CS110 Information

Instructor:
Russ Wakefield
Office: CSB Room 240
Office Hours: T/Th 9-11
Email: waker@cs.colostate.edu

Lecture: Aylesworth C 111
Section 1 Mon 11:00 - 11:50
Section 2 Mon 12:00 - 12:50
Section 3 Mon 1:00 - 1:50

Labs: CSB 110
See Lab Page in the syllabus for sections and times

Course Description

This class teaches essential skills associated with the effective use of personal computers. There are two one-hour lectures scheduled and two one-hour labs per week, and additional open lab time either at home or on campus based upon an individual student's proficiency.

Once past the first week, we will not meet in Aylesworth for the Wednesday lectures. Instead that day will be used to take lecture exams, work on class projects, or make-up missing lab assignments and lecture quizzes.

Note - The next lab make-up day is Wednesday, 3/27 where you can make up one lab out of labs 2-7. For this make-up day, the 50% penalty will be enforced.

There will be 6 lecture quizzes, 11 in-class quizzes, and 2 lecture exams based upon the information presented in the lectures and the homework assigned each week. There are 13 lab assignments in which students will work directly with the software tools with hands-on testing at the conclusion of each module. There are 3 lab exams that cover the material learned in the lab assignments. There are also three class projects that will be done outside of class.

Specific objectives and activities include:

  • Understanding of basic computer concepts such as:
    • Computer hardware and software.
    • Security and privacy.
    • Tools that use the Internet and the World-Wide-Web.
    • Searching and collecting information.
  • Understanding how to manage and keep information secure.
  • Preparation of professional documents.
  • Creation of well-designed presentations.
  • Manipulating, analyzing and plotting data.
  • Projecting information onto the web.

Expectations:

The typical expectation for a college course at CSU is that students will work at least 2-3 hours outside of class per class credit hour. A 4 credit class such as this one may require you to work more than 8 hours per week in addition to your classroom activities. A key objective of this course is that, by the end of the semester, every student will have the ability to collect data in his/her specific area of study, write a research paper, put together a presentation on that paper, and publish the information on the web. The information provided during the lectures provides an overview to successful publications while the labs provide hands-on experience with the tools.