HISTORICAL EVENTS AND COMPUTING WEB PAGE ASSIGNMENT
NOTE: Before you get started on building a Web site, make sure you have somewhere online to place it. As part of paying tuition at Stony Brook, all students are entitled to Web space via your own MySBfiles account. It is important that all students, CSE majors or not, know how to create and post Web pages online. If you've never done this before, don't fret, it's not as hard as it may seem. Refer to TLT's Help Page for instructions on how to do so. Note that you may use another server if you like, but make sure you setup your Web account ASAP.
Create a Web site devoted to describing an important historical event and how it has impacted the history of computing. Note that the connection between event and computing technology should be the focus of your writing. Try to discuss the technical aspects of your subject as though you were writing for a general audience who might not be fully computer literate (like the average NYTimes reader).
Your Web site may be one page or multiple pages and should have an introduction that briefly explains what the site is about.
Your site should meet the following technical requirements:
- It should be informative.
- It should be well written. This means a professional writing tone and no spelling or grammatical errors. Also, this is not a blog about you, so avoid using words like I or me.
- It should be neat and well-organized. Don't slap together a sloppy Web page. By putting it online you are sharing it with the world community. If it looks amateurish, think of it as saying something about yourself.
- It must be written in your own words. Be careful not to plagiarize your work from other sites or books. This is your work, and should be written by you.
- It should have a References section at that end that lists at least 5 different sources for your page's content, none of which may be Wikipedia. You should provide links to all online sources.
- It may be done using any Web development tool you wish (Dreamweaver, Word, Notepad, etc ...), but must be an HTML file or files.
- It should have a title. You may be creative in coming up with a title, but it should be descriptive.
- The content should have at least 1500 words. By content, I mean the written descriptions you provide. This would not include titles, headers, footers, links, photo captions, etc ...
- It should use at least 3 graphics and/or multimedia in whatever format that you wish (.png, .jpg, .gif, embedded video, etc.) that are pertinent to the subject you are discussing. You may use whatever images and videos you may find on the Web, but you must reference your sources. These graphics may be pictures of your technologies, inventors, graphs, etc ... Just make sure they positively contribute to your site.
- You should provide Hyperlinks to the first occurence of all proper nouns (people, companies, products, schools, etc ...) in your site. These links should lead to a pertinent site for the given reference. For example, IBM might point to their homepage. This is a common practice in online writing.
- It should have a footer that provides information about the Web site's creator, including:
- Student's name
- Stony Brook University
- CSE 301 - History of Computing
- Fall 2011
The Historical Events Draft (like the NFL or NBA draft)
Students will select the subject of their Web site from the instructor's list of eligible historical events. No more than two students may write about the same topic. Topic selection will happen during lecture in a so-called Historical Events Draft, where students will be randomly ordered, and will then "draft" (as in choose) a technology from those still available. Students should do some research before the draft such that they have multiple picks in mind in the event that their primary choices go early in the draft. Students who wish to write about an event not included in the instructor's list must get prior instructor approval. Students who do not attend the draft will be assigned a topic by the instructor.
Handing in your Assignment
On the assignment due date, you must email the URL of your Web page to the instructor before noon.
Academic Dishonesty
Understand that plagiarism in any form will be taken very seriously. Any student who copies information from another student or from some other source has committed plagiarism and will face a charge of academic dishonesty. Your Web site should use references certainly, but this is your site, and so it should be written by you, not anyone else.
Late Web Sites
Web sites that are handed-in late, a full letter grade will be taken off for every day the assignment is late. So, if you hand-in your assignment one day late, the highest grade you can achieve is a B.
Web page created and maintained
by Richard McKenna