Landing : Athabascau University

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FAQs: Course process : Site design : HTML : CSS : JavaScript : JQuery : AJAX : Misc : Accessing your web space at AU : Podcasts for each unit

Updated resource pages:  Unit 1 - Unit 2  - Unit 3Units 4 & 5 - Unit 6 - Unit 7

Important notice: the student web server is unavailable. Until this is fixed, we do not require you to upload your site to the student server. See Running a web server on your local machine for details of how to meet the requirements for the final unit, and my posts on the subject in the discussion forum for further information about the problem.

Testing of a new server is in progress: if you would like to get early access and you are unafraid of working with command lines, network settings, and conf files, please contact Gerald Abshez, asking to be part of the trial.

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  • Mushtaq Ahmad commented on the file Mats Phillips Unit 2 November 27, 2016 - 11:30am
    Hello I have reviewed the html code and I would like to suggest to add a few line of comments at the beginning of the code as well as add the comments in the code and here are the points that we should keep in mind: Why you wrote a particular...
  • Mats Phillips published a blog post Unit 2 - HTML Learning Diary November 22, 2016 - 5:06pm
    Link to SCIS website: http://student.athabascau.ca/~matsph/Zipped Unit 2 files (including website): Work for this Unit:Activities:                Read the Unit 2...
  • Mats Phillips uploaded the file Mats Phillips Unit 2 November 22, 2016 - 5:06pm
    All files important to Unit 2.
    Comments
    • Mushtaq Ahmad November 27, 2016 - 11:30am

      Hello I have reviewed the html code and I would like to suggest to add a few line of comments at the beginning of the code as well as add the comments in the code and here are the points that we should keep in mind:

      Why you wrote a particular function or other code block
      What task the code block is supposed to perform
      Who requested the code block
      Why you used a particular technique for writing the code block
      Which resources you used to create the code
      How the code was created and tested
      Who worked on the code (including contact information)
      When the code was created

      Source: Mueller, John Paul. "Chapter 3 - Integrating HTML5 and JavaScript". HTML5 Programming with JavaScript For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

    • Mats Phillips December 19, 2016 - 10:31am

      I edited the file to include comments.

  • Mats Phillips uploaded the file Unit 1 Personas, Scenarios, Map, and Mock-up.pdf November 9, 2016 - 3:10pm
    Mats Phillips Unit 1 Personas, Scenarios, Map, and Mock-up
  • Mats Phillips published a blog post Unit 1 - Learning Diary and PDF submission November 9, 2016 - 2:56pm
    Work for this Unit:Activities:                Made 3 personas                Made 7...
  • Mats Phillips published a blog post Unit 0 Introduction November 4, 2016 - 1:31pm
    UNIT 0: Hello, my name is Mats Phillips. I am currently in the optional courses section of my accounting program, and since I like programming, I picked this course. I have mostly programmed in C++ before, with a little in Ruby and Java, as well...
  • Noureen K published a blog post Website- free tools, ideas October 8, 2016 - 10:16am
    Here is a great website I found for ideas or free tools: https://visualhierarchy.co/shop/product-category/freebies/ http://www.webaward.org/winners_detail.asp?yr=all&award_level=best&category=School
  • Jesse McCarthy published a blog post Reflection Diary Unit Four September 27, 2016 - 2:19pm
     Work Competed and Learning Outcomes:Having already been fairly acquainted with JavaScript, what I found most challenging was to find a usable piece of code. After searching far too long, I finally decided to use code that dealt with email...
  • Matthew Lange commented on a bookmark PCjs: The Original IBM PC in Your Browser August 29, 2016 - 4:41pm
    That's pretty great, I must admit.
  • Jodene Humeniuk published a blog post Unit 3 - CSS and Learning Diary 4 August 14, 2016 - 1:59pm
    I found this unit to be quite tricky.
  • Jesse McCarthy published a blog post Unit Two Reflection Diary July 15, 2016 - 7:45pm
    Work Competed and Learning Outcomes:To start I went over the moodle content for unit two. I went over the poorly written sample html pages and found many examples of poor coding practice:Many tags were capitalized, such as the h1 tag, a few p...
  • Jesse McCarthy published a blog post Unit One Reflection Diary June 16, 2016 - 7:03pm
     Work Completed and Learning OutcomesRead through the unit one course material, taking notes of important information as well as the expected learning outcomes of the module. I found Ben Hunt’s article on personas and scenarios to be...
  • Taylor Polite published a blog post Unit 5 Pt. 1: Analysis and Design February 24, 2016 - 2:34pm
    Idea 1: Interactive Slide Show For my first idea, I thought that an interactive slideshow of images relating to my company would be appealing to the majority of personas that I came up with in unit 1. While some of the personas come to the site...
  • Jon Dron created a wiki page Prerequisites for COMP 266 December 8, 2015 - 1:24pm
    I often receive applications for COMP 266 from those that have not taken either COMP 200 or COMP 210 (technically not prerequisites as such, but one or other is highly recommended). This page is mainly for them, so that I do not need to re-type the...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked PCjs: The Original IBM PC in Your Browser November 23, 2015 - 4:05pm
    This is one of the most remarkable uses of in-browser JavaScript I have ever seen. It is an IBM PC emulator, and it really works. Actually, I think it is a fair bit faster than my first (mid-80s) PC and it certainly looks a lot better on my modern...
    Comments
  • Justin Jaunzemis published a blog post Unit 2 Learning Diary August 31, 2015 - 10:46pm
    For Unit 2
  • Jon Dron bookmarked LiveCoding - JavaScript channels August 22, 2015 - 11:32am
    Livecoding is a site where you can watch people code, in real-time. If you sign up, you can sometimes interact with them and other watchers too. This is, at least potentially, an extremely valuable educational experience, with a whole bunch of...
  • Jon Dron commented on the blog Unit 0 - Learning Diary July 16, 2015 - 6:50pm
    Welcome, Jonathan! Indeed, lorem ipsum would not do, unless it were a site about nonsense Latin. Part of the idea behind the course is to encourage a bit of design thinking, so what you produce needs to be fit for purpose. At least, there has to be...
  • Jonathan Rempel published a blog post Unit 0 - Learning Diary July 15, 2015 - 3:48pm
    Hey All,About Me:- Started with a year of college after highschool on Cisco networking, cable/fiber installation, and hardware/software repair- Worked as a Tech-Support Analyst for 2 years- Currently finishing up some summer courses before...
    Comments
    • Jon Dron July 16, 2015 - 6:50pm

      Welcome, Jonathan!

      Indeed, lorem ipsum would not do, unless it were a site about nonsense Latin. Part of the idea behind the course is to encourage a bit of design thinking, so what you produce needs to be fit for purpose. At least, there has to be sufficient appropriate content that we can see how and why it is appropriate. We don't mind the use of filler where you have already demonstrated that the site fits its purposes, personas and scenarios, but there always has to be some relevant content. Maybe one way you might make it fit your needs would be to create a site about the technical side? That could be a great exemplar for other students and it would be terrifically easy to generate those personas and scenarios - they are all here on this course!

      Re the grading criteria, there's a little bit of professional judgement involved (true of the authentic assessment of any creative pursuit like programming and web development) but the criteria are fairly easily applied and we have a moderation process that helps to keep things consistent. The moderation is barely needed as there's notably little (if any) discrepancy between markers, 99% of the time. On the whole, we tend to agree with the majority of student self-evaluations too, albeit rather less consistently: by the time students have learned enough to really understand what the criteria mean, they tend to be exceptionally good at identifying how well they have done. Most of the times we disagree tend to result from students prematurely submitting finished work.  One of our students has volunteered his work as an exemplar, that I will link to once it is fully ratified so that you can see one way of doing it and get a sense of what we think of it. If anyone else would be willing to share, do mention it, because I'd like to provide more examples, especially good ones! I very much want to avoid channelling anyone to take a particular kind of path, however. One of the things I am most pleased with in the design of this course is that there a millions of ways to succeed. In fairness, there are as many billions of ways to fail as there are millions to succeed, but almost all the students that complete the course take one of the successful paths, at least by the end.

      The lack of hierarchy and top-down control on the Landing is very intentional. Apart from the odd bits here and there in groups that might reflect a more rigid hierarchy, it deliberately follows two social patterns, network and set, that are substantially hierarchy-free. The form reflects the function. It's exactly because it is not neatly organized from the top down that it is worth using instead of a teacher-controlled space for the kind of work done here, where we are trying to to reduce the boundaries and barriers to the minimum and to positively encourage and nurture diversity. We don't want to make you think like us - we want to help you develop your own thinking, as well as to valorize the diversity of skills and talents of our students so everyone can stand on the shoulders of everyone else. I agree, though, it doesn't make things easy to find and it certainly feels quite confusing and chaotic at times. It's more of a fast-flowing stream, with the odd pocket of organization like an FAQ poking its head up here and there, than a carefully organized catalogue. We continue to use Moodle too, exactly because it gives us control and supports such hierarchies. Horses for courses!

      I hope you enjoy the course. It's not like most courses and it does take some getting used to, but one of the things I really love about it is that, unlike its predecessor, we often get passionate students producing masterpieces rather than simply doing what we have told them to do. Even those that are more focused on grades frequently produce amazing work: we've tried hard to align the assessment with things that are meaningful and useful. Another thing that I love is that, once the marks are in, the lessons are not forgotten but can be built upon and retained indefinitely. When it works, it really works well! If it feels confusing, or you feel lacking in direction, do use your tutor and, especially, this group to help find a useful path.

      Jon

  • Kevin O'Hearon published a blog post Unit 1 July 9, 2015 - 9:39am
    Site Purpose  Personas & Scenarios   Site Mock Up   Summary Journal Entry