Transcript Slide 1

CS110: Introduction to Computer Science
CS110: Welcome to Lecture 1
Today’s Topics
•Course Syllabus
•Blackboard
•Technology Usability
•Personal Portals
•Information Search and Web2.0
•Bookmarking and Notebooks
•Social Networking
Prepared by Fred Annexstein
University of Cincinnati
CC Some rights reserved. 2007
1
CS110: Introduction to Computer Science
Contact Information
Professor Fred Annexstein
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: MW 9-11 and by
appointment Rhodes 889
Tel:556-1807
2
CS110: Introduction to Computer Science
Syllabus
Motivation and Objectives: This class is designed as an introduction to
the concepts and practice of Computer Science. Students will leave the
class with a better understanding of the nature of computers and computer
programming, and improved skills in numerical literacy and communication.
Students will be better prepared to model and solve real-world problems
using these machines.
Grading Scheme: Based on two lecture exams and approximately 15
laboratory modules. Your final grade will be a weighted average for these
two aspects - Laboratory modules 70% and Lecture Exams 30%. Late labs
or makeup exams are not allowed unless pre-arranged with the instructor.
3
CS110: Introduction to Computer Science
Tentative Topic Outline
Week 1: Intro to Technologies Build Personalized Portal
Week 2: Apportionment Problems –
Using Excel to Compute Fairness
Week 3: Numeracy, Scalability and Back-of- Envelope –
Napoleon Goes to Egypt
Week 4: Simulations –
Sea Levels Are Rising
Week 5: Ecomonics and Value of MoneyCompound Interest
4
CS110: Introduction to Computer Science
Topic Outline
Week5: Scientific Computing in Physics Popcorn simulation
Week 6: Probability Paradoxes
Week 7: BioComputing –
Growth of Bacteria and Administration of Medicine
Week 8: P2P Piracy or Sharing?Privacy,Cryptopgraphy and Spam Filters
Week 9: Graphics and Computer Games
3D rendering, programming
Week 10: Systems and Collaborative Filtering
5
Fire up Blackboard
-> Communication -> Collaboration -> Join Office Hours Chat
-> Introduce Yourself
6
The Next Step - What is Web 2.0?
• Web 2.0 is a buzzword meant to capture the way the web
works today. Web 2.0 refers to new websites and tools
that are more dynamic, user-driven, and interlinked in
interesting ways. Associated buzzwords are social
networking, tags, mashups, RSS, XML, wikis, podcasts,
blogs, trackbacks, pingbacks, and Ajax.
• Google IG (personal Google portal)
• Netvibes (personalized portal)
• Flickr (photo sharing)
• Facebook/MySpace (social networking)
• Diigo (social bookmarking)
• Wikipedia (Online Encyclopedia - anybody edits)
7
How can Web 2.0 help you be a better student?
Those who have spent hours on Facebook may
find this hard to believe, but when used in
certain ways, Web 2.0 can actually help you:
• be more productive - find higher quality and
more relevant information
• stay in touch with the most cutting edge
research in any field
• collaborate more effectively with others
• create networks that may help you get a good
job or get into graduate school
8
Seven Steps on a Path to a better Web Experience
1. Switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox.
– Firefox is available here and can be downloaded for free. It offers
several advantages that will help you be more productive on the web.
2. Personalize Firefox with useful add-ons.
– The advantage of Firefox is in its add-on capabilities. They are usually
added by a simple click of the mouse.
– There are several search add-ons that are essential for improving your
ability to find high quality information:
•Citeseer Plugin - search over most of the relevant
Computer Science research proceedings!
• WorldCat Search Plugin - search the world’s libraries
• UC Libraries Search Plugin- search our excellent local
resource
9
Start Right Now: Create Your Launching Pad into Cyberspace
3. Set up Netvibes or Google IG.
– Netvibes and IG are examples of new personalized portal services. Here is
an image of my own IG portal.
10
RSS Feeds
4. Add RSS Information Feeds to your portal
– Some boxes in IG are small applications, like a notepad, calendar, and
“to do” list.
– However, most of the boxes are bringing RSS feeds to my homepage.
An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is a way for news
organizations, academic journals, book publishers, and virtually
anybody who distributes information to distribute that information
without any markup or formatting, so that your own browser or website
can format it and make it look how you like it on your own page.
• Now add any RSS feed to your IG or Netvibes page.
– Use feeds from your favorite sites, and thus viewable on one single
page.
• Suggestion: there are several very good Computer Science and
Technolgy RSS feeds which you can add to your site.
Slashdot: http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot
IEEE Computer Society:
http://bell.computer.org/rss/index.jsp
11
One Page is Never Enough: Setting up multiple homepages
5. Use Bookmarks in conjunction with Firefox tabs
• Google Notebooks is an excellent add-on tool to use while surfing
save bookmarks or clip parts of pages as you go
• In Firefox you can exploit tabbed browsing to keep several pages
open at once. Use bookmarks opened in tabbed browsing allows
you to set multiple pages as your starting points. The following sites
are good starting points, they help me while I am doing research:
• IGoogle Netvibes
Univ-Cincinnati
Blackboard
• UC Libraries
Google-Book-Search
• ACM Digital Library Citeseer Wikipedia Facebook
6. Social Bookmarking is a new concept that enables you to collaborate
and see what other sites are popular: see diigo, del.icio.us, CiteULike…
The main purpose of these services is:
* share your bookmarks with others
* see what other people have bookmarked who have similar
interests as you
12
Tired of Clicking: Let Information Rain on You
7. Create news alerts on topics that interest you.
• Use Google News Alerts service brings news that interests you
directly to your inbox as it happens. Just type in a keyword (such as
“computer science” and/or “software”) and any news item that
contains that word will come to your inbox as soon as it hits the
news!
One or two last points…..Don’t use regular Google as your primary search
method for research papers. If you want high quality resources you need to
find those that have gone through a rigorous review before being published.
Anybody can publish a webpage.
Realize that this is just the beginning. Check out the class weblog
http://intro2cs.blogspot.com to see other sights. Please add your comments
and share how these sights can help you do better research and be more
productive on the web.
"A fool learns from his experience. A wise person learns from the
experience of others." (Otto von Bismarck, German Chancellor,
1815 - 1898)
13