Welcome to Week 13
Preliminaries:
 Clear Drive C
 Add our class webpage to your favorites
 Save this file to Drive C as YourNameWk13.doc
 Minimize EXPLORER and open that file with WORD
 Due date of this ONE single file: before next class
 Caution: This week will count as 2 assignments (200 points, so please do the
assignments as carefully and as well as you can)
Next week: Test Preview and Your Second Class Presentation:
Next week will be devoted to a preview of the next test, which, in turn, counts for 20% of
your final grade. I strongly urge you to review the 50 or so questions before coming to
class. Right now, we’ll divide the questions among us, and next week, you need, at the
very least, be ready to teach your fellow students the questions that have been assigned to
you. Yes, you’ll be standing up here, in my place, teaching the material, and I’ll be
floating around, serving as your teaching assistant, while your classmates will be grading
your helpfulness to them as a teacher.
Today’s program (a clickable table of contents):
 Constructing your web page (3% of your total grade)
 11:00-11:20: Break
 Alternative Media Outlets
 Computer Programming: A Third Look
 Combined Internet/Excel Exercise
 Photography Competition
 Online Shopping
 Writing Assignment for Week 11102

Program for the remainder of the term:
 Submit by next week the file: YourNameWk13
 Week 14 will be exclusively dedicated to preparing you for the final test
 You’ll be teaching us a pre-assigned portion of the material
 Week 15: Final, starting 10:00 a.m. This test is 20% of your final grade in
this class and covers all material of Weeks 1-14.
 Make-up Test 2. Let me know in advance if you are interested in re-taking
Test 2. If you are in my Monday class, you’ll need to take it on Tuesday. If
you are in my Tuesday class, on Monday.
 Make-up assignments. You can either consult the class webpage for ideas or
propose something on your own. In either case, consult me before actually
doing the work. A zero, for anything, simply devastates your grade—let me
give you an example (demo in class).
_____________
Constructing Your Own Webpage
Your webpage must include a photo, a brief introduction of who you are, what you stand
for, and what’s unique about you, and a link to your resume (which you’ll need to write). This is
the minimum, but you will receive extra points for being especially creative, for providing
additional links, writing a real interesting resume, and just making your page inviting. For ideas,
please consult http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/cs/webpages.htm You may also wish to look
up impressive webpages of friends, professors, others, to get ideas. Remember, it’s perfectly all
right to steal ideas, but not contents, from anyone. If you really create a nice webpage, and if
you want me to, I’ll be glad to post in our class webpage.
When you are done, show the webpage and related files to at least one classmate and to me
for feedback. Then, implement the suggestions you like and send me the whole thing (5% of
your final grade—so do a good job!).
Due date: Next week’s class
_____________
Internet: A Visit to Alternative Media Outlets
Almost all the information we get—on TV, radio, newspapers—is under the control of
billionaires. Are they telling us the truth? For example, in the U.S. media the late polish pope is
portrayed as a humanitarian, but was he really? In Latin America, for example, was he a friend
of the many poor people, or of the few rich? Why is Cardinal Law, of all people, placed in a
position of prominence during the ceremonies? Similarly, the USA is portrayed as a democracy,
but is it really? Do we have fair elections? What’s the decisive factor in getting a person
elected? Abroad, do we champion democrats or dictators? Are our greatest friends—the Saudis,
say—democrats? OR: The greenhouse effect is portrayed as controversial, but is it?
In this exercise, I’d like you to visit any alternative media and informational site you know
about, or the following alternative media outlets:
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://www.aljazeera.com/home.asp
http://www.adaction.org/Campaign2004/BushRecord/bushrecord.html
and then summarize what you have learned in just 5 points, using these blanks:
1. I thought that (here, state your belief) . . . but the site (here, give the URL),
claims that (here summarize the alternative view being presented)
2. I thought that (here, state your belief) . . . but the site (here, give the URL),
claims that (here summarize the alternative view being presented)
3. I thought that (here, state your belief) . . . but the site (here, give the URL),
claims that (here summarize the alternative view being presented)
4. I thought that (here, state your belief) . . . but the site (here, give the URL),
claims that (here summarize the alternative view being presented)
5. I thought that (here, state your belief) . . . but the site (here, give the URL),
claims that (here summarize the alternative view being presented)
_____________
Computer Programming: A Third Look
Here are the instructions for a familiar game (exp2^z.bas). First, go to qbasic itself, open that
file, and play this game for a while, just to remind yourself of what it’s all about. Now, make the
following changes in the game itself, making sure that they work. Once you are sure everything
is working, change the boxed instructions below in the same way, in blue font:
1. Add a note, reminding yourself to check this program later
2. Change the program, so that instead doing and displaying powers of 2, it does and
displays powers of 3
3. Change the program, so that it only select exponents from 0 to 8 (not 0 to 12)
4. Make the program cheat the player by 10 tries
5. When done, check your corrections by playing the game.
'IST 2710, John Smith, Playing with Powers
PRINT "Welcome to the Power Game"
RANDOMIZE TIMER
Z = INT(RND * 12)
answer = 2 ^ Z
tries = 0
CLS
DO
PRINT "What is"; 2; "to the power of"; Z; "?"
INPUT "Key in answer and press ENTER;", answer
tries = tries + 1
IF answer <> (2 ^ Z) THEN PRINT "Sorry, wrong number, please try again"
LOOP UNTIL answer = 2 ^ Z
PRINT "Congratulations! You've got it!"
PRINT "It took you only"; tries; "try()s to guess the correct number"
END
_____________
A Combined Internet/Excel Exercise
For this exercise, you are strongly encouraged to work in pairs
1. Find statistics on the explosion of world population. Give me the URL (answer in blue here).
The data you find should be used to construct something like (that is, not exactly the same) the
following table:
Human Population of Earth, 10,000 BC to 2010 AD
Year
10,000
BC
5,000
BC
0
1000
AD
1800
1900
1950
1990
2000
2010
# of people
(in hundred
millions)
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Now, copy this table to Excel (except the left-most column), create an appealing LINE
GRAPH (in CHART TYPES). Make sure that the chart has a title, and that both the X and Y
axes are labeled. You might want to show me your graph at this point. Once you and I are
happy with it, copy it and paste it into this file.
_____________
Photography Competition
For this part, you can use your digital camera or mine. If you use mine, treat it gently!
You must work in pairs. Go outside for about 15 minutes when your turn comes, and imagine
that you are a professional photographer looking for some really great photograph. Try to take
the best photograph you possibly can, of anything--a building, a student sitting on a bench, a tree,
a cardinal (I don’t mean one of the fellows in the Vatican). If you used my camera, I’ll have the
photo already. If yours, you’ll need to send it to me. In either case, give it a name (name of
photo in blue here please).
Next week we’ll post all photos and vote on which one gets first place.
For photography ideas, you might want to check the following website:
http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/SE/KatieHein_PhotoBook.pdf
_____________
Online Shopping
What’s the URL for buying online the hottest hot sauce there is? Answer in blue font here,
please. What’s that sauce’s name? Answer in blue font here, please. How much does it cost?
Answer in blue font here, please.
What’s the URL for buying online Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, played by the Italian group, Imusici? Answer in blue font here, please. How much would it cost you to buy it, including
shipping and handling? Answer in blue font here, please.
_____________
Reading Assignment for Week 11102
I. Please pp. 65-8 of your coursepack and answer in blue the following 6
questions:
1. When you press the letter A on your keyboard, inside the computer this letter is
actually represented as: — —.
2. When you ask your computer to multiply 5 by 7, the computer conducts the
following operation — —.
3. When you ask your computer to take 3 to the power of 2, the computer actually
conducts the following operation — —.
4. Why does the ASCII code employ 8 switches to represent a single symbol, instead
of just 4 switches? — —.
5. What is the ASCII value of A? — —. Of a? — —.
6. Why can’t the number 267 be represented by a single byte? — —.
_____________
When done with this entire file, save it again (YourNameWk13.doc) and e-mail it to me.
Due date: Before next class.
IST 2710
Interdisciplinary Studies
Moti Nissani's Webpage