Exercises will be designed so they can be done from almost any computer.

You have access to the computer lab on the 2nd floor of the Brickyard if that is a convenient place for you to work. If you have problems with door access or computer login, please contact me.

A link to the grades ...

Exercise: Final Project

Exercise: Virtual Worlds Reading

Assigned: 1 Nov
Due: 6 Nov

Learning objective: Learn about virtual worlds. Next week we will have two classes devoted to this subject. Also: Let's play with the Google Docs more, and see how collaboration works.

Description: Download the two articles on the Discussion Board under the "Virtual Worlds" thread. Read them and add your thought/interests to the Google Doc that I will start and invite the class to modify. (Contact me if you can't find the document or modify it.)

Your contribution to the Google Doc will determine your grade. (Again, no right or wrong; just demonstrate that you read the articles and can collaborate with the Google Docs.)

Exercise: Excel Visualization

Assigned: 2 Oct
Due: 9 Oct

Learning objective: Become aware of and learn to use the Excel visualization tools. Learn to use the Excel Help and/or follow instructions in the Chart Wizard.

Description: Using the data you entered in the 'Excel Spreadsheet' exercise, create visualizations of the data. Create the following three visualizations.

Pie chart: Use the pie chart tool to visualize your expenses for September.

Bar chart: Use the bar chart to visualize the actual and budgeted expenses for September, item by item.

Your choice!: choose one of the other visualization tools to visualize something else about your data. See the Wizard or Help for options.

The visualizations should have nicely/logically labeled elements and a title.

The visualization tools are in the "Chart Wizard". The icon looks like a bar chart and it lives in the Insert menu. This should be a 'self-study' experience -- use the Help and Wizard to play with the options. The assignment should take less than an hour to do, unless you get fancy and try lots of things. If you have problems, please contact me rather than spending hours confused.

Post in the Digital Dropbox. As before, name your file with your name.

Exercise: Excel Spreadsheet

Assigned: 25 Sept
Due: 2 Oct

Learning objective: Become familiar with one of the most used informatics tools -- spreadsheets.

Description: Create a personal monthly budget spreadsheet that tracks your finances for August and September of this semester. Create a template for adding entries for October. Use the example on the class schedule webpage as a starting point, but this should be modified significantly as follows.

Add labels for your name and title of document. Add more budget items -- you should have a total of ten. (These ten items are fixed for each month.) Add labels and entries for totaling over all months. Use colored cells and varying text size to make the document nice to read.

Personalize it -- with the layout and contents -- maybe you will want to continue using this! Of course you can put fake numbers in this document if you would rather not share this information with me.

Don't be afraid to use the Help utility in Excel. For design ideas, you will find lots of examples on the web. (But you are not required to get as fancy as the products for sale.)

If you cannot use Excel, then contact me.

Put the assignment in the Digital Dropbox. Your assignment should be named "yourname.xls"

Exercise: Everything Everwhere Reading

Assigned: 20 Sept
Due: 25 Sept

Learning objective: This reading should expose you to new technologies and potentially careers you have not considered. Also, this reading will reiterate the need for imaginative informatics tools.

Description: Find the "Everything Everywhere" reading on the Discussion Board. Download the article and read it. Post your thoughts/comments on the article. You should post at least 50 words.

Exercise: Google Earth

Assigned: 6 Sept
Due: 11 Sept

Learning objective: Learn to fly and program Google Earth! The purpose of this assignment is to learn to navigate with Google Earth and to record a tour.

Description: Record a tour of your choice that visits at least four places. Create a theme for your tour. Ideas: *) Your family - tour your family's homes; you could share this with them. *) Dream vacation spots. *) Global warming - visit places seriously effected by global warming. *) Google blackouts - there are places where the imagery has been blocked for security reasons. An example of this is 10 Downing Street.

Here is the checklist for your themed tour.

1. Name the themed tour.
2. Name and add placemarks at the locations you visit.
3. Adjust the view at these locations so it isn't just a "top" view.
4. Be sure to "play" your tour to test it.

Please see the following link for a tutorial on Google Earth. http://www.eastchester.k12.ny.us/schools/hs/teachers/fermann/documents/GEforESmanual.pdf Read through the tutorial to learn the basics of navigation.

Following the specifications above, create a tour as described on page 8 of the document in the link above, and save the file as a KMZ. (But check out the KML and compare it to your XML exercise.) Give the KMZ file a file name that reflects your name and the theme. If I created a tour of my family's homes, I would create something like DianneHansford-MyFamilyHomes.kmz. Post it on the Discussion Board on our Blackboard site under the GoogleEarth forum. Please name your DB entry based on your tour theme. The class will be able to view your tour, so please make it acceptable for this audience.

Exercise: XML

Assigned: 4 Sept
Due: 11 Sept

Learning objective: The purpose of this assignment is to give you hands on experience with a language that is today pervasively used to describe information. By giving it a try, you will see that it really isn't very complicated!

Description: Create an XML file containing information regarding the courses that you are taking during this semester (Fall 2007). The course information that needs to be in the XML file is as follows.

1. SLN (use this as the unique Identifier ID attribute)
2. Course name
3. Instructor
4. Department
5. Departmental course number
6. Location where the course is held (building name)
7. Room number in that building.

The XML document should be a well-formed XML document. This can be verified using the following URL which checks for well-formedness of the XML document. http://www.validome.org/xml/ (this link was fixed on 9/4 at 3:15pm)

Load the file, check "view source code" and "well formedness only", and then 'validate' Do a "Print Screen" and save the results in a Word document. (I want to see the sentence "This document is well-formed" and the source code listing.

Turn in this assignment using the Digital Dropbox on the course BlackBoard site. Name your file with your name; for example, I would name my file DianneHansford.doc (You will find this under 'Tools'. See the Help document if you need assistance.)

The following URL is a good reference for more information on XML. http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp

Exercise: Google Search with Advanced Operators

Assigned: 28 Aug (T)
Due: 4 Sep (T) -- Graded!

Learning objective: Tools for memory: Document retrieval (Google). Learn to be an expert user of Google through use of the advanced operators. The objective is to give you the tools to search more efficiently.

Description: Learn to use the Google operators and advanced operators outlined on http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html . More Google search tips can be found on http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20041031.asp.

Create a search on a topic of your choice using four of the (advanced) operators. Compare this search to one created by a novice user. (By this I mean a search done without operators.) Post your novice and expert search string on the discussion board (under the 'Google search exercise forum'). Comment on the difference in search results. (I would like to see a search that is improved by using the advanced operators.)

Search string = what you type into the Google search engine. In Informatics, strings are sequences of simple objects. Here the objects are letters, symbols, and spaces.

TIP: By the way ... you can practice with the advanced operator shortcuts using the "Advanced Search" page.

Search Results on the Web: Bonus or Bogus?
(Notes from the '21st Century Information Fluency' website http://21cif.imsa.edu/)
(Please look at the circle-diagram on the link above.)

Throughout your career you will need to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources. How do you evaluate a website? Here are some tips.

1. What is the author's expertise on the topic?
2. How reliable is the publisher (site) of the Web page?
3. How reliable are the pages that the author's page links to?
4. Do other reliable (or unreliable) pages provide links to the author's page?
5. What is the page rank of this site?
6. What information on the topic is available from traditional sources such as newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias or library resources on the Web?
7. How recently was the page published or updated?
8. Assess the accuracy of the information in the document.
9. Does the page show signs of bias in its perspective or presentation?
10. What evidence is provided to support opinions and conclusions expressed in the document?
11. Can you contact someone with expertise in the area to validate the opinions or conclusions expressed in the document?

Nothing to turn-in with respect to the tips ... I just thought you would find this helpful!

If you would like to comment on this -- share your experiences (good and bad) -- please open a new forum on the discussion board.

Assigned: 21 Aug (T)
Due: 23 Aug (TH) -- Graded

Learning objective: Tools for communication and networking! Find the class website and BlackBoard (BB) site. Learn to post a comment.

Description: On the BB site, you will find two questions. (1) Why are you interested in this course? (2) What are your favorite informatics tools? Please comment on both.