Click on the question to read the answer. Please read the FAQ carefully.
ALERT: Click here to see the new state law on Withdrawal limitsThis law applies to students who started college in Fall 2007.
State law permits students to withdraw from no more than six courses during their entire undergraduate career at Texas public colleges or universities. All course withdrawals automatically count toward the limit unless:
The student withdraws from all courses;
The student or course is exempt from the rule; or
The student receives an exception authorized by college officials.
Students who reach their withdrawal limit must remain on the class roll unless they request and receive approval for a withdrawal exception.
There are two required textbooks for this course
Web Site Design Made Easy, Learn HTML, XHTML, and CSS, 3rd edition, Gaskill Dennis, Morton Publishing Company, 2008, ISBN: 0-89582-2
JavaScript, Fourth Edition, Gosselin Don, Course Technology, 2007, ISBN 13: 978-1-4239-0150-1 or ISBN 10: 1-4239-0150-9
2. What are the class timings...?
The class will be held on Tuesday & Thursday from 8:45 am – 11:25 am in room CYP 2129 at the Cypress Creek campus
This course will be taught in lecture and lab format. Roughly 50% of the time will be spent in lecture and 50% in lab work. There will be three major projects in the course that will count for a major chunk of the course grade. Please see the syllabus for details.
In order to log into Blackboard you will need your ACCeID. Click here for more information. Click here to log into Blackboard AFTER you have your ACCeID. Please bookmark the Blackboard login link in your browser as you will be visiting it often during this course. Your email address is automatically populated with the email address that ACC has assigned to you. You can see more information about the ACC email by clicking on this link: http://www.austincc.edu/google/ If your email address is not current you will not receive any email I send through Blackboard. A valid email address is also required to use the "forgot your password" feature. You can reach more information about Blackboard on the student information page.
Relax! Read the manual on Getting Started with Blackboard at http://irt.austincc.edu/blackboard/student.html This site is also linked directly from the Blackboard main page. Ask if you have any questions. My sole purpose of being here is to help you!
Now, take a deep breath!!
PLEASE NOTE that as of September 15, 2008, ACC requires all faculty to communicate with students through the official ACC email address assigned to all students. Please follow this link to see more information: http://www.austincc.edu/google/
You can email me at akahlon@austincc.edu. Yes, you MUST (MUST - repeated on purpose) include your class synonym in the subject line of the email. This ensures that your email is filtered into the right folder. Messages sent without a synonym in the subject line may not get a response.
Your synonym number is 08072.
75% of the mail I get is unsolicited spam. The only recourse I have is to protect myself. Thus I have strict filters set up. Any messages with a blank subject line will be automatically deleted by my email client.
I generally do not respond to email messages on the weekend.
Make sure your full name is included at the end of the email. It is confusing enough to get an email without a name but it is even more confusing when I have two students with the same name in the class. At my age the brain does not tolerate confusion too well and may even explode!!
Labs must be submitted to the Linux server and a message sent to the instructor (i.e. me) through the course Blackboard site. This will be explained in great detail in the first week of class.
Linux accounts will be created for you by the Linux server administrator. The Cypress Creek lab supervisor will hold a lab orientation in the first week of class during class and explain how to log on to the computers in the lab. I will explain the process of logging on to the Linux server and transferring files up to the server in the first week of class.
This is NOT a self-paced course. Projects and exercises are due on or before the dates specified in the course schedule. You may pace the course in such a way that you can turn in labs/projects early. However, they may not be handed in late. Please read the late policy in the syllabus and see the due dates in the schedule.
All software is available in the lab for student use in class and in open lab for use in the lab after class. Procedures to download the free software for use at home will be explained in class:
- Less Than Slash Editor – available for free download for use at home.
- SSH Secure Shell File Transfer Client – available for free download for use at home.
- A current browser - available for free download for use at home.
10. What if I am stuck..........?
If you are in a position where you don't understand any part of the lab or the text you should do one/both of the following:
- Ask a question in class / lab.
- You post your question on the class discussion forum.
- You email/ call/ visit me in my office.
Do not struggle on your own till the last minute! I am here to help you.
11. Can we work on the labs........?
All labs are individual assignments and NOT group projects. Any labs that are found to be suspiciously similar will receive a maximum grade of 0. Please so not copy existing web pages as I will find out - I promise! See the academic honesty policy in the course syllabus.
You may discuss the lab requirements and software use with other classmates in class and in the discussion forums.
Cheating is any of the following:
- Taking the work of another student and turning it in as your own.
- Giving your work to another student to turn in as their own.
- Getting information about the exam from another student.
- Giving information about the exam to another student.
- Copying material off the Internet and turning it in as your own.
- Getting someone else to do your labs for you.
I consider cheating to be a serious offense. The first incident will earn you a grade of 0 or F for that particular lab or project. A second offense will result in an F in the course. You can view the ACC Student Handbook at http://www.austincc.edu/handbook/general.php
Your lab grade will be posted on the grade sheet on the Blackboard course site. The general grading scale is included in the course syllabus. Any grade questions should be emailed to me and NOT posted to the class discussion list. Please do not ask questions about your grade in front of the whole class. Please step into my office or in the hallway after class to ask questions about your grade. Once you submit your lab, you will see an exclamation sign appear as your grade. Once I grade the lab, the exclamation sign will change to an actual grade. If you still see a grade of 1, it means there was a problem with your lab. Please read the comment associated with the grade carefully. I generally do not grade on the weekends.
In Blackboard, click on the My Grades button to view your grades.
You may address me as Professor Kahlon or Ms. Kahlon. One of my pet peeves is people spelling my name wrong. I have many other pet peeves but will not list them here.
Yes you MUST HAVE a Twitter account in this class. You can set up an account and it is free. My Twitter id is gigabyte10100. Once you set up your account on Twitter make sure you go to the settings and choose "Protect my Updates". That way no one can read what you write in Twitter without your permission. You can go to http://twitter.com/ to set up a free account. If you have an unlimited text messaging service on your cell phone you can have the tweets forwarded to your cell phone or you can read them on the web. I will also have a twitter feed on my main web page. After your account has been set up, log in and then go to http://twitter.com/gigabyte10100 and request to follow me on Twitter. You will now see a message that says
I will send out reminders and class updates through Twitter. The tweets for your class will be preceded with 1411:
To find out more about setting up a Twitter account go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT4NT4ywAck or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umBAbU1pqfg
I also have a Facebook account http://www.facebook.com/akk.acc. Please note: in order to find this account you must already be logged into Facebook. You may request to add me as a friend. Please DO NOT send a friend request to my personal Facebook account as I will be unable to accept you as per departmental policy.
While Twitter is a requirement for this course, Facebook is completely optional.