Introduction to Interactive Computing
(CSC 101, IMM 120)
Course Requirements, Spring 2009

Tuesday, Friday 10:00 AM – 11:20 AM
Forcina 103

Instructor: Dr. Ursula Wolz, Holman Hall 221, tel. 771 2766 , email: wolz@tcnj.edu

Office Hours: by appointment, arranged via email

Required Text:  Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art, Ira Greenberg, May 2007, Friends of Ed. ISBN-10: 159059617X, ISBN-13: 978-159059617

Suggested Resource: If you do not own a laptop, please purchase a “thumb” or “flash” drive. You will most likely not need more than 1 GB.   PUT YOUR NAME ON YOUR DRIVE!

Websites to bookmark: review of how to use these sites and what to download will be provided in class at the appropriate times.

·      http://www.tcnj.edu/~wolz/SP09 will be the class resource. SOCS will only be used as a “backup” repository for your class work and won’t contain resources for this class.

·      http://scratch.mit.edu/ is the official site for the Scratch programming environment.

·      http://processing.org/ is the official website for Processing

·      http://www.friendsofed.com/download.html?isbn=159059617X is the download page for all examples in the required textbook.

·      http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/ will be used to learn html coding

·      http://www.adobe.com/products/ we will be using Adobe Dreamweaver commencing April 14. You can get a free 30 day trial from Adobe, but take care that you do NOT download this product until we need it.  If you are taking another IMM class make sure your Adobe products trials won’t expire.  You may opt to do your final project in Flash/Actionscript. This effort as well will occur within 30 days of the last day of finals week.

Course Summary: A first course in computing languages for interactive multimedia. Students are introduced to the art of programming through state-of-the-art multimedia technologies.

Attendance:  is required. Reasonable absences will be excused if arranged in advance, or, in case of last minute emergency reported within 24 hours of the missed session (via email or phone). It is expected that you will put in at least 5 hours per week outside of class.  Help sessions outside of class will be scheduled on an as needed basis.  You need to engage in the work in this class from the start, keep up with the reading, writing and especially the programming assignments. If you find yourself falling behind, make an appointment to see Dr. Wolz immediately.

Via required journal writing you will submit weekly reports on how successful you were at completing the assigned work. The primary intent is to gauge the pace of the class as a whole and to accommodate the range of expertise and interests. The journal is due at the start of each Friday’s class via transfer from your laptop or USB-flash drive to Dr. Wolz’s external hard drive.  You are welcome to store your work on the Internet (e.g. via SOCS) and download to her hard drive, but please do not email your homework or expect her to download it. Keep a copy of all work submitted.

Computer Access: All of the assignments can be completed on Macintosh or MS Windows/Vista platform.  You may use your personal computer or any lab you find convenient.  However, all work must execute in the Macintosh OS X, Firefox environment.  Direct support for installing, maintaining and debugging software on your personal computer is your responsibility.  If you cannot get sufficient access to a computer on campus, it is your responsibility to report the problem to Dr. Wolz as soon as possible, and to summarize your access problems in your weekly report.

Semester Organization:

January 20 – Feburary 13:      Scratch Programming Boot Camp & Web Site Organization
February 17 – April 3: Computational Expression via Processing
April 7 – April 28: Alternative Modalities, Personal Directions & HTML

Required Work:  Grades based on 100 points, total possible = 106

Grade status: Every few weeks Dr. Wolz will distribute individual grade status reports with full explanations for the grading rubric for each assignment as well as final grade assignment.

Weekly Homework and Essays:

Skills assignments: programming activities.  Graded as “acceptable”, “needs work”, “missing” (2,1,0)  Work that receives a “1” may be resubmitted up to the last day of class. Total possible points is 14.

Reflective Essays: Assigned each week, the essays are the superset of questions on the take-home final exam distributed on the last day of class. Graded as “acceptable”, ”needs  work”, “missing” (1, .5, 0)  You may discuss the answers with your peers, but your essay must be your own work. Total possible points = 7

Programming Projects:  One each in Scratch, Processing, and Personal Choice.  Personal choice can be Processing, Flash/Actionscript, PHP or Javascript but not Scratch. Within instructor defined constraints and approval you will define a project of interest to you. 20 points each. Each project will include three benchmarks: (1) a design specification 2 points, (2) draft implementation and report– 6, (3) final implementation and summary report – 12 points.  Full credit on programming is only possible with “exceptional” work. Expect to do “acceptable work.

Final Exam: Distributed on the last day of class due during the final exam slot. Twenty questions worth 5 points each.  Exam grade is total/4 = 25 points.