Start Here

Course Check-In

IMPORTANT! Class Check In Details!!!

In the face-to-face version of this class you must attend the first day of class, Tuesday, August 15th at 8:00 A.M. room 970 of the Business and Technology Center (2nd floor) or you will be dropped from the class as a no-show.

Course Introduction

This course is an elective for the following CIS department academic awards:

• The Programming state certificate.
• The Programming track A.S. degree.
• The Internet Authoring state certificate.
• The Internet Authoring track A.S. degree.

This course is designed to introduce scholars to fundamental computer programming concepts and principles, and the skills necessary to begin developing modern-day desktop, mobile, and Web applications. The knowledge and skills learned by scholars completing this course are very much in demand by all employers who use computer technologies in their businesses - so pretty much every business out there today.

Apple founder Steve Jobs once wrote the he believed that "everyone should learn how to program, because it teaches you how to think." Watch the following YouTube video to learn about people who already have learned these skills and who have worked or are working now in not just the field of software development, but other exciting fields as well.

Without hesitation I can promise you this, if you start putting forth the effort now and commit to exerting 100% effort to successfully learn the content of this course, you will look back on this day at some point and say "that's the day that changed my life." And, it's not a far stretch to say that you very well could be one of the next computer programming rock stars.

In order to successfully complete this course read everything thoroughly!!!

Where Do I Start?

1. Finish reading all of this Start Here page
2. Next, click on this link and read: CIS Department Email Policy
3. Then read the Syllabus, which will inform you of the course content and the due dates for your class assignments.
4. Follow the instructions on the Lessons page to complete the Getting Started assignment.

Deadlines MUST Be Met!!!

All Assignments, Exams, and/or Quizzes  are active, you may complete them ahead of schedule, but you MUST HAVE each ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED by 11:59 P.M. on its DUE DATE or before!!! THERE WILL BE NO EXTENSIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Note: Due Dates for any and all Assignments, Exams or Quizzes are listed in the Syllabus for this class.

How This Course Works

The Lessons page has links to all of the online instructional materials and is designed to guide you through all of the lessons and assignments you will be completing in this class. This course is offered in several different formats and lengths, so it is important that you use the Syllabus as your guide regarding the correct date when each of your assignments are due for your specific class.

There are 13 lessons in this course and several lessons have a coding assignment which you will need to complete and submit for assessment. There will also be one Midterm and one Final assignment which you will need to complete and submit for assessment. The sum of the points you earn on all of your assignments will dertemine your grade in this class.

Contained within each Lesson are examples of programming code which I recommend you type out and run in Visual Studio to help you to understand the process of writing code as well as comprehending the particular code demonstrated by the example (you will learn how to get access to Visual Studio as part of the Getting Started assignment which you should complete the first day of class, and absolutely must complete by the end of the first week of class.

You will want to start early in the week to complete your reading and coding examples, especially in the online version of this class so that you can email your instructor and receive any assistance you may need as you progress through the weekly lesson. My recommendation is that you set aside at least 90 minutes every night to spend reading and writing code throughout the duration of this class. You will be given plenty of time to complete each lesson's Skills Assignment which you can also ask for help with, but don't procrastinate or you may not have enough time to finish if you wait until the last minute. Please note your instructor does not respond to emails Friday through Sunday, see the Instructor's Regular Effective Contact Policy for more details.

Learning application development skills is like anything else you do in life, the more you do it the better you get at it. With that in mind, you are encouraged to challenge yourself and to apply as much of what learn from your reading to your completed Skills Assignments as you can. This will help you to create strong mental recall capabilities which are needed to become more proficient with your application development skills as you evolve into becoming a coding professional.

How to Submit Your Assignments

By clicking on the Submit An Assignment link in your CSIS 111B online course shell, you will be taken to a page which lists all of the Skills Assignments. Click on the appropriate Assignment number for the assignment you want to submit and you will see the assignment submisison page for that Assignment. Just click on the attach button, locate the correct zipped solution folder on your computer and attach it. Once the Due Date for that Skills assignment has passed, your assigment will be evaluated and your score posted within seven days of the Due Date, see the course Syllabus for the Due Dates of all assignments.

Getting Help

How Can I Earn Extra Credit?

The Web presentation for this course is jammed pack with information, most of it I have created and typed myself. Being human, I do make mistakes - just ask my wife! While you read through the online course materials, if you find a typo, a misspelled word, or a grammatical error, I would very much appreciate it if you would call it to my attention. All you have to do is tell me which page you found it on (email me the URL) and give me a general description of the error (where to find it on the page). For each one you submit I will award you 5 extra credit points and offer you my deepest gratitude.

There is a Help forum in the Discussion Board for students to ask questions and post problems they might have regarding an assignment. If you post an appropriate answer or the correct solution to a problem before I do then you will earn 5 extra credit points for each answer or correct solution you post - so keep an eye on the Help forum.

These are the only ways to earn extra credit in this class, please don't ask me if you can earn extra credit any other way. As long as you do the required work in this class, assignments, quizzes and exams, there should be little to no need for you to earn points by way of extra credit.

What is the Resources Link For?

The best and most successful Web developers thrive on learning as much as they can about the Internet and Web technologies. To help you get the most out of this course as possible, I have created a Resources link which will expose you to some of the best resources the Web has to offer regarding Web development. The more you learn about Web development the more successful you will become and the more likely it is that you will be able to compete with the Amazon's, Google's, and Microsoft's in the world. Explore as many of the hypertext links as you can and the Internet will be your oyster.

My Final Thoughts . . .

Good luck,

I hope you have fun, there's lots of cool stuff to learn so get started right away!!!

Bill Bennett, Associate Professor
Internet Authoring Program Coordinator
MSJC CIS MVC