About the Course/Instructor

CSC 105 - The Digital Age - Professor Jerod Weinman

1  About the Course

Q:

How long has this class been offered at Grinnell?

A:

It has been offered in one form or another since Spring 2000. (When even I was still in college.)

Q:

What kind of format will the midterm exams be in?

A:

They'll be short answer problems, similar to the sort you'll do on homework assignments.

Q:

What types of programs will we be using in class and how may this course be applied in the real world?

A:

This is the real world! We make choices every day about technology or that are impacted by technology. (What software did you use to send that e-mail? Did you digitally encrypt it? What operating system or mobile computing platform did you use? Answers to all of these questions are tied to the fundamental philosophical perspectives.)

We will use some pre-made software demonstrations and simulators, while you will also write your own programs! When the course is finished, you'll be able to use your foundational knowledge to critically examine your own technological choices.

Q:

The syllabus made it sound like they are only due on Mondays. Are they only due on Mondays?

A:

Yes, though only on the Mondays we have discussion (some Mondays we'll do other things-see the detailed course schedule).

Q:

How are the different things we're set to learn connected?

A:

Such a great question. I will be constantly working to make those connections, especially among the levels of abstraction, but the biggest connection for all of us to make will be between the pure "technical" content and the "social impact" content.

Q:

I am curious to see if we touch on video gaming systems at all (I intended for the question to be very broad because I cannot isolate relative subtopics in said system to the course content).

A:

It's not directly linked to anything in the syllabus, but I welcome any examples/applications/questions relevant to whatever topic we happen to be discussing.

Q:

I suppose I'm just curious about what kind of work the assignments will entail. You mention code in the syllabus.

A:

You'll complete and submit some of the in-class lab work. Others will be applications of ideas we discuss in class. (I.e., How would you build a circuit to compute X?)

Q:

Under formatting for reading response it says you would like responses using serif , is that a font?

A:

A serif font describes the property of using small lines to extend the general geometric shape of characters within fonts. This generally makes them slightly easier to read when printed. Cambria (the new MS Word default) is perfectly fine. Palatino is also round and pleasant. In the right mood I am fond of Garamond. If you can't pick anything else, Times New Roman would work so long as it's at least 12pt in size, but it is really designed for a narrow 2" newspaper column and does not work well when stretched horizontally to 6.5" of US Letter paper.

2  About the Instructor