Course Expectations and Tentative Syllabus
CSC:230 Programming Concepts and GUIs Spring 2005
Section 21 Meets: MWF 11:00am-11:50am Room: 209 Olney Hall
Lab Tues 11:00am-12:45pm Room 200 Olney Hall
Professor: Dr Redmond Office Hours: MWF 10:00-10:50am
330 Olney Hall (215) 951-1096 MWF 12:00-12:50pm
redmond@lasalle.edu And at other times by appointment http://www.lasalle.edu/~redmond/teach/230
Text:
Zak, D., Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Reloaded, Thomson Course Technology, 2004 ISBN: 0-619-21565-8
Course Description:
This course is an introductory computer science course, primarily for computer science, information technology, mathematics, and science majors, also taken by education majors. Not to be confused with an introduction to using computers (136/151/152), this course places a heavy emphasis on learning to write computer programs. It introduces the major types of programming constructs that are common to most languages. It emphasizes proper programming techniques, to give a firm foundation for future courses and for the workplace. This course also provides exposure to the Visual Basic programming language, which is popular in the marketplace due to its ease of creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs).
An important part of the class is the two-hour lab each Tuesday. Your regular attendance is expected, as with other class meetings.
Prerequisite: You must be competent in basic operation of a computer, (which can be demonstrated by successful completion of CSC 136, 151 or 152 OR by passing the competency test administered by the department during DAY ONE).
Grading: Final Grades:
Quizzes 10% B+ 88-89 C+ 78-79 D+ 68-69
Assignments 20% A 92-100 B 82-87 C 72-77 D 60-67
Exam 1 20% A- 90-91 B- 80-81 C- 70-71
Exam 2 20% F < 60
Final 25%
Class Participation 5%
Quizzes will be short, 10 minutes or less, with one or a few questions, given at the beginning of class, typically on Friday. Latecomers to class will not be given extra time to complete the quiz. Lowest quiz score (or one missed quiz) will be dropped.
Assignments will typically be assigned on a Monday, possibly with “pre-lab” preparation work to do, hands on time in the lab on Tuesday, and “post-lab” work to do, due the following Monday.
Do your own assignments !!!! Work that is copied or done with somebody (when not assigned to a group) will be punished. If programs are copied, both students will receive a zero for the assignment. Changing small aspects of a copied program does not make it not a copy. Asking another for help on a step or two in a many-step assignment is acceptable; looking at another person’s program is temptation for cheating; handing in a near duplicate program is cheating
Late Assignments -25% per weekday (NOTE - NOT per CLASS)
UNLESS SPECIFIED OTHERWISE ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
-10% if handed in after start of class and before I leave for the day.
Makeup exams only by advance arrangements or for documented real emergencies, such as medical problems. Makeup may involve double-counting your final exam.
The Final Exam is cumulative, though it will focus more on the (previously untested) final third of the course.
Class participation grade will be assigned based on 1) attendance, 2) in class contribution, and 3) “minute papers” turned in at the end of each class. These minute papers may vary in content, including reflection, questions, etc from class. More details will be given in class. The formula for calculating class participation is available upon request.
Materials: You will need at least 3 diskettes. Generally assignments will be handed in on diskettes and a new assignment will be started on the next day - before the previous assignment is graded. You will also want to keep a disk with backup copies. You will need access to Visual Basic and Microsoft’s Visual Studio development environment outside of class. This is installed on PCs in labs in Olney 200/200A/201. The software can be downloaded for free via the ELMS program. (The book may include a CD with VB and VB .NET. If so, that is an alternative as well. Last semester students had more success with the book CD than with the ELMS approach).
Open Lab Location: Olney 200A is available (small number of computers) irregular hours (most of the day, but not late)
Olney 200 and 201 are occasionally available when not being used for classes.
E-mail: You will need to check e-mail regularly. If you send me e-mail from a non-La Salle account (e.g. Yahoo, Hotmail, etc), be sure you put either your name or CSC 230 in the subject to ensure that I read it, and make sure that your name is somewhere (subject or body). Assignments and information may also be posted on my WWW page.
Middle States: The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science will be conducting a self-study during the next four years. A part of this process involves inviting external experts who will review our course offerings, assessment measures, and student work. For this reason, faculty members will keep sample copies of students’ work including tests, homework assignments, programming assignments, and projects. Every effort will be made to ensure individual names are eliminated from these “artifacts.” During the early part of the semester, you will be provided the opportunity to “opt-in” or “opt-out” of this effort.
Course Objectives
1. Teach systematic program development and debugging techniques.
2. Demonstrate basic programming statements including IF-THEN-ELSE, Loops, Subroutines.
3. Demonstrate use of built-in data types.
4. Demonstrate use of classes, an implementation of the concept of abstract data types.
5. Demonstrate use of file processing.
6. Demonstrate use of Arrays.
7. Demonstrate the creation of graphical user interfaces and the handling of “events” such as mouse-clicks
8. Emphasize the importance of DOCUMENTED code.
9. Provide experience writing, testing and debugging programs.
Tentative Course Plan:
The course is extremely unlikely to follow this exactly. Attending class is the best way to know adjustments (especially with regard to exams)
|
Estimated Date |
Book Pages |
Topic |
Days |
|
1/18 LAB |
|
Intro to Class |
1/2 |
|
1/18 LAB |
2-28 |
Development Environment and Creating Interface |
1/2 |
|
1/19 |
42-47 |
Planning an Application |
1 |
|
1/21, 1/24 |
72-82 |
Variables |
2 |
|
1/25 LAB |
48-60 |
Creating Interface |
1 |
|
1/26, 1/28 |
82-99 |
Simple Coding |
2 |
|
1/31, 2/2, 2/4 |
100-102, 118-128, 128-148 |
Selection - IF |
3 |
|
2/7, 2/9 |
148-157 |
Nested IF/ ELSEIF / CASE |
2 |
|
2/11, 2/16 |
178-181 |
Repetition – For Next Loops |
2 |
|
2/14 |
|
TEST – Chapters 1-4 |
1 |
|
2/18, 2/21, 2/23 |
185-191 191-197 |
DO LOOP |
3 |
|
2/25, 2/28, 3/2 |
250-263 |
Sub Procedures |
3 |
|
3/4 |
263-267 |
Function Procedures |
1 |
|
3/7 – 3/11 |
|
SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS |
|
|
3/14, 3/16, 3/18 |
284-294 294-304 |
Files |
3 |
|
3/21 |
324-330 |
Arrays |
1 |
|
3/23 |
|
TEST 2 – Chapters 5,7,8 |
1 |
|
3/25, 3/28 |
|
EASTER BREAK – NO CLASS |
|
|
3/30, 4/1, 4/4 |
330-340 |
Arrays |
3 |
|
4/6, 4/8 |
340-351 |
Parallel Arrays and 2-Dimensional Arrays |
2 |
|
4/11, 4/13, 4/15 |
372-382 |
Structures |
3 |
|
4/18 |
382-396 |
More Controls |
1 |
|
4/20, 4/22, 4/25, 4/27, 4/29 |
416-427 |
Classes and Objects |
5 |
|
Mon May 2 10:30- 12:20 |
|
Final Exam |
|