Browse around the course site in SLATE and get familiar with what's
there and what you can find.
Things To Do Later
Fill in your SLATE profile and upload your photo.
Review your notes from class:
Who is your professor? How do you contact your professor?
How are you evaluated in this course?
What are the assignment/test policies in this course?
What resources are available to you on the web site?
Course Overview
The following documents will give you an introduction to your professor,
an overview of the course and classroom policies, and a list and calendar
of topics covered:
I am assuming that you can also purchase your book online
from the Sheridan Bookstore (typically
I'd go to the bookstore and make sure it's there but since everything
is online, I'm guessing you can purchase it online).
This is a required text for this course and also for prog24178
in term 2.
Your professor or instructor will have a special link you can
use to access the textbook, along with instructions.
Make sure you get this link as
soon as possible so you can have access to the text right away.
If you are unable to purchase access to the text right away, you can
get a 14 day free trial from Pearson.
You can also find additional supplements on the
Textbook
Web Site,
such as a glossary, tutorials on how to use a variety of more sophisticated IDEs
(such as Eclipse and NetBeans), and extra information and tutorials on some of
the textbook topics.
Academic Integrity
What is academic integrity? This refers to the moral standard
or set of values you use in your work. It means doing your own
work yourself, and not copying it or purchasing it from someone
else. It means not presenting someone else's work as your own.
Important! Breaches of academic integrity are NOT ACCEPTABLE
at Sheridan, and
the penalties for such breaches can be a minimum of a 0 on the
evaluation item where the breach occurred, up to expulsion from
the program or the college.
You will be required to complete an Academic Integrity Tutorial
in this course, which includes a quiz that you much achieve a grade
of 80% or higher on (you will be allowed multiple attempts).
This tutorial and quiz are available in your SLATE section
for this course. If this tutorial and quiz are unavailable to
you, email
Wendi Jollymore with your class number.
Piazza
Some instructors and professors are using Piazza for class discussion. The
system is highly catered to getting you help fast and efficiently
from classmates and your teacher. Rather than emailing questions
about the course, I encourage you to post your questions on Piazza.
If you have any problems or feedback for the developers, email
team@piazza.com.
Learning Assistants
Learning Assistants (LAs) are available during the semester. They
are available for one-on-one tutoring and help, and they
hold an optional, weekly Java Jam (you will see this on your timetable as a 1-hour block
for this course).
LAs are also available for one-on-one help and tutoring. Sign up for this
in the LA office in the Learning Commons or visit the
TutorOcean
Web Site.
Important! Your SLATE section should have some documents on how to
connect with the LAs and how to book appointments for
tutoring help with the LAs. If you don't see these documents
in SLATE, email
Wendi Jollymore with your class number.
Study Notes
Hands-on courses like programming courses have two major learning
components: the hands-on part (e.g. the actual programming skills) and
the theory part (e.g. terminology, syntax rules). Learning the programming
skills is obviously done by writing programs (as many as you can!).
learning the theory can also be done by writing programs however, there's a
bit of memorization involved, also (such as knowing the 3 kinds of errors,
or remembering what a .java file and a .class file is). One thing
many students to do help learn and memorize the theory bits taught
in class is by taking notes during the lecture portion.
Taking notes for courses
that are more hands-on, like math or programming, can already be difficult
for a lot of students, and can therefore be a huge challenge if a student
is not a good note-taker to begin with.
To help you in your first term of programming, I've created a series of
"notes" for each lesson. However, giving you notes for each class would
defeat the whole purpose: Note-taking is done not just as a later reminder
of what went on in class, but the act of note-taking helps you to remember
and understand concepts, terms, theories, and other important details.
Often the act of note-taking is, in itself, studying. Students who
take good notes find they need to study less because the act of taking
notes has embedded a lot of the knowledge in their memory.
The "notes" I've provided for each lesson look more like quizzes or small
tests: they consist of various types of questions and sentences & diagrams
to fill in. By filling in the answers during class, you can "take notes"
that are useful to study from, and still be actively learning!
To obtain solutions to the notes pages, ask your learning assistant
for help. I don't give out the solutions, but your professor/instructor
or a learning assistant
will help you clarify any of your own answers, or help you find
answers you're having trouble with.
SLATE Profile and Photo
SLATE, our Course Management System, allows you to build a profile and
upload a photo of yourself. It is requested that you fill in your profile
and upload your photo so that your professors can get to know you better, but
it also helps us to learn your names a lot faster. :)
To edit your profile, click the down-arrow beside your name in the top-right
corner of any SLATE page and select "Profile". You don't have to fill in your
personal address and phone number unless you want to.
How to Succeed in this Course
You're not just here to get good grades (yes, that's important, but
not the only important thing!) You're also here to learn
and gain the skills needed to succeed in your future classes and future
employment. When teachers evaluate your work, it's not just so we can
assign a numeric grade to your work. We're evaluating what
you've learned and how well you can apply what
you've learned. Also, in courses like math, programming,
and application development, we're evaluating your
ability to problem solve and exercise
critical thinking.
In grade school, you learned many things by rote (memorization).
In college, the focus is more on application and
critical thinking.
Application involves taking the knowledge
and understanding you've gained and apply it to something. For example,
let's say your team leader asks you to write a program that calculates
the area of various kinds of shapes for a grade school math tutorial application.
You would take your knowledge of shapes and geometry and combine it
with the knowledge and skills you learned in your programming courses to create
the required program.
Critical thinking involves being able to identify,
analyse, and evaluate a situation, and then use your findings to develop
some sort of conclusion or solution. For
example, when a client hires you to develop a piece of software,
you would identify their needs and requirements, analyse and evaluate
the current system, and then come up with a software solution that
meets the clients requirements and that they're happy with.
So what does this all mean? It means that in order to be
successful in this course, you'll need to make an effort
to do the following things:
Read (and Watch) - read your notes and textbook so you
can learn the necessary terms, concepts, and program code. If
your professor/instructor makes videos, watch them thoroughly - pause when
necessary to take notes, focus only on the video and not on social
media, texting, etc (there will be time to catch up with friends later).
Don't forget to take notes!
PRACTICE - practice coding. Do the exercises
in the text and in the notes. If you run out of things to
practice, ask your instructor, professor, or learning assistant
for more practice exercises!
Review - go over the notes you made and the
practice exercises you did and re-do anything you're not sure of.
PRACTICE AGAIN - do more practice! I can't
emphasize how important practice is. You won't learn coding effectively
if you don't practice. And here's a tip: the more you practice, the
less time you'll have to spend studying for quizzes and tests!!
When you write a lot of code, you don't have to work hard to memorize it
because you've written it so many times. This means you can focus
on the more difficult tasks of applying what you're learning and problem solving.
Use Your Resources - you have so many resources available to you!
Not just your notes, text, professor/instructor, but also your learning
assistants. Ask for help when you need it, and don't wait until
the mid term or final exam.
Note As many of us work and study from home, it's so easy to sit all day
at the computer. Try not to do that! Get up and move at least once an
hour: take 250 steps (I walk up and down my hallway, or walk in place if I'm
in the middle of a class), stretch, do a bit of yoga (lots of great YouTube
videos for beginner yoga, and yoga will improve your balance and help you
relax), do a bit of cleaning, take the dog out. In addition, try to be active
for at least 30 minutes per day: go outside for a walk, work out,
dance to some music. If you're looking for something easy but effective,
go to YouTube
and search for "Leslie Sansone" - she has a whole collection of low impact
"walking at home" videos (search for her videos with Nick, if you prefer a male
instructor). Once you learn the easy moves, you can do them with your own
music! Adding a bit of activity every not only makes you healthier, but
it actually relaxes you and helps you think!
In addition to the above, you will need to use, and perhaps develop,
the following characteristics in yourself:
Self-Discipline - be able to tell yourself,
"Now it's time to work on my Java assignment." and go do it.
When you were young, your parents told you what to do and when.
Now you're an adult, and you have to direct yourself to do
the things you need to do. Don't make excuses ("I have to be
in the mood to study." or "I don't feel like working on the
assignment right now.") - that accomplishes
nothing and doesn't get you any closer to your goals. In the
real world, saying you're not in the mood to do your job isn't
going to get you very far.
Focus - learn techniques to help you focus on the
task you're trying to complete. For example
Play "white noise"
on your headphones. There are lots of great white noise apps
available for free - I recommend the ones by Maple Media
and Ambient Mixer.
They're also great if you need help sleeping in a noisy environment:
I play the rain sounds on my little Bluetooth speaker with a 1-hour timer and it blocks
out noise from neighbours, traffic, and most loud parties!
Turn off or silence notifications/devices such as
social media alerts, phone notifications, etc. (See
15 Tools to Help you Focus)
Set up an area where you do your school work and studying.
This seems like a little thing, but it makes such a huge difference.
It doesn't matter if your area is just a corner of a room (that's
what I have), as long as you have a space that is dedicated to
school work. (See Spaceship You video)
Organisation - stay organized. Keep a folder/directory
on your computer for each course, and create sub-folders/directories
(For example, in this course we like to have a Java1 directory,
and in there we like to have a /programs sub-directory where all your
programs will go. Inside /programs, you should have a directory
for each week.) There are also lots of tools you can use to keep
track of your notes, readings, and important dates. My current
favourite is Notion: Create a personal workspace
where you can keep your notes, grades, due dates, etc.
Tip: If you use your sheridancollege.ca email address
when you sign up, you can get a free Personal-Pro plan.
If you don't like Notion, try Trello
or Padlet.
Time Management - You are going to have MANY deadlines and
projects/assignments/tests while in school, and don't be shocked to find
that you will have SEVERAL things going on at the same time. This is a
NORMAL part of being in post-secondary education (we all did it and
survived - so will you, and it will make you a stronger adult).
Use the tools mentioned above to manage your due dates, deadlines, and test dates.
Set yourself up with a schedule. You already have your classes scheduled, but
it's very helpful to also schedule the times you will set aside for
practice, reading or watching videos, and review.
Stay Positive - keep a positive attitude and re-assure yourself
that you CAN do this. Keep a list of positive affirmations around you (I haven't
checked, but I bet there's an app that will give you one at random every day).
Don't be shy about telling yourself how amazing you are, how smart you are,
how strong you are. Stop yourself when you catch yourself saying something
negative and replace it with something positive (you can repeat something
to yourself in your head hundreds or thousands of times a day without even realizing
it, and you will believe it, so make sure you keep those thoughts positive!).
If you work better with rewards, then do that. For example, allow yourself
5 minutes of something you enjoy for every hour you spend on school work
(e.g. "I'll spend 3 hours working on this assignment, and then I'll watch
Try Channel on Youtube for 15 minutes."). Tip: try not to use food as a reward
too often, as it can set you up with unhealthy eating habits; switch it up
with physical activity, such as a walk outside or some yoga.
These are all valuable skills you'll also need in your future career, so developing
and improving these now is going to be something you can brag about
in job interviews and on your resume!