Course Overview

1) Unit Projects

We will start off by doing three brief projects, using free software tools.

• Unit 1: Scratch is a multimedia design tool that was designed to teach programming skills to elementary school kids. (Sep 09)
  
• Unit 2: Inform 7 is programming language designed for creating old-school text adventure games. (Sep 28)
  
• Unit 3: Web Apps. Use any text editor (such as NoteTab Lite for PC or Text Wrangler for Mac) to create HTML and CSS files that will make any web page look and act like an iPhone or iPad app. (For example, if you view this GRE Word List web site in a regular web browser, it looks like a web page, but look at with your iPad or a smart phone, and it looks like more an app. This unit will teach you how to make a regular web page look like an iOS page.) (Oct 14)
  

Each of these Unit Projects will involve some planning, implementation, testing, and revising, and the recording of screencasts (a movie that shows what's happening on the screen, narrated by you).

2) Midterm Portfolio (Oct 14) will compile and reflect on all your Unit Projects.

3) Revised Portfolio (Nov 09) after we spend a few more weeks with each of the design tools.

4) Final Project (Dec 8) For the last month of class, you will work on a final project, using the design tool or tools of your choice. This project will be tested and revised in several stages, and presented in a final, professional electronic portfolio.