CIS 101: Computers for Learning Hi, welcome to Computers for Learning online, CIS 101. I'm Michelle Hulett and I'll be the instructor of the semester. I want to welcome you to class and tell you I'm really looking forward in working with each of you and I think we're going to have an exciting time ahead of us. This class is a little unusual in that we're using technology to teach technology but I think we can make it challenging and fun and productive all at the same time. I'm the Computers for Learning Coordinator so as far as contacting me it's pretty easy. I'm here most of the day everyday so you can contact me by mail, by e-mail, by phone and of course if you're on campus I'd like for you to stop by to say hello. We have a couple of goals for you in Computers for Learning - a short-term goal and a long-term goal. The short-term goal for you is to become more familiar with technological resources we have on campus at SMS. We spent a lot of time and money getting some things together that you'll find useful while you're a student here and will help you in your classes. We'll introduce you to several of those during the courses of this class. And for long-term goals, we're hoping to make you more computer-literate citizens so that when you do leave SMS and enter the work force it'll be able to help you in your profession. The content of the class is varied. We're going to have a portion that we're just going to talk about concepts and terminologies such as, hardware and software and their uses, and the responsible use and ethics in computer usage. Then we'll have the larger portion of the class will be hands-on where we'll work with Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel and maybe some other packages when we have time. And then again, some SMS resources such as, Cybear, online resources at the library, Bearmail, e-mail and Blackboard. I'm looking forward to working with you. There's a few things we can do together to make this successful for both of us and main thing is just to be very responsible and have good time management. It is easy to procrastinate in a class like this where you're not having set times where you're in class. But we'll still have some deadlines to meet and I think if we'll both use our good time management skills and good communication skills for discussion then that's going to help quite a bit. The biggest thing will be patience because a lot of this is different and not having the face-to-face interaction will make it seem harder at certain times, but I think together we're going to make it fun and I'm going to try to inject some interactivity, force that will help in the learning process. I look forward to it and I hope you do too. I'll see you online. |