CS31: Transition to Online Instruction

Hi everyone! Hope you are all staying safe! The college is transitioning to online instruction for the rest of the semester and detailed below is an evolving document about the technologies, and supporting structure that the 31 staff will use to help transition the course online.

In accordance with Swarthmore College’s policy, lectures and labs will resume from March 24th and the lectures and labs will continue to take place at their scheduled times. The College’s changes to the Spring Semester are listed here.

Please read this page entirely to successfully take part in learning and to understand the changes to 31 and the technologies we plan to use.

Your ToDos

  • Please try to fill in this feedback form as soon as you are able to. We will use the feedback submitted by March 24th, 11:00AM EDT to help us estimate how best to support the class through online instruction.

  • Accept the slack invite to CS31 sent to you by email. Once you are on slack, take a look at the announcements channel to get started.

  • Turn Piazza notifications on. All course announcements will be on Piazza.

Accessibility

  • Not everyone will be able to use the technology listed on this page. You may be limited in your access to appropriate computer hardware. You may have a low bandwidth or high latency Internet connection.

    • Please contact support@swarthmore.edu or 610-328-8513 ITS and cc Vasanta. The Dean of Students’ office is also working together with a team to provide laptops to those students who do not have one.

  • Not everyone will be able to participate at their full capacity through the duration of the course. Please be mindful as lab partners of the fact that folks may be in different time-zones, have work responsibilities, care-giving responsibilities, and can potentially be unwell.

    • Please contact Scout or Vasanta, or the Dean’s office if you have any concerns that might impact your ability to take part in the course.

  • If you have concerns about academic accommodations that you think might be affected, please contact the Student Disabilities Services: studentdisabilityservices@swarthmore.edu. Let Scout and Vasanta know how we can be of help.

Accessing Course Content

Lecture and Reading Materials

  • Lecture PDFs will be available before class on the course webpage.

  • Readings will also be posted on the course webpage. Readings are not required before class, but are highly recommended that you do either right before, or right after the class.

Lecture Delivery

  • We plan to use zoom during live-lecture delivery.

    • For folks who cannot attend the lecture, the in-class student questions will be posted on Piazza.

  • Lectures will also be recorded and posted on Piazza in two formats:

    • Videos of 30 minutes each.

    • Audio files of 30 minutes each.

    • Please follow along with video or audio recordings, with a copy of the lecture slides.

Labs

  • Scout and I will upload on Piazza, short lab video links to watch before each lab session.

  • During lab sessions, there will be no lectures. The labs instead will run as help sessions and Scout, I and the Ninjas will be there to answer questions you have on Slack.

Technology

  • We will use a combination of Zoom, Slack (invitation sent via email), Piazza, and Google Forms to replace in-person classes, labs and assignments.

  • Skim through ITS’s guide to learning remotely. Note: you don’t require VPN to access any course materials for 31.

Please read the following carefully.

Getting Setup with Zoom

We will use Zoom for in class lectures, and office hours and Ninja Sessions.

Class Participation Protocol

  • When joining the class Zoom meeting, make sure to keep the Participants and Chat tab open.

  • When you join the class meeting, your video will be automatically turned off, and microphone muted. If you are not asking a question, please keep your microphone muted to prevent other background sounds from being heard.

  • To ask questions: To scale to our class-size we will use the raise hand icon in the participants tab in Zoom to ask a question. If the instructor calls you, you may either type your question/answer into the chat or voice it by unmuting yourself.

  • We will try to use breakout-rooms in class through Zoom. This allows us to break the class into smaller discussion groups to create the virtual equivalent of in-class discussions.

  • We will also try to use Polls for in-class participation. This feature may have some glitches, so we will test it the first week, and discontinue use if it has issues.

Getting Setup with Labs

  • The lab-sections will run as help sessions. Please look at the Slack channel for Lab and Ninja Session protocols.

  • To request for help on the lab please use your lab-channel to post your query. To post your question first use the raise hand icon, and once a Ninja or Instructor acknowledges your request, you can either setup a zoom call within Slack to share your screen with the Ninja/Instructor helping you or start a private messaging thread.

  • You can also setup a zoom call within slack between you and your lab partner and one of you can share screen while making changes to your code. We would like you to setup this zoom call on your lab-channel so that a Ninja or Instructor can be added to your call if you have questions.

Remote Collaboration

  • To collaborate with your lab partner, please feel free to use the Direct Message feature on Slack. You can also start a new call on slack using zoom by tying in /zoom and using screen share to share your screen with your partner. More on this below.

  • Please make sure to observe the Partner Etiquette Guidelines posted on the course website as closely as possible under the circumstances.

Office Hours and Ninja-Sessions

  • A similar protocol exists for office hours and Ninja-Sessions. In the office-hours channel, or ninja-sessions channel, we will create a virtual queue, that you can add yourself to.

  • During office hours, if Scout or I am with another student, you might have to wait your turn before your request is answered. We will indicate on the channel if we are currently busy with a student.

  • When it is your turn, we can either chat via slack or start a Zoom call. You can then screen share if you like, to walk through any questions you may have.

Assessment

Class Comprehension

  • After each week of classes, we will send out a comprehension quiz as a google form, so you can test your own understanding of the class material. The quiz is purely for you to gauge your understanding, rather than for correctness.

Midterm and Homeworks

  • We will not have a midterm for the course. Instead we will have a few open-book homeworks. More details about the homeworks will be added shortly.

FAQs

This section is for questions that folks have that are not addressed above. As the course progresses, we will add Q&A related to the course logistics here.