Teachers:
Joel Beesley, Room 208, jbeesley@illinois.edu
Tom Kiesel, Room 304, tkiesel@illinois.edu
DoMonique Arnold, Library, darnold2@illinois.edu
Course Description:
This course builds on your experience in Computer Literacy 1 last year to explore more advanced topics in computer technology, research and teamwork, as we put your knowledge of computers and communications to work in areas related to your other studies at Uni High. The main activity will be a group project that you design, research, and present to the rest of the class using the computer software and techniques we have covered. Therefore, your ability to organize your work, cooperate with others in your group, and teach and learn from each other will be important to your success in this course.
The main source of information for this course will be on Canvas. All assignments, announcements, and other course material will be posted here. You are expected to check your email daily for announcements and assignments as well.
Subject Overview
We will spend more than half of all class days working in small groups on the major semester project. However, during the first few weeks, we will cover the following areas:
- Advanced HTML and other World-Wide Web authoring topics
- Team Dynamics
- Engineering Design Thinking
- Doing research on the Web and in the library
- Ethical and intellectual property issues in the use of computer technology
Semester Project
Within the first few weeks of the semester, we will assign you to teams of (usually) three students, and your team will choose a topic for your major project. During the last two weeks of the semester, you will make a 15 – 20 minute presentation about your project to the rest of the class. These projects are “research and development” exercises that will require you to find information about a subject of your choice, or use computer technology to complete a creative work like a computer program, a piece of music, graphics or video, then produce a paper, web site or multimedia presentation to share it with the class along with a poster detailing the highlights of the project. We encourage you to choose your topic based on your individual interests or activities in other classes. How you do this project – your ability to work together in a team, organize your time and activities, and learn from the experience – is more important than what you choose to work on. However, all projects must demonstrate your mastery of the computer techniques you used to produce them and display evidence of teamwork, creativity and high ethical standards. The largest part of your project grade is based on the progress reports you will prepare and submit each week. We will use the Canvas based discussion board to have you submit progress reports. The teachers will give you feedback on your work on that same board. One member of the teaching team will be assigned to each group as the main contact for giving advice and feedback, finding resources and helping as a mentor and coach to get your project completed successfully.
The primary components of your grade will consist of:
- How well you chronicle your work during the 8-10 weeks of project time, accounting for all participation for all group members.
- How well you adapt to difficulties and adjustments that must be made over the course of the project.
- The actual project – depending on the difficulty of the task you undertake, a project may or not be completed by the end of our time together, but you should show steady work over the entire period.
- Your ability to communicate to the class and your teachers how you worked together on the project, what the project does, and what you learned from the process.
Textbooks
There is no required text for this course.
Administration
Your grade will be based on a combination of exercises, weekly progress reports, project and presentation scores. There are no lengthy in-class exams or final examination in this course.
This course requires that you be well organized and ready to work when you come to class and, once small group project group begins, that you meet with your group members regularly and keep each other up to date on your individual progress.
The teachers are all available to help with any kind of problems you may be having with this course. We’re all here to learn together!