CIS2: Welcome to CIS 2 Computers and Society

• Read the syllabus. The syllabus for the course is online. Please read it and keep a copy for future reference. http://faculty.deanza.edu/taylorvalerie/cis2syllabus.html?print-friendly=true

• On the first day of the semester, your will be able to access the course information online. There is NO student access to the system until the FIRST day of class.
  NOTE: If you are a late add, you will not have access to DeAnza Catalyst until the next day after your Add has been processed by Admissions and Records.
  Catalyst web site: http://catalyst.deanza.edu
  • Username: Your De Anza College Student ID
    (NOT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER). For security reasons, De Anza does not use any portion of your Social Security Number.
    If you cannot remember you Student ID, you can look it up on your My De Anza page (opens in new window). Click on "De Anza Registration System," then click on the "Main Menu" tab. At the bottom of that scree, under the tab "Click Here Account by Term" is an option for "Student ID Lookup."

  • Password: Your Birthday in this format: MMDDYYYY (Two digit month, followed by two digit day, followed by FOUR digit year; no slashes or spaces.)
    If you cannot remember your password, you may click the "Send my details via email" button under the login form.

  • Cookies must be enabled in your browser.

• Access DeAnza Catalyst and set up your account. Change your password to something you will remember - the password you use to access your email is a good choice.

• Begin working on the assignments for this week. 1. Introduction - Unwrapping the Gift

• Assignments are due 11:30pm on the due day.
  I do not grade assignments sent by email. Assignments must be submitted online. Late work will be accepted but points will be deducted.

• Be sure to log in at the beginning of the week and check what assignments are due this week. Some group assignments require participation throughout the week.

• You can work ahead if you want to - all assignments and course notes are visible and can be submitted before they are due. However, there are cut-offs for late work. Really late work will not be accepted without prior instructor notification.

• Is your comment accurate?
• Is it relavent to the issue under discussion?
• Have you taught us anything new?
• Have you added to the academic atmosphere of this course?

• It requires you, the author, to think about and clearly state the main point of your comment. To do this, you must have a clear understanding of the material, and this aids in learning and memory.

• It provides the reader with advance information which is helpful in organizing and learning the content of the comment. The reader should be able to determine the essence of your comment just by reading your Subject.

• Website Discussions
  Your assignment is to locate, review and lead a discussion on a website that presents new information relevant to the content of this lesson. In addition, you must participate in the discussions of at least 2 additional websites.

• Chapter Discussions
  Your assignment is to ask good critical-thinking questions for each chapter and facilitate the discussion of that questions. In addition to leading the discussion of your question, you must participate in the discussion of at least 3 additional questions in each chapter. All modules have two or more chapter discussions, and the discussions on each chapter are graded separately using the grading scale below.

• Google prioritizes the responses by a very complex secret method. In general, the ones that come up at the top of the list are frequently referenced by other sites and people stop searching after they have looked at these sites. If you don't find something appropriate in the top 20-30, think about other words that might be applicable and change your search.

• It is often quicker to do 3 or 4 different searches than wade through several hundred from your first search. Learning to pick search words that will give "good" results is really important.

• If you are not familiar with a topic, do a search with one or two words. Scan through the first 2-3 results to find more words that relate to the subject, then add those in your next search. Learning the vocabulary of the subject will help focus the search results.

• There are other search engines besides Google. Ask and Clusty may provide search results that you like better.

• DeAnza's library subscribes to a number of very good online services. Instead of getting millions of hits, you may only get 100s but they will be from reliable sources. See next section...