MEMO

Catalog course description

A hands-on introduction to three of the most popular personal computer applications in use today ¾ the word processor, the spreadsheet organizer, and the data base manager. In addition, the course provides exposure to the organization of a personal computer and its peripheral devices, including the interacting roles of hardware and software.

Prerequisites

It is expected that students have used a computer before and that they have high-school-level knowledge of reading, writing, and mathematics.

We note that the 2001 Massachusetts Department of Education guidelines for high school computer education include recommendations that all high school graduates possess basic skills in using computers and standard software applications such as word processors and spreadsheets.

Required reading

Lawrence Snyder. Fluency with Information Technology. Addison Wesley, 2004. 0-201-75491-6.

Contacting instructor

Office hours (Hemenway Hall 318A):

WTh 9:30-10:30 a.m.; M 2:30-3:30 p.m.

Telephone: (508) 626-4724

Email: dkeil@frc.mass.edu
URL: www.framingham.edu/faculty/dkeil

Course overview

Using the textbook’s notion of fluency with information technology as our framework, we will study computer technology from the skilled user’s point of view. This includes hardware, operating-systems interfaces, networked computing including the Internet, and seven software applications.

The standard office software suite includes text formatters, spreadsheet programs, presentation graphics managers such as slide creators, web-page generators, and database management systems. In addition, Internet users should learn how to use a browser and a search engine. Students will study all of these in hands-on lab-based sessions. A single semester project, submitted in preliminary partial components, will demonstrate knowledge of these applications.

The course will also address social and professional issues, such as computer ethics, intellectual property, and privacy concerns. We will aim for the student to be prepared for lifelong learning in information technology.

About this section

PC Fundamentals has been taught for many years as an introduction to computer use and the MS Office suite. Framingham State College and its Computer Science Department are currently working to change what students learn at the introductory level about computers, by offering 63.120, Introduction to Computer Science and Information Technology. CASA at FSC is now offering workshops on the standard applications.

This section is taught by a CS professor who last taught “computer literacy” in the 1980s, and who wants to orient the students toward the more advanced notion of “fluency with information technology” as taught also in 63.120. For that reason, there will be two main objectives for this Spring 2004 section:

· To raise the students’ level of knowledge and skills in standard applications (text formatting, spreadsheet, database, presentation graphics, Internet browsers) and related concepts;

· To attain a degree of IT fluency, as defined in our textbook.

Of 24 chapters in Snyder, we will use fourteen, and miscellaneous other passages. This course will not introduce algorithm design or programming. We have chosen eight key topics, five of which relate directly to kinds of software that you will use in the course.

Fluency with information technology (FIT)

The preface to our textbook asserts that students “do not need rudimentary instruction in double-clicking and resizing windows. Rather, they need to be taught to be confident, in-control users of IT. They need to know how to navigate independently in the ever-changing worlds of information and technology, to solve their problems on their own, and to be capable of fully applying the power of IT tools in the service of their personal and career goals. They must be more than literate; they must be fluent with IT” (Snyder, 2004, p. v).

Fluency with IT includes “skills, concepts and capabilities.” Examples are the skill of using a work processor to format a table, the concept of a stored-program computer, and the capability to find problems in a poorly designed collection of data.

The objective of FIT is to enable immediate use of computers as well as to prepare the student for lifelong learning in IT.

Classroom format

Under Snyder’s skills-concepts-capabilities scheme, topics that mostly involve skills (1, 3-5, 7) will be presented with demos and hands-on lab work; concepts will be presented mostly by lecture and discussion; and capabilities will be presented mostly by demos.

Two days a week we will meet in a computer-equipped classroom, HH208, and two days we will meet in a regular classroom, HH132. Part of the time in HH208 we will work through problems at the keyboards (hands-on) and part of the time we will focus all eyes on the whiteboard or large monitor.

This instructor uses instructional technology extensively but is skeptical of classrooms where monitors on desks stand between the participants.

We will use brief lectures, but mostly dialogue and question-answer sessions. We are motivated by the observation that most learning in the classroom seems to come through interaction among humans. For that reason, active participation in class discussion is essential to most (though not all) students.

Each student is invited to ask questions and optionally, to agree in writing to be “put on the spot” in class in a Socratic learning style. The questions that count for grades will be on the quizzes and exams, not questions raised in classroom discussion. Students may place themselves on or off the Socratic list at any time by email.

Web aspect of course

This course has a Blackboard site at http://framingham.blackboard.com. The site provides all course materials and hosts a private discussion board for students enrolled. Those who decline to participate in the classroom discussion are expected to participate via the Blackboard Discussion Board.

Homeworks and semester projects

Each student will create a project, in several stages, that contains a text document, a spreadsheet, a slide presentation, a web page, and a database table. Begin by describing a real or imaginary business or other organization. You will also create a budget, a slide presentation about the organization or one of its activities or products, a simple web site, and a contact database.

The final-project submission will consist of Homeworks 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 (see those handouts for details), as corrected by the student as needed and submitted in a thin (softcover) binder, with a table of contents and a cover page. The five components should be separated by labeled tabs.

All homeworks must contain your name, the date of submission, the course number and name, instructor’s name, and assignment number. Submission should be at the Drop Box at the Blackboard site.

Quizzes

For some topics, we will have short unannounced closed-book quizzes on the textbook and classroom material.

Slides/handout assignments

Each student will create a slide presentation or handout on one of the topics in the course – slides for concepts, handouts for skills. These should be based on topic outlines provided by the instructor, textbook material corresponding to the topic outlines, and student classroom notes. (One goal is to omit or separate material not covered in class.) Sign up for a topic as part of Homework 0.

The result of your work should be posted for everyone to see on the Discussion Board under the relevant topic; 10 point bonus if you submit before the classroom discussion of your topic ends.

If you consult material from the instructor, the textbook, or other sources, document this at the beginning under the title or at the end in a “References” section. Where you occasionally lift words directly from text sources, you must put these words in quotation marks and attribute them explicitly to their source.

Collaboration and acknowledgement
of intellectual debts

Homework, quizzes, and exams are to be completed independently. Submission of the work of others as one’s own is considered academic dishonesty at FSC. Students are encouraged within these constraints to work together on the course material (not on writing homework), in order to help each other understand it. Excessive help with homework will reduce a student’s ability to do well on quizzes and exams.

Grading

Participation includes attendance and participation in classroom and/or electronic discussion. Allocation of grade is as follows:

Homework assignments (6) 25

Semester project 20

Slide/handout assignment 5

Quizzes (4-5) 20

Final exam 25

Participation 5

100

Accommodations

Students who seek accommodations during the semester because of disabilities should meet with the instructor after class or during office hours early in the semester.