Digital Journal
Curriculum[edit]
Coder Merlin™ Computer Science Curriculum Data | |
Unit: Lab basics Experience Name: Digital Journal (W1005) Next Experience: () Knowledge and skills:
Topic areas: Reflection Classroom time (average): 20 minutes Study time (average): 30 minutes Successful completion requires knowledge: understand the purpose of a digital journal; understand the purpose of reflection Successful completion requires skills: creating a digital journal in the proper format |
Background[edit]
Introduction[edit]
Your journey through these computer science experiences will benefit greatly by journaling. Each journal entry will have these parts:
- A brief journal header
- The second part of your journal will document assistance that you have received or provided.
- The third part of your journal will have a prescribed format. Here, you'll have the opportunity to ponder phenomena that you've observed and answer some questions.
- The fourth part of your journal entry will address some open-ended prompts that will be the same for each experience.
- The final part is your opportunity to further explore the experience on your own.
Your journals will be one component of your Digital Portfolio; we'll set that up next.
Create your Digital Portfolio on the Server[edit]
1. Create a new directory called Digital Portfolio in your home directory.
jane-williams@codermerlin:~$ cd
jane-williams@codermerlin:~$ mkdir "Digital Portfolio"
2. Create a link to the new directory from your www directory, which is the only directory from which your web server will serve files.
jane-williams@codermerlin:~$ cd ~/www
jane-williams@codermerlin:~/www$ ln -s ~/Digital\ Portfolio "Digital Portfolio"
3. Create a file to set the permissions of both directories to allow the web server read and traverse access.
jane-williams@codermerlin:~/www$ emacs setPermissions.sh
Into this file, add the following:
#!/bin/bash
# Allow this and descenant directories to be traversed by everyone, ignoring hidden directories
find -L "$PWD" -not -path "*/.*" -type d -exec chmod a+X {} \;
# Allow everyone read access to all files in this hierarchy with an extension of
# .html, .png, or .jpg
find -L "$PWD" -not -path "*/.*" -type f \( -name "*.html" -o -name "*.png" -o -name "*.jpg" \) -exec chmod a+r {} \;
Save the file and exit emacs.
Set the permissions of this file:
jane-williams@codermerlin:~/Digital Portfolio$ chmod u+x setPermissions.sh
4. Any time you add a new file, execute the script:
jane-williams@codermerlin:~/Digital Portfolio$ ./setPermissions.sh
Conventions[edit]
Journal Location and Name[edit]
All of your journals will be located in a subdirectory called "Journals" which is in your home directory. Let's create that directory now.
john-williams@codermerlin:~$ cd
john-williams@codermerlin:~$ mkdir Journals
john-williams@codermerlin:~$ cd Journals
john-williams@codermerlin:~/Journals$
You will name each file in accordance with the identifier of the experience (with the "W" replaced by a "J") with an extension of ".txt". Let's create the journal for experience W1002 and enter the editor:
john-williams@codermerlin:~/Journals$ emacs J1002.txt
Journaling Requirements[edit]
- The first part of your journal will be a simple header with your name, the journal identifier, and the date that you started writing the journal. Type that into emacs now:
1 | Name: Jane Williams
2 | Journal: J1002
3 | Date: 4-May-2024
4 |
5 |
- The second part of your journal simply lists the individuals who have provided you with assistance and those who you yourself have assisted:
4 |
5 |
6 | I received assistance from: John Williams
7 |
8 | I assisted: Jane Williams
9 |
Providing clear attribution when using the ideas and creations of others is a core tenet of your journey and a serious responsibility. Do not leave these lines relating to assistance blank. You must either list one or more names or explicitly state NO ONE.
- The third part of your journal will have a prescribed format, as determined by the specific observation boxes in that experience. As an example, consider the following two boxes from W1002:
- Name at least two other services that you personally use that are implemented using a Client/Server Model
- It appears that both Jack Williams and John Williams can have a directory of the same name. Do you think the ability to have two different users create a directory of the same name is important? Why?
These questions should be labeled in your journal using the convention Section.Question followed by a newline character. Use complete sentences and leave a blank line between questions. In this example, there are two sections with one question in each section. In emacs, we'd continue as follows:
8 |
9 | 1.1:
10 | One of the other services that I use is...
11 | Another of the services that I use is...
12 |
13 | 2.1:
14 | I think that the ability to have two different users...
- The fourth section will address some questions that require a bit more thought. These same questions will be answered for each experience. Let's add these lines to emacs now:
15 |
16 | What did I learn? What is the "big idea"?
17 |
18 | What challenges did I encounter?
19 |
20 | How could this experience be improved?
21 |
- The final part of your journal is titled "Free Reflection." It's an opportunity for you to reflect on your experience and how it has affected your thinking. Let's add these lines to emacs now:
21 |
22 | Free Reflection: How has what I've learned affected my thinking?
23 |
Template[edit]
To quickly create journals, you can copy this text into emacs into a file inside your Journals directory called "Template.txt". Then, to start a new journal, copy the template as a starting point.
jane-williams@codermerlin:~$ cd ~/Journals
jane-williams@codermerlin:~/Journals$ emacs Template.txt
Then, copy the text below into emacs:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Home</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello, world!</p>
</body>
</html>
Name: Jane Williams Journal: J____ Date: 01-Jan-2023 I received assistance from: I assisted: 1.1: 1.2: 2.1: 2.2: What did I learn? What is the "big idea"? What challenges did I encounter? How could this experience be improved? Free Reflection: How has what I've learned affected my thinking?
Before saving the file, change the name of the author to your name. Then save the file.
Now, the next time that you need a journal, copy the template as a starting point. For example:
jane-williams@codermerlin:~/Journals$ cp Template.txt Jnnnn.txt
Exercises[edit]
Now that you've completed W1005, complete:
- J1002 Create a journal and answer all questions in W1002. Be sure to include all sections of the journal, properly formatted.
Experience Metadata
Experience ID | W1005 |
---|---|
Next experience ID | |
Unit | Lab basics |
Knowledge and skills | §10.111 §10.112 §10.121 §10.651 |
Topic areas | Reflection |
Classroom time | 20 minutes |
Study time | 30 minutes |
Acquired knowledge | understand the purpose of a digital journal understand the purpose of reflection |
Acquired skill | creating a digital journal in the proper format |
Additional categories |