[CSC 125] Some Advice on Completing MyITLab/BlackBoard Assignments.

[Andrew J. Pounds]

Students often ask me how to best get through the summer CSC 125  
material.  Here are my recommendations for getting through the /MyITLab/ 
tests and /BlackBoard/ assignments.

   1. Prior to completing the Project based exam in /MyITLab/, at least
      look at your textbook.  If you prefer, listen and view the audio
      /PowerPoint/ presentation that is in /MyITlab/.
   2. If you want, you can try out the Project based training that is in
      /MyITLab/.  This is not required, but will increase your chances
      of doing well the first time you take the Project Based Exam.
   3. Take the required project based exam.  Now -- there are several
      things you need to know about these.
         1. I have set up the project based exams so that you can
            complete one in a single sitting or work in a manner where
            you do some of the exam, save the results, quit, and come
            back and complete the exam later.  The only caveat is that
            you must do all of the work on the same computer.
         2. Once you complete an exam you can go see what you did wrong
            and what you were supposed to do to get the right result. 
            These solution pages should even tell you where to look for
            the information related to the specific task in the textbook.
         3. You can take each project based exam UP TO 10 TIMES.  I
            really hope you don't need to do that.  The really smart
            student will figure out what they did wrong the first time
            they took it and then not repeat those mistakes.  The good
            news is that In only keep the HIGHEST score from all your
            attempts.
         4. Make sure you complete the project exam attempts before the
            due date.  Once the due date is passed you will not be able
            to access the exam anymore.
         5. If, for some reason, there is an error with one of your
            exams, contact me and I will look at the data stream to try
            and find out what went wrong.
         6. The take-home point is this.  I have designed this portion
            of the course so that you can get a really high grade on
            these components if you are good with your time management
            and actually spend a little bit of time diving into some of
            the /MyITLab/ features.  I don't know if I mentioned this
            before, but the biggest place students have tended to lose
            points in the summer is in the completion of the MyITLab
            project exams.  Students have either skipped them, or waited
            until the last minute to try and take them.  Those that
            attempted them at the last minute only one chance, which
            they normally rushed through, and made horrible scores.
   4. After you complete the project based exam go to /BlackBoard/ and
      complete the assignment for the given topic.  This is where your
      textbook will be most beneficial.  As with the project based
      exams, you need to submit your assignments prior to the deadline
      or you will be locked out of the submission dropbox.

So -- there are a total of 16 items to be complete in this manner.  4 
for Word, 4 for Excel, 4 for Access, and 4 for PowerPoint.  The first 
deadline that is coming up will be for Word 1 -- which I believe is next 
Wednesday night at midnight.

There are also 4 projects in /BlackBoard/ that you need to complete.  I 
will send out e-mails regarding each of  them later.

-- 
Andrew J. Pounds, Ph.D.  (pounds at theochem.mercer.edu)
Associate Professor of Chemistry and Computer Science
Mercer University,  Macon, GA 31207   (478) 301-5627

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