Opportunities for Extra Credit
Throughout the semester, you can earn extra credit, which will be
added to your project score.
Computer Science in the News (Up to 5 points each)
If you find a news article about computer science or computing in
general that you find interesting, write a brief summary about the
article and post it as a reply/comment on the blog to the "Extra
Credit" topic. Each article you summarize is worth up to 5
points.
Your submission should include
- Complete article citation (author, title, etc.)
- If the article is online, include a link to the web page in
your blog entry. If the article is not online, submit a paper copy of
the article.
- A brief summary of the article, about 1 paragraph. (Label the
paragraph as "Summary".)
- How you found the article (as in, how did you come across the
article) (Label the sentence as "How Found".)
- Why you thought the article was interesting (Label as
"Interest".)
- Any impact the article had on you--your knowledge, your
choices, your preconceived
notions, etc. (Label as
"Impact".)
You may find interesting articles everywhere. Here are some
sites to get you started: the Tech or Science sections
of CNN, Popular
Science, and ACM's
TechNews. Other sites, such
as Digg
and Slashdot, aggregate popular news
stories. You may also find articles about applying computing to your
major in your major-specific journals. See below for some articles that I recommend reading.
At the end of the semester, the top 5 "most interesting" articles
will receive bonus extra credit points.
Restrictions and Limitations
- The reviewed article must be at least 500 words long.
- You can submit up to 10 articles in one semester for extra credit.
- You can submit up to 2 articles in one 7-day period.
- Only one person can review a given article; the first person who
submits the review (based on the blog timestamp) will get credit for
the article. Be aware that same article may appear on multiple sites.
- To earn all 5 points, you must use proper English grammar,
spelling, and punctuation in the write up, and you must demonstrate
understanding and interest in the article.
Recommended Readings
We don't have time to cover all the worthwhile readings and
topics in class. Here are some articles that I thought were
interesting but we didn't have time to cover. In the opinion
pieces, I'm not endorsing the opinions, but they are food for
thought.