Karma updated in My Grades

Update on Friday Task & Journal Task readings

Obviously I'm a bit unfocused...I forgot to put a link to the readings into the Friday task writeup (which also affects your Journal Task). My apologies - it's fixed now.

My availability after the exam

Due to a serious illness on my wife's side of the family, I need to travel to Japan from December 11th. I will be doing some hardcore marking of your finals on the 8th and 9th, so should have your official results in by the evening of the 9th at the latest.

Given my traveling plans, please be advised that I will only be available on December 10th (Monday) from 9 - 6 for questions regarding your final marks!

Some practice final questions available

Another instructor has made a small practice exam for you to take online here on the General Site.

My Tasks, My Journal Tasks, and My Objectives have all been updated

If you're curious for more details about the micro/nanotech examples from Wednesday's lecture...

readings can be found here.

Final exam handout available in the Test Info section

Friday task up - bonus mark available

Sorry about the delay - the Friday task is now up...if you can complete it successfully for Monday, you have yourself a bonus mark.

Special journal task - bonus mark available

The journal task for this week is a bit different - I'd suggest that even those who don't usually do journals take a look at it, as I'm giving out a "free" mark that counts towards your final grade. Isn't bribery wonderful?

Notes on quiz 2

Marks are now up for quiz 2. Two things:

1. On the piggybacking question, I gave you the mark if you answered B or D.
2. I tossed out the Network Neutrality question...I was tempted to keep it in, as only *8* people looked at the readings (according to Blackboard)...but the fact that not one of those 8 people got the question correct is a bit of a red flag.

Class average: 55%

Important Tour Information

1. Since I've been given the go-ahead by IT, I'm going to go with one tour on Friday, and one tour on Monday. Each tour will meet by U210 at 11:00 AM. (If you came in the West Gate and were going to walk to the swimming pool observation area, you would pass by U210 on the way there.)
2. I'm going to allow some more flexibility for questions - in retrospect, it's a bit hard for you to ask questions in advance, isn't it? So if you ask a reasonable question on the tour (based on what you're seeing and what our guide is presenting), I'll give you the karma bump.
   

Added info regarding Demo 2 to Discussion Board

Two things:

1. The instructions for Demo 2 have been slightly modified...I've reworded the task regarding Ctrl+Alt+Del a bit.
2. I've placed a thread regarding Demo 2 in the Q&A forum on the Discussion Board.
   

Important demo booking information

I've modified the Google calendar showing available times for demos...here are the important points:

1. Time slots that aren't marked are NOT available for demos.
2. I've expanded my available booking times for demos 2 through 4...you can see them marked on the calendar as "Demos 2-4 only"
3. Friday, December 7th is the LAST day for bookings - no exceptions.
   

Demo 4 now up in My Demos

Friday tasks up in My Tasks section

About the tours on November 16 & 19

Just some info on the classes for November 16 & 19:

• We'll be taking a short (~15 minute) tour of some of the facilities in the IT department here at the college - of particular interest is the server room.
• It would be great if you had some questions ready for the person giving us the tour, so if you can think of a college-related IT question you'd like to ask, please email me the question before noon on Thursday, November 15th. Any reasonable question (my discretion) will nab you 10 karma points.
• You must sign up for one of the four available time slots - go to the Discussion Board and look for the IT Tour Sign-up forum for more information.
• Material covered during the tour will be on the final exam.
  

5% Offer + the Grade Estimator

As mentioned in class, you have the option of reducing the weighting on one of your pre-final non-demo assessments (so that means midterm, quizzes, assignments, lab exams, or journal) by 5% and transferring that 5% to your final exam. So, for example, you could do away with your first quiz altogether and have your final weighted at 35%; or you could reduce your midterm weighting to 5% and have your final weighted at 35%.

If you wish to take advantage of this offer, you must email by noon on December 7th, stating in the email which assessment you're reducing. There is no exception to this deadline.

If you want to see how this might effect your marks, use the Grade Estimator - but follow this procedure:

1. Open up the Grade Estimator (it's in the Course Docs section)
2. Enter in your marks on the MAIN worksheet as per usual
3. In the "Reduce by 5%?" column, enter in a "y" for the assessment you want to reduce the weighting on - keep this as "n" otherwise.
   

Quiz reminder

This is just a reminder that there will be a quiz on Wednesday, November 14, in class.

The quiz will consist of 12 questions, 4 from each of the DB, Network, and Internet units. Of these 4 questions, one will be related to vocabulary from the vocabulary lists not covered in class. (This is to simulate the experience you will be having on the not-too-distant final, and to encourage you to be constantly reviewing those vocabulary lists.)

The quiz will be 15 minutes long, and we will go over the results immediately after the quiz is complete.

The quiz will be worth 5% of your final mark.

Friday tasks and journal tasks up