Hi Everyone!
Here are the key dates that you should have in your head:
On Tuesday, February 3: I will be introducing the HTML/Javascript Program assignment. The assignment description is here. I will spend the class helping you troubleshoot problems with the code. This is not really a coding assignment. The goals of this assignment are 1) to get you more comfortable using your computer as a personalizable machine instead of a box full of prefabricated apps, 2) to help students understand the potential use cases (and limitations) of large language models as research tools, and 3) to teach the importance of specific prompting when using LLMs (if you give an AI something vague to work with, it will give you something vague back). By the end of the week, students will all have a neat little custom tool designed to make their lives easier moving forward.
By Friday, February 6: Submit your AI Article Response to Canvas. Full instructions can be found on Canvas, and the AI Articles in question can be found on the Canvas files page for this course. This assignment is designed to get you more accustomed to reading academic articles, and it is a mini-introduction to our next unit, which is all about using research to inform policy decisions.
By Tuesday, February 10: Submit your completed HTML/Javascript Program. I am giving you essentially all class period on February 3rd to complete your program, and this is an assignment that should take about fifteen minute to complete. However, some students in previous sections were not used to using their computers and needed some extra help. For this reason, I strongly advise students not to wait until the deadline to start working on their program. Additionally, if you plan on working on your program outside of class and you hit a snag, you'll have time to talk to me about it on February 10; this is to avoid students struggling with their computers for 3+ hours on a problem that, once you understand it, takes 1 minute to fix.