Last Day to Withdraw, First MOS Associate, Fun with Functions and More Fun

This past Friday was the final day withdraw from a 16-week course for Spring 2024. Though no student exercised this option, not all eighteen students are keeping up with their IS101 coursework. I hope those handful of students will rectify that soonest able.

On the other end of the spectrum: this Saturday morning as Glenda and Haridev (Dev) are batting Bonus Quiz 9 with Glenda taking the pole position, Kiet was conquering MO-310 PowerPoint certification exam, becoming the first Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Associate in IS101-3002, Spring 2024! I am so proud of this ambitious young man :-)

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Alonso (El Zo) gave us An Introduction to Residential Air Filters and Joshua shared his favorite music band Red Hot Chili Pepper with the class. I concluded the class with the first half of my lecture/demonstration 4: Key Excel and Spreadsheet Analysis Concepts. The second half contains one of my favorite walkthroughs for IS101, I can't wait until next week.

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Students' "More Fun with Functions" workbooks with 100% are slowing trickling in. The Digital Literacy program director would be proud. Dev and Srikalyani (Sri) have even sent in A6 Spreadsheet Analysis with Trailer ahead of schedule, making me very proud ^_^

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Students,

(1) How was/is your experience with "More Fun with Functions" compare with that with "Fun with FUNctions"? Did it get more easier? More Fun?

(2) Please read this short article:

Cinema Chain Sees Bad Movie Script Play Out As It Loses Millions In Email Scam

By Martijn Grooten

Nov 12, 2018, 3:12 pm EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/martijngrooten/2018/11/12/cinema-chain-sees-bad-movie-script-play-out-as-it-loses-millions-in-email-scam

***I extracted the article content into a PDF attached to D10 in Canvas for a clean reading experience for you***

 (i) Do you think Pathé's Chief Executive Office (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) should have been fired/dismissed?

 (ii) Do you think their firing/dismissal was fair?

 (iii) If you were the CEO or CFO, would you expect to keep your job or be fired/dismissed?

Spring Recess, Second Half Begins, Two Top Performers

Half of the past two weeks was Spring Recess. Some students used this opportunity to rest and recharge while some worked to jump ahead in their IS101 coursework (many in Excel and one in PowerPoint)!

This past Saturday was the first class session upon returning from Spring Recess. Both Haridev (Dev) and Glenda made me extremely proud as they both fully and correctly comprehended one of my signature topics: How to properly dissect an Uniformed Resource Locator (URL) and its components :-) Both shared the top spot on Bonus Quiz 8. I especially like Dev's learning and output from one of the articles from the second third of my lecture /presentation L3: The Internet: Ultimate Guide to Owning ccTLD: metal.m.an -- using the Country Code Top-Level Domain of Netherlands Antilles (.an) as welding is his trade and metal is his medium.

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Srikalyani (Sri) and Sathya captivated everyone's attention in the first hour of the class with their slideshow presentations: My Favorite Place and Ramadan respectively. I definitely agree with Sri's closing statement: "Combination of busy life and peaceful scenic beauty of mountain view" and like Sathya's closing photograph from Sri Lanka with all of her college classmates representing multiple religions. I finished the class session with the final third of my lecture/presentation L3: The Internet. 

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The remaining students who are actively participating in IS101 have now taken and passed their MO-110 Word certification exam ^_^ Each Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification exams is out of 1,000 points and the passing score is 700. Kiet has jumped quite far ahead in his LabSim coursework and qualified to take MO-310 PowerPoint but illness sidelined the studious student.

Before Spring Recess, we ventured into Chapter 5 Microsoft Excel. As I have my signature topics, presentations, and assignments, the program director of the Digital Literacy program in the Computer and Information Technology (CIT) Department has his too: YouTube videos and Fun with Functions... workbooks.

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Students,

(1) Did watching the 18 min 55 sec Excel Primer video help you alleviate any anxiety or misconception with Microsoft Excel?

(2) Did you gain a sense of independence from doing the 'Fun with FUNctions' workbook?

(3) With a MOS certification exam under your belt -- two for Kiet -- how do you feel about preparing for your next one?

First MOS Exam, Mid-Semester Highlights, Internet

The past two weeks surpassed the two weeks prior both in terms of excitement and achievement!

Twelve students took the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) MO-110 Word certification exam, joining Kiet who took his MO-110 three weeks ago. All thirteen students passed with Brandon scoring the highest and Justin second highest so far. Five students have yet to take the MO-110. They may yet overtake Brandon on MO-110 but no one will be able to challenge Kiet's feat on the next exam -- I will elaborate at the end of this blog post.

Haridev (Dev) and Anthony took advantage of the extension on Bonus Quiz 6 but Glenda remained on top. Sathya joined Glenda and Dev in taking Bonus Quiz 7 with Dev earning the first perfect score on a bonus quiz! A perfect score on a bonus quiz is definitely one of the two top highlights from the first half of the semester :-)

I walked through two-thirds of my Lecture 3: The Internet and will finish the final third when we return from Spring Recess. L3 will fuel BQ8 through BQ11. Jonathan presented his Favorite Movie: Pulp Fiction while Anthony shared My [His] Experiences in Japan with the class. The first two-third contains one of my signature topics: How to properly dissect a Uniformed Resource Resource (URL).

Looking back beyond the past two weeks, other highlights in the first half of the semester are Madison (Madi) and Dev earning bonus credit for being the first group of presenters; Dev earned highest score on BQ2 through BQ5 with Glenda sharing the top honor with Dev on BQ4 while Justin and Brandon doing the same on BQ2; and sixteen of the eighteen students sent in their Bonus Quiz 1 - Syllabus, fourteen of which kept working on it until they reached 100%.

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I can see Jonathan's reasons for why Pulp Fiction is his favorite movie based on his three reasons: the storyline, the music, and the suspense & comedy that can only come from director Quentin Tarantino. Anthony's wonderful experience in Japan involved three places: Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, and Okinawa; food such as ramen, sushi, sake; and site seeing cherry blossom trees and temples.

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Looking much much further back in time and far beyond of IS101, these three men made the Internet as we know it today possible:

Robert "Bob" Kahn and Vinton "Vint" Cerf led the design and implementation of the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) that are the basis for the current Internet. Sir Tim Berners-Lee initiated the development of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that make up the World Wide Web (WWW). Each man's A.M. Turing Award came decades after their leadership changed the world. I will walk through each man's contribution as part of the final third of L3.

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Students,

Please answer these three questions/topics in your comment:

(1) As listed in the study guide for Bonus Quiz 8,(see [Week 8A: 3/9/2024] in Canvas) the steps to dissect a URL is also listed in the first image above. Will you practice it?

(2) Another topic from the first two-third of L3 that will make an appearance in BQ8 is country code Top-Level-Domain (ccTLD) hack: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/country-code-top-level-domains/

(3) The top honor in the first half of the semester belongs to Kiet as he has qualified for, took, and passed the MO-210 Excel certification exam this past Saturday, weeks ahead of schedule. How did you perform in the first half of our semester? How will you perform in the second half?