CS101 - Fluency in Information Technology

Summer 9 week Syllabus

8:00am - 9:24am (Thursdays)
5:30pm - 6:45pm (Thursdays)

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

Instructors:

Email Office Location Labs (CH 396)
Kevin Reilly <reilly@cis.uab.edu>
Suman Roychoudhury <roychous@cis.uab.edu> * Mon 8:00am-10:50am
* Mon 5:30pm-8:20pm
* Tue 8:00am-10:50am
* Thu 11:00am-1:50pm
David O'Gwynn <dogwynn@uab.edu> CH 142 * Tue 5:30pm-8:20pm
* Thu 7:00pm-9:50pm

Office Hours:

TBA

Text:

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

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 on the final project (45%), the lab assignments (45%), and class participation (10%). There are no exams.

Course Outline:

TopicLab WorkSlides (not available to students)
Basic terminology * Lab 1.1
* Local guide for 1.1
* Terms of Endearment - Defining Information Technology
Human-computer interface
and networking
* Lab 1.2
* Local guide for 1.2
* What the Digerati Know - Exploring the Human-Computer Interface
* Making the Connection - The Basics of Networking
HTML and debugging * Lab 1.3
* Local guide for 1.3
* Marking Up with HTML - A Hypertext Markup Language Primer
* To Err is Human - An Introduction to Debugging
Searching the web * Lab 1.4 * Searching for Truth - Locating Information on the WWW
Spreadsheets * Lab 3.1
* Excel Lab 1
    - Lab 1 starter data
* Excel Lab 2 (Optional)
    - Lab 2 starter data
* Excel Lab 3 (Optional)
    - Lab 3 starter data
* Fill-In-the-Blank Computing - The Basics of Spreadsheets
Database concepts * Lab 3.2
    - movies.mdb
* Lab 3.3 (Optional)
* Lab 3.4 (Optional)
* Getting to First Base - Introduction to Database Concepts
* A Table with a View - Database Queries
Programming with Javascript * Lab 4.1
    - Firefox Javascript Settings
* What's the Plan - Algorithmic Thinking
* Get with the Program - Fundamental Concepts Expressed in JavaScript
How computers work * Bits and the "WHY" of Bytes - Representing Information Digitally
* Following Instructions - Principles of Computer Operation
Good computing habits * Computers in Polite Society - Socail Implications of IT
Privacy and security * Shhh, It's a Secret - Privacy and Digital Security
Multimedia * Light, Sound, Magic -- Representing Multimedia Digitally
Finishing up * Computers Can Do Almost {Everything, Nothing} - Limits to Computation
* A Fluency Summary - Click to Close

Previous semesters

HTML Links


David O'Gwynn
Last Modified: 7 May 2007