CS101 - Fluency in Information Technology

Catalog Description

Skills, concepts, and capabilities associated with Information Technology. Fundamentals of hardware, software, human-computer interfaces, networking, multi-media, databases, eCommerce, privacy and digital security. Project oriented hands-on approach.

Prerequites:

NONE, 3hrs

Instructor:

• David O'Gwynn <dogwynn@uab.edu>, 142 Campbell Hall

Office Hours:

Tuesday/Thursday 12pm - 2pm :: Undergraduate Computer Science Lab

Text:

Snyder, Fluency with Information Technology: Skills Concepts, & Capabilities, 2nd edition, Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-321-35782-5

Labs

• Lab Assignments
• Student Homepages

HTML Links

• W3Schools HTML Tutorial: One of the best. Has links that allow you to experiment with HTML code on-line.

Overview

This course gives students the experience, knowledge, and capabilities needed to apply information technology effectively throughout their lives. In addition to computer literacy (immediately useful skills), Fluency involves problem solving, reasoning and complexity management to prepare students to use computers today and to be effective technolgoy users tomorrow.

This is an intense, hands-on, project/paper driven course. It is aimed at students who have no intention of becoming CIS majors, as well as potential CIS majors who lack a sound IT foundation.

Classes will be a mixture of lecture, demonstration, and structured lab work, leading to a major term project.

Grades are based on class participation (quizes, etc.), labs and the project. There are no exams.

Course Outline:

• I. Becoming Skilled at Information Technology
  • Terms of Endearment - Defining Information Technology
  • What the Digerati Know - Exploring the Human-Computer Interface
  • Making the Connection - The Basics of Networking
  • Marking Up with HTML - A Hypertext Markup Language Primer
  • Searching for Truth - Locating Information on the WWW
  • Searching for Guinea Pig B - Case Study in Online Research
• II. Algorithms and Digitizing Information
  • To Err is Human - An Introduction to Debugging
  • Bits and the "WHY" of Bytes - Representing Information Digitally
  • Following Instructions - Principles of Computer Operation
  • What's the Plan - Algorithmic Thinking
  • Light, Sound, Magic -- Representing Multimedia Digitally
• III. Data and Information
  • Computers in Polite Society - Socail Implications of IT
  • Fill-In-the-Blank Computing - The Basics of Spreadsheets
  • Getting to First Base - Introduction to Database Concepts
  • A Table with a View - Database Queries
  • Hai! Adverture Database - Case Study in Database Design
  • Shhh, It's a Secret - Privacy and Digital Security
• IV. Problem Solving
  • Get with the Program - Fundamental Concepts Expressed in JavaScript
  • The Bean Counter - A JavaScript Program
  • Thinking Big - Functions
  • Once is Not Enough - Iteration Principles
  • The Smooth Motion - Case Study in Algorithmic Solving
  • Computers Can Do Almost {Everything, Nothing} - Limits to Computation
  • A Fluency Summary - Click to Close