grading.
That's still the plan. If the is2 machine is still broken we will not
do a sample final, and instead will continue into chapter 4 and 5. So
if you get a chance to look ahead, please do.
See you Monday! Bro Colton
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Sat, Jan 8, 8:53 AM, to everyone
I am writing to students in my CIS 101 and IT 240 classes.
The IS2 machine suffered a hardware failure on Friday afternoon or
evening. One or more of the hard drives failed. They are in the
process of being rebuilt. I had hoped that it would be done by now,
but it is more messy that expected.
I will send you another email when I find that the IS2 machine is back
up and running.
In the mean time, this will affect your ability to use cPanel, and it
will affect my ability to grade any work you have done. It also
affects your ability to see your grades on quiz.colton.byuh.edu and
your ability to do anything that involves colton.byuh.edu which is
hosted on the is2 machine.
In the mean time, everything at byuh.doncolton.com is still up and
running, as well as the CIS 101 textbook at ipup.doncolton.com.
Thanks! Bro Colton
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Fri, Jan 7, 12:47 PM, to everyone
I have graded the classwork for today. 36 out of 41 students completed
both parts (the static web page and the picture on it). Nice
job. Three were in class but did not get their web pages working. Two
were absent. There will be opportunities in the future.
The gradebook has been updated. You should see a zero or a one
(hopefully one) on the top two assignments if you log in and check.
For Monday, please read chapters 2 and 3. In class on Monday we will
learn how to test a program at your computer. We will also do a very
short sample final exam and talk about grading.
See you Monday! Bro Colton
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Fri, Jan 7, 1:06 AM, to everyone
I meant to send this after class yesterday but apparently I spaced out
and forgot. (I was reminded just now by a student who pointed it out
to me. Thanks.)
This message serves a dual purpose in communicating with the one or
two students who have recently added the class. Welcome.
In class Wednesday we discussed the syllabus and pointed out the
location of the important websites for the class. They are:
* http://doncolton.com/ my personal website
* http://colton.byuh.edu/ that redirects to http://byuh.doncolton.com/
* http://byuh.doncolton.com/courses/cis101/ is the course homepage
with a link to the syllabus.
* https://quiz.colton.byuh.edu/ is my quiz website and were grades can
be found
* http://ipup.doncolton.com/ is the course textbook website
All of these are linked to each other. Given one you can probably find
all the rest.
The reading assignment for Friday is Chapter 1 in the textbook. It
should be easy reading.
In class on Friday my goal is that we will create a simple website,
and then maybe do a small dynamic website if time allows. I have my
fingers crossed.
See you in class! Bro Colton
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Wed, Jan 5, 9:43 PM, to eight students
Welcome to the CIS 101 class.
There is a quiz we took in class today. You were not there or did not
take it. Please take it now.
https://quiz.colton.byuh.edu/
Basically it asks what name you want me to call you, and whether you
are willing to pray in class. But it also demonstrates how we will be
doing all of our quizzes. It proves that you can do it.
Please take the quiz by Thursday night (or earlier).
Thanks! Bro Colton
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Tue, Jan 4, 10:09 PM, to everyone
I am writing because you are enrolled in the CIS 101 class I am
teaching on Wednesday.
You will be using the "is2" machine as a web host. Setting up an
account takes about a minute. You may already have one, in which case
there is nothing to do at this time. But if you don't already have
one, you can save yourself some time in class by setting it up now.
Visit http://new.is2.byuh.edu/ to set up your account.
If everybody waits until class, for 30 students to set up their
accounts will take about 30 minutes. It's better if they are done in
advance.
See you in class! Bro Colton
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end