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 Sakai forum 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.
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.
Some Readings if Interested
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.
- The Weatherman Is Not a Moron
- IBM's Watson Goes to Med School
- Some insight on high-tech lobbying: In the Politics of Innovation, Steve Jobs Shows Less Is More
- An overview of the Web's distributed structure, through WikiLeaks: WikiLeaks Demonstrates Web Resiliency
- In-depth discussion of computational forensics: Beyond C.S.I.: The Rise of Computational Forensics
- A possible Facebook killer? The Making of Diaspora
- Leveraging Google's search algorithms for evil: For DecorMyEyes, Bad Publicity Is a Good Thing and Google's follow up
- Computing for the Environment: Efforts to assess local effects of global warming discussed at computer conference
- Trade Algorithms: Algorithms Take Control of Wall Street
- Online Advertisers Turning Up the Heat Against Making "Do Not Track" Browsers' Default Setting
- Deconstructing Recommender Systems
- How Google Builds Its Maps-and What It Means for the Future of Everything