Category Archives: Professional Activities

2022 Government & Public Sector R Conference

I’m excited to be speaking & hosting a workshop (November 30) at this year’s R Gov Conference (@rstatsai) along with many others on December 1-2! Join us in-person or virtually online for a fun filled event! Get your ticket now at rstats.ai/gov #rstatsgov | #rstats

Conference speaker information for William Doane at R Conference: Government & Public Sector November 30 and December 1-2

CSC 111 Introduction to Computer Science

Location: College of Saint Rose
Term(s): Fall 2012, Spring 2013
Class size: ~20

In this course, students develop their computational thinking skills through guided inquiry discussions. Topics such as the nature of computation, binary, boolean logic, computer architecture, networking, and programming are introduced. Students are challenged to reverse engineer programming solutions in order to explore functional decomposition and other computational concepts.

Prerequisite: None
Credits: 3

EPSY 687 Assessment and Evaluation for STEM educators

Location: University at Albany, School of Education, Department of Educational & Counseling Psychology
Term(s): Spring 2013
Class size: TBD
Co-taught with Paul Zachos

Backward design, formative assessment and action research will be applied to practical problems chosen by participants to develop critical assessment and evaluation concepts and skills for STEM-related education. The course will support participants in creating innovative lessons or productively addressing classroom, school, and state challenges such as high-stakes testing and professional performance reviews.

Prerequisite: Participants must be actively teaching during the course. Participants are expected to build and refine a learning module related to their own teaching, to conduct and share the results of assessments of student learning on a monthly basis and to work in consultation with fellow participants and course instructors to produce and evaluate a completed module. This work will be in lieu of extensive readings and a formal paper.
Credits: 3
Format: Online with regular synchronous chat sessions

 

CS4302.01 Advanced Computing Projects

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Spring 2012
Class size: 4

In this course, we will apply computing methods in order to develop solutions to real world problems. We will focus on problems that require computing in order to create, collect, process, or visualize data and that offer opportunities to hone our coding and software development skills. Students are invited to bring their project ideas or existing projects in need of development into the class.

Prerequisite: Permission of Instructor
Credits: 2
Time: F 2:10 – 6:00 pm
(This class meets during the first seven weeks of the term)

CS2106.01 Understanding Alan Turing

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Spring 2012
Class size: 13

Alan Turing is a central figure in the history and theory of computing. Turing gave the first precise definition of algorithms and computability and a guideline for understanding artificial intelligence: the Turing Test. Turing played a role in the cracking of German military encryption during World War II and in the post-war development of the first digital computers. Turing lost his security clearance and was largely forgotten for the last half of the 20th century because he was homosexual. We will explore the man, his ideas, and his lasting contributions to modern computing.

Prerequisite: None
Credits: 2
Time: T/F 2:10 – 4:00 pm
(This class meets during the second seven weeks of the term)

CS2113.01 The Nature of Information

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Spring 2012
Class size: 16

What is information? How do you measure it? Is information perishable? Is it scarce? Understanding what information is and how (and whether) it can be created, shared, manipulated, or destroyed is increasingly critical in understanding science, public policy, and civic engagement. This course will explore how our understanding of information has changed over the past 100 years and how that understanding changes how we behave individually and collectively.

Prerequisite: None
Credits: 4
Time: T/Th 10:10 – 12:00 noon

CS4120.01 Contributing to Free & Open Source Software

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Spring 2012
Class size: 9

Most of us use free/open source software (the Web, Open Office, R, Linux) or services that rely upon FOSS (Yahoo!, Facebook, Google). In this course we will explore how these software projects are managed, the community of developers working to improve these projects, and the tools and languages they use. We will learn how to read, understand, and contribute to these projects.

Prerequisite: Permission of Instructor
Credits: 4
Time: W 2:00 – 6:00 pm

CS2130.01 Mobile Web Applications Development

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Fall 2011
Class size: 10

We will learn how HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript can be used to create Web (i.e., non-native) applications for smart phones. We will build several applications that demonstrate the potential to address mobile computing needs.

Prerequisite: Ideally, some experience with HTML, CSS, and/or JavaScript. For those without such experience, a short workshop (TBA) will be offered
Credits: 2
Time: M/Th 4:10 – 6pm
(This class meets during the SECOND seven weeks)

CS4150.01: Seven Languages in Seven Weeks

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Fall 2011
Class size: 15

For students with some programming experience, we will explore the structure, syntax, and philosophy of seven different programming languages in an effort to understand the reasoning underlying each model of problem solving and the types of problems to which each is well-suited.

Prerequisite: Programming experience or permission of instructor.
Credits: 2
Time: M/Th 4:10 – 6pm
(This class meets during the FIRST seven weeks)

CS2110.01: Computing Fundamentals

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Fall 2011
Class size: ~ 20 students/term

Students will rediscover the foundational ideas that gave rise to modern computing including Boolean logic, binary arithmatic, algorithms, Turing machines, transistor logic, stored program computing, and modern computer hardware and software architectures. Students will learn to program in at least one computer language and will explore the problem solving idioms unique to computational thinking.

CS2105.01: Making Computing Socially Relevant

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Spring 2011
Class size: ~ 20 students/term

Educators are beginning to attend to the challenges of developing meaningful computer science education: identifying a common core of intended learning outcomes, instructional designs, and assessments. Computer scientists are beginning to attend to the challenges of making computing relevant to communities and society and educating the next generation of computing professionals.

However, existing approaches to teaching computing tend to focus on small projects, solely for the consumption of the teacher and students in the class (“toy projects”); formal methods (the “traditional” approach); game development (“projects about toys”); or examples intended to be meaningful to the digital generation (“relevant” projects, but with a lower-case “r”).
Continue reading CS2105.01: Making Computing Socially Relevant

CS4202.01: Advanced Projects In Computing

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Fall 2010
Class size: ~ 7 students/term

Students will engage in group critiques of both individual project program code and free & open source program code to explore idioms and best practices in several programming languages: JavaScript, Ruby/Rails, and Processing, for example.

Students will be expected to present on at least one technology and one project as well as to actively engage in providing feedback on others projects.

CS2103.01: Social Nature of Information

Location: Bennington College
Term(s): Fall 2010
Class size: ~ 7 students/term

How does information influence individuals, groups, organizations, communities, governments, and society? Why do we share information? Is information a scarce resource? Understanding what information is and how it can be created, shared, manipulated, or destroyed is increasingly critical in understanding public policy and civic engagement. This course will explore how access to or lack of access to information changes how we behave individually and collectively. We will consider policy areas such as education, health care, the environment, science research, intellectual property, and governance and analyze how information supports and detracts from these discussions.

What Students are Saying About My Teaching (and Their Learning!)

These are comments made by students either on formal evaluations or via informal channels. I’ve tried to leave these unedited, as much as possible, although I’ve removed identifying information and possibly line endings. Otherwise, these are as I received them. I’ll continue to add new comments as they come in.
Continue reading What Students are Saying About My Teaching (and Their Learning!)

KUIT476: Web Marketing & eCommerce

Location: Kaplan University, Online
Terms: Summer 2009, Spring 2010
Class size: ~ 15 students/term

IT476 is a course designed to encourage students to prepare a business plan for an ecommerce venture. Students also create a website to support the business. Attention is given to the legal, advertising, financial, and operational aspects of the business with an eye toward preparation of a workable business proposal.

Reading Materials

  • CIW (2009). eCommerce Strategies and Practices. Tempe, AZ.

IST673: School Library Media: Technology, Theory, Application & Assessment

Location: University at Albany, State University of New York
Terms: Spring 2010
Class size: ~ 15 students/term

IST673 is a capstone course in which graduate students collaborate with undergraduate students and in-service educators from local K12 school districts to design, develop, deploy, and assess Web sites developed for use in participating schools.

Reading Materials

  • DiGiano, C., Goldman, S. V., & Chorost, M. (2008). Educating Learning Technology Designers: guiding and inspiring creators of innovative educational tools. New York, NY: Routledge.

IST301x: The Information Environment

Location: University at Albany, State University of New York
Terms: Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010
Class size: ~ 80 students/term

IST 301x is an introduction to information studies including definitions and properties of information: creation, transfer, classification, encoding, evaluation, storage, retrieval, and use. The Role of information organizations including libraries, print and electronic publishing industries, and archives is discussed.

Reading Materials

  • Lester, J., & Koehler, W. C. (2007). Fundamentals of information studies: Understanding information and its environment (2nd ed.). New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers.

KUIT255: eCommerce Development

Location: Kaplan University, Online
Terms: 2
Class size: ~ 5 students/term

In IT255, students prepare a business plan for an ecommerce business they wish to develop. During the class, students prepare sections of the plan including a market analysis and marketing plan, financial projections, and a comprehension operations plan. Students use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create a draft website for the business and enable payment processing using hosted shopping cart and payment processing services.

Reading Materials

  • Schneider. (2007). New Directions in eCommerce. Thompson Course Technology.