Tentative CX 103  Syllabus: Spring 2001

• Week 1 (February 12)
• Introduction to Course and Middlebury's Network
• What is a Computer? (Chapter 1)
• What is the Internet? (Chapter 2)
• Week 2 ( February 19 )
• Creating a HomePage (Chapters 3, 4, parts of 5, 6)
• What is the World Wide Web? Internet Issues
• No Class: Winter Carnival
• Week 3 ( February 26 )
• More HTML
• Even More HTML
• Bits, Bytes & Binary I (Appendix D)
• Week 4 ( March 5 )
• Bits, Bytes & Binary II,
• Hexadecimal and Color
• What is a Programming Language?
• Week 5 ( March 12 )
• Introduction to JavaScript/JScript (Chapter 8)
• Tuesday : Exam 1
• Integers, Strings, and Variables (Chapter 8)
• Integers, Strings, and Variables (Chapter 8)
• Week 6 ( March 19 )
• Making Decisions (Chapter 9)
• Loops I (Chapter 9)
• Loops II (Chapter 10)
• MIDTERM RECESS
• Week 7 ( April 2)
• Functions, Parameters, and Scope (Chapter 11)
• More with Functions (Chapter 11)
• Arrays (Chapter 12)
• Week 8 ( April 9  )
• Databases and Arrays of Records
• The History of Computers II; History of the Internet & the Web
• The Evolution of the Interface; What is an Operating System? (The Spreadsheet and its Significance)
• Week 9 ( April 16  )
• The Computer: Liberator or Captor?
• Tuesday: Exam 2
• Intro to eCommerce & Cryptology
• Privacy, Digital Signatures & Message Digests
• Week 10 ( April 23  )
• A Sketch of How RSA Works
• How Safe is Your Credit Card Number?
• Can a Computer Write Poetry? Your EL101 Papers?
• Week 11 ( April 30 )
• Our own Turing Test; The Human Brain versus the Computer
• The Computer & Chess; Does a Computer "understand"?
• Can Computers Learn? Expert Systems, Neural Nets
• Week 12 ( May 7)
• Are There Tasks a Computer Cannot Do? Computer Crime; Computer Viruses
• Privacy; Digital Cash & the Cashless Society
• The Future and the Need for Literacy

• Final Exam: Tuesday,  May 15 from 9 am to noon