The course is to broaden your horizons and force you to start thinking as to what are the consequences of the rapid expansion of information technology and telecommunication into our every-day life.
This course is running for the first time (aafter a break of a year) within the WebCT environment. Obviously, it is not perfect, and now things will be a bit rusty, and I expect that we will run into some glitches, and your understanding and help are highly appreciated (for instance, this intro is form another course and I will update it some time in the future, but not immediately). In particular, I am trying to have this happening as close to the textbook as spossible. I have decided that for a web-based course this may be the best way to proceed. This means, howevert, that I am assigning most homework assignments directly from the book. In some cases these book-based assignments have been found somewhat confusing. If you experience this, please remind me to improve the assignment descriptions (augment it in the web-environment). As a matter of fact, I hope that you will give me ideas as to how this course can be improved so that future students can be more satisfied and learn more while taking it.
Modern computing is a discipline that is very much a team effort and requires very good communication skills. This being the case, since WebCT provides appropriate support mechanisms (bulletin board and e-mail) I will try to find ways to encourage your working on communication abilities. This point is very important! I have found that in the past these classess that utilized the bulletin board to communicate did better than these that tried to do everything individually. With my travel schedule it may be that I am not able to reply to your personal e-mails on time, but when all of you e-communicate, you should be able to find solution to common problems and to straighten misunderstandings.
Furthermore, since written communication is one of the more important aspects of being a "professional" in any of the sciences, you will find that most homework assignments involve writing. Please take these assignments seriously and do not try to blow them off with a few words. This is not what is expected and I am really serious about it.
Marcin Paprzycki (dr. P.)
Phone:
0-11-48-606612166 (in Poland -- cell phone)
Private MAIL (inside of WebCT) use the Mail (Private) link on the "control panel"
E-mail (you can use either one, but in case of emergency use both as either of the servers may be down):
marcin.paprzycki@ibspan.waw.pl
Web-site: