 | |
 |
 |  |  |
 | Welcome to CS1315. Click on the python to add comments.
|  |
 |  |  |
|
This page removed for FERPA compliance
|
        |
Announcements-Spring 2003
1 May
From Soapbox:
Lots of questions!
- Yes, I will bring old exams and quizzes to CyberCafe office hours 10-11 am Thursday. They won't be at the Thursday night review, but they will be available Friday morning at my office.
- No, I never said I'd drop any of the grades.
- HW6 grades should be done by Thursday night.
- If you didn't know about the review sessions, you didn't come to class last Friday and you didn't read the Announcements-Spring 2003. You have to meet me halfway.
Mark Guzdial
29 April
Sorry, I'll only be in the CyberCafe 10-11 now on Thursday, but I will be there.
To repeat from Week 15 Comments:
| I don't know when the TA decisions will be made. I'm submitting my requested names today, then grades are checked and I'm told whom I can hire. Yes, 4 points for all. There are no alternate exam times without good cause. ("I don't want to wait until Friday night." is not good cause.) You can skip the final, but you'll be out 1/3 (one of three exams) of 35% (exam percentage) of your total grade. For Seniors (who have a graduation event at 4 pm on Friday), for those who have new job committments, and athletes who have an event Friday afternoon, I'm offering the final at my office at 9:30 on Friday morning, but I only have a room for 4-5 people. (Directions to my office can be found on my name page here in the CoWeb.) Mark Guzdial |
25 April
I will keep office hours Monday (1-3 in my office, directions on the Mark Guzdial page) and Thursday (9-11 in the CyberCafe). You can pick up exams, homework, quizzes, etc. from me on Monday or at the final review on WeREMOVEDsday, or at the final exam on Friday, or by appointment during the week.
24 April
ATTENTION MACINTOSH USERS! We just found that urllib.urlopen wouldn't work on normal JES on an iBook, when we installed the An Alternative Way to Run JES, it worked just fine. We're still working to understand and confirm this bug, but if you're using a Mac and having trouble, try the alternative JES. It installed in about five minutes on a Mac.
23 April
Final Exam Review sessions during finals week: Physics L2 for WeREMOVEDsday, 10-11 a.m. and Room 17 CoC Building for Thursday night, 6-7 p.m.
21 April
Good Morning. The course-instructor opinion surveys are now available online at http://www.coursesurvey.gatech.edu. There are a few new things this term:
1. Log on with your gtid instead of your old id. If you do not know your new gtid number, there is a link from the log on page of the course survey system to a web site where you can find it (you will need to know your social security number to use this page). The password for the survey system is the same password or pin that you use to register on line or retrieve your grades on line. If you have forgotten that password, the registrar's office can help you.
2. REMOVEDrveys are now available all the way through finals week. This was the most often heard request from students and we are very pleased that it was approved by the faculty senate! The last day of surveys is now May 2nd.
3. Instead of the survey being shut down every night for 6 hours, it is now only shut down for 5 hours three times per week. We are working on making it available 24/7 but have not been able to get there yet due to back up and security issues. The survey now shuts down Monday, WeREMOVEDsday, and Friday nights at 11:59 to reopen the next morning at 5am. The other nights it stays open all night.
Please go online (http://www.coursesurvey.gatech.edu) and fill out your course surveys - most faculty really do want your feedback. And yes, as always, the results are kept in a separate data base from your id information so the results really are anonymous. In order for the results to be put into the course critique system, there must be at least a 30% response rate. In order for faculty to pay attention to the results though, they look for at least a 50% response.
If you have any problems using the system, please send an email to cetlhelp@gaetch.edu with CIOS HELP in the subject line. Thanks.
20 April
Do come to the Final Exam Review Friday!
It's the whole agenda for the hour, so we'll go over the review, and I also promise to pose additional problems that WON'T be on the on-line review and discuss the solutions.
16 April
I'm giving a talk at Kennesaw State on this class on Thursday April 17 at 11:30, so I'll only be in CyberCafe for office hours 9-10 (maybe as late as 10:30, if there are several people there).
Please note some changes in the Grading Policy where we made clear what a TA can do to grade something that does not run. Notice that the bottomline is: HAND IN SOMETHING THAT WORKS. If it doesn't do everything, that's better than not loading or not running. If it doesn't load or doesn't run, we can't give you points for even the parts that might have worked.
9 April
For those interested in putting up a webpage on Prism, you can find directions at http://faq.oit.gatech.edu/cgi-bin/submenu?prismweb. It does require you to use UNIX and enter UNIX commands (which is why we didn't get into it in this class). If you're willing to dig into it, you're welcome to – and I'd appreciate feedback if you thought it was easy, too hard for this class, or hard but really important. Thanks!
5 April
Mark Guzdial won't be at office hours this Thursday April 10. I'm going to visit DePauw University to give a talk about...this class! (There's a bunch of interest in the class – I'm giving talks also at Kennesaw and Augusta State about the class this month.)
4 April
TA Applications are now being accepted at http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~TA-app. If you are interested in TA-ing, please fill out that form and attend an undergraduate TA information session on April 7 at 6 pm in Physics L5. Our list of TA candidates will be sent to us on April 10 and April 17 – get your application in early to set up interviews soon after April 10, and applications will be closed by April 16 evening. Fall offers will be extended the week of April 28.
Some folks found some bugs in my binary search code – thank you! The complexity lecture now on the Syllabus and Lecture Slides-Spring 2003 page has corrected code and some additional slides.
31 March
WeREMOVEDsday's lecture on complexity will be contain some the hardest-to-understand concepts in the course. Only next WeREMOVEDsday's on recursion might be harder. Both will have a sizable off-lecture-slides component. You might consider attending those lectures.
Our final exam is scheduled for Friday, May 2, 2:50-5:40
24 March
The building I'm in (Centennial Research Building) has become very hard to get into. Every bag gets searched, things like cameras get recorded, and everyone gets hassled.
If you want a meeting with me, check my schedule at http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mark.guzdial/schedule.html and then contact me (404-894-5618 or guzdial@cc.gatech.edu) to set up an appointment. (I'll always be available during office hour times.) Then let's figure out a place to meet outside of CRB. I will try to hold all my Thursday morning office hours in the CyberCafe across from the bookstore for the next few weeks.
20 March
Bob McMath, Vice Provost, has an op-ed piece in this Friday's Technique where he's asking for student and faculty input on the state of education at Georgia Tech. Please do respond to his survey! The URL for the survey is http://www.gatech.edu/speakup/.
March 18
Midterm exam #2 grades are now posted. Average is around 70% (statistics below). We'll hand them back Thursday night or Friday morning.
I realize that the midterm exam was too hard–my apologies. Here's how the grade was computed. The original midterm average after grading was 62%. I then recomputed the average without the lowest scoring problem (Problem #2, the rainfall problem). Of course, that hurt some people. So, the final grade is the MAXIMUM of the original grade or the grade without problem #2.
17 March
- In case you didn't catch it (in Soapbox or in Week 9 Comments), midterm grades will be available by Recitation Thursday, maybe earlier. (Not earlier than Tuesday afternoon when we're grading!)
- If you're struggling with Homework #3 or #4, Rachel Fithian's offer (below on this page) to observe you do the homework and be available for help is still open!
- If you're not struggling with Homework #3 or #4, it would still help Rachel if you'd be willing to be observed. We want to get a sense of how y'all use JES, so it's helpful to see how confident and struggling users work within JES. THANK YOU!
13 March
To answer the Soapbox: Read the course Student28. I expect you to be able to code from examples, not from scratch. I will always give you samples to work from.
I will hang out in the College of Computing Commons area (go to the left as you enter the College of Computing, towards the glassed-in lab area, at the picnic tables) from 9-10 am Friday morning for any last minute questions.
After the Midterm, you're starting Homeworks-Spring 2003 #3. It's a creative one – build us a collage with any image(s) you want! If you'd like to borrow a Webcam to collect your own digital pictures, see your TA or email me to bring one of them to class. You can sign one out for a week.
12 March
Solicitation for volunteers
Hey, this is Lauren Rich posting again. In my previous post, I asked for female volunteers to participate in interviews in which we'll talk about how engaging you find the material and discuss your attitudes towards Computer Science.
Thank you to the females who have participated already. I still have a couple of interview slots open to anyone interested in participating. For REMOVED information, go to Additional Details about interviews.
If you're interested, please email me at lain@cc.gatech.edu (Please remember not to email Prof. Guzdial or the TA's about this, as they aren't not supposed to know who's participating in research). Thanks!
11 March
Please do take a look at Take-Home Exams-Spring 2003. You were told to name your function backSpliced and to turn in your program as 'exam1'. Points were taken off if those weren't followed.
However, some points were taken off for not naming your program 'exam1.py'. We weren't clear that that was necessary, so those points will be given back.
The TA's and I did distribute to the right graders your written statements of honor on the take-home exam. If you think you submitted one and your grade isn't adjusted by the end of the day, please contact your TA and me.
The TA's and I also reviewed the midterm draft. As the review suggests, it's certainly harder than the first midterm exam, but all of it is covered in the review, and it's all been covered in class.
28 February
For your information, and something to think about: It looks like we'll be running two sections of 120-180 students in CS1315 in the Fall. For 360 students, we're going to need some 18 teaching assistants. People in this class would be terrific candidates. Keep that in the back of your mind. Interviewing and hiring information will be posted in a few weeks. (Yes, for pay.)
Have a great break!
26 February
Mark Guzdial won't be at office hours Thursday 27 February. I'm going to be caring for a sick daughter.
25 February
Some of you who handed in your Take-Home Exam are going to be getting zeroes, even though you did quite well, because you did not put the honor code statement in your comments to the TA. If you see your TA or me with the written and signed statement "I did not provide nor receive any aid on this exam," your grade will be re-instated. If you cannot make that statement, you are welcome to see me in office hours. Mark Guzdial
20 Feburary
I just got an interesting new study on predictors of success in introductory computer science courses. One of the strongest predictors was the number of runs (attempted executions) of programs – experiments, even if not correct. TRY things!. Don't just "stare at the screen." Trying printing values, try different commands, modify your program with print statements and save it under a different name, use MediaTools to explore your media, and on and on. The REMOVED that you try things, the study says, the better the odds of success. Mark Guzdial
17 February
PLEASE BE WARNED!
As of today's lecture, we're now mostly outside the book. Exams, quizzes, and homework will be drawn from the lecture notes and what is discussed in lecture. The book won't be much help from here on out.
16 February
Mark Guzdial will only be at office hours until 2 pm on Monday. (His five year old has an ear infection.)
Solicitation for volunteers
Hello everyone! This posting is from Lauren Rich, a CS undergraduate student working with Prof. Guzdial on my senior research project. The goal of my research is to learn REMOVED about female attitudes towards Computer Science. I'm asking female volunteers to participate in interviews in which we'll talk about how engaging you find the material and discuss your attitudes towards Computer Science.
What will you get out of this?
Your opinions can make changes! We're interested in how engaging you find Computer Science to be. The results of this research will be used to improve introductory Computer Science.
If you're interested, please email me at lain@cc.gatech.edu (Please remember not to email Prof. Guzdial or the TA's about this, as they aren't not supposed to know who's participating in research). Thanks!
Additional Details about interviews
14 February
Please note that the date for midterm #2 is changing. Instead of being WeREMOVEDsday March 12, it will be Friday March 14.
12 February
If you are having issues with your TA, please do contact me at mailto:guzdial@cc.gatech.edu. I want to know if there are problems in the class. Thanks!
11 February
If you did not pick up your quiz and midterm in class yesterday, get them from your TA at Recitation on Thursday.
10 February
I'd like to use some of the pictures that I've taken of the class in future classes (including slides and the book). Please take a look at Is this you? and let me know if I have permission to use your picture in these contexts.
6 February
I did spot check, and to the best of my knowledge, the grades in WebWork are what I have in my spreadsheet.
I was also corrected on a fact in the book and slides. Doubling the amplitude is a 3 dB change, not a 6 dB change, as described. Thanks to Kathryn Lemann for pointing that out.
5 February
Midterm grades now available in WebWorks
Count: 120
Average: 86.467/100
Minimum: 0/100
Maximum: 100/100
Standard Deviation: 13.477/100
3 February
No help session is planned for WeREMOVEDsday's midterm. You can ask your TA for help, but no formal review session is planned. We did the review in lecture this morning.
31 January
A small mistake was fixed in an example in Problem 10 (Lab 3)
It used to say:
(SUMIF(C2:C328, "<19",G2:G328)/COUNTIF(C2:C328,"<19")).
It was fixed to:
(SUMIF(C2:C328, "<20",G2:G328)/COUNTIF(C2:C328,"<20")).
29 January
Andrea Forte, one of the course developers, came up with a really nice diagram to explain what's going on in the pixel copies. Hope this helps! pixalCopyDiagram.pdf
27 January
Sorry for confusing people in class this morning. Lab3 IS due this Friday. It's this coming weekend that you'll have nothing due, and please, Please, PLEASE study for the midterm exam with Sp 2003 Midterm Review #1.
Also, there was a problem for ONE of Larry's students – we missed one when we fixed his email address in the turnin system. Should be working for everyone now.
23 January
BE SURE TO COME TO CLASS MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY OF NEXT WEEK!
- If you're not there Monday Jan 27, you won't get the pre-quiz. If you don't get the pre-quiz, you're at a distinct disadvantage for the quiz. You will turn in the pre-quiz as you come into class on Wed the 29th.
- Quiz is next WeREMOVEDsday. It will start at the beginning of class, 10:05 am. It will end 15 minutes later. Do not be late! Please bring a calculator with you for the quiz.
21 January
- If you put your name on the list at Still Having Trouble Installing JES? and are now running JES, please remove your name from the list so that we can figure out who still needs help.
- Webcams will be available this week. See Student192.
- Planning to go to office hours but don't know what your TA looks like? See TA Contact Information – all the TA's have pictures posted.
- Don't know who your TA is? Student191 lists all students and TAs.
17January
I'm extending the due time for Lab 2 until 1 pm for everyone. Some PRISM email accounts were entered into the Turnin Definitions page as cc mailing addresses, e.g., gte673w@cc.gatech.edu, so the messages were bouncing. I've just fixed them all (hopefully the line endings work okay – I made the fix from my Mac), so students who have Matt and Larry as TA's will need to re-send.
15 January
Solicitation for volunteers
Hi all, this posting is from Rachel Fithian; I'm a Masters student working with Prof. Guzdial on his research to understand what goes on in 1315 this semester. I'm writing to ask for your help in our research. We need some volunteers who will allow me to observe them working on Homework 1.
What will you get out of this?
Besides the fact that you'll be making a contribution to our research, you'll also gain another benefit from participating - I'll be there to answer questions while you're working. My undergraduate degree is in computer science and I have lots of experience working with introductory computer science students, so I could be a good resource if you get stuck. Student188
If you're interested, please email me at rfithian@cc.gatech.edu (remember not to email Prof. Guzdial or the TA's since they're not supposed to know who's participating). Thanks!
The books are here in the bookstore!
14 January
13 January
Recitation is moved!
Recitation will now be in Room 17, College of Computing Building. ALWAYS. FROM NOW ON.
10 January
- We have An Alternative Way to Run JES that might work for some of you. It addresses the NoClassDefFoundError.
- We're trying to figure out the room snafu for recitation.
9 January
The most common bug that we're seeing with JES installations is the error:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: JESProgram
What this means is that some other program on your computer is interfering badly with Java. We're exploring what the possibilities are.
7 January
- The bug requiring a username/password on the Lab 1 Prelab page has been fixed. Sorry about that!
- The email address to send your email turnin to is cs1315@cc.gatech.edu. That's now been fixed, too.
- The Java runtime on the CD will only work for US-English versions of Windows. If you need use another form of Windows, please download Java from http://www.java.sun.com. (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html has all the versions)
- The Webworks bug in Lab 1 will be corrected immediately.
- Yes, we've now heard that the bookstore isn't going to have the books when they said. We're working on burning CDs to be used in the meantime.
6 January
- Course notes will be available in the bookstore on 7 January. (Not 19 December, as I typed in class. Why didn't anyone catch me on that?)
- If you desparately want the contents of the CD earlier, it's all available at http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-plan/26, but there's a lot, and you'll have a lot to download.
Links to this Page