Scratch Lectures

Podcasts of Jt's CS110 Lectures:

For the past ten years I have been "podcasting" my lectures online. Many students have been using the podcasts to review lecture material.  Based on the good results, I will continue to record and podcast my lectures throughout this semester so that they are available for you to grab.

Although it is very likely you will do poorly in the course if you skip lecture and only rely on the podcasts, they are extremely useful as a method of reviewing what you learned in class. It is important to note, these are just simple recordings - these are not elaborate productions. And they will only serve as reminders of what occured in lecture.  Not all that is taught will be preserved in the recordings. Anything I write on the board, information I stress by pointing to, demos I give the Scratch environment - will not be preserved in the podcasts.

To put it simply, if you decide not to attend lecture or pay attention during them, and just rely on these recordings, it is extremely likely you will not do as well in the course as you otherwise would.  The podcasts will be useful for going back and reviewing parts of lectures you want to try to understand better. They can be used in much the same way you would review your notes to find out some detail needed to do an assignment, or to study for an exam.

Important: I do not give the above warning to you lightly. In the first semesters I did podcasting, attendance dropped significantly in my lectures, probably because people got used to just depending on the podcasts. Unfortunately, at the end of those semesters, 30% of the students in the class had failed the course. Usually only 7 to 14% of the class fails. Dozens of people failed just because they didn't pay attention to my advice. Resist the urge to skip class. Remember I have said this. Later in the semester, if you remember I have told you to resist this urge and thus continue to come to class, you are likely to do very well in the course, as thousands of my students have done in previous semesters.

Note, you do not have to use these podcasts in any way.  Nothing in this class will depend on your having access to the podcasts.

If you want the podcasts of my lectures, you can get access to  them by using the iTunes software made available from Apple. This software runs on PCs or Macintoshes.  (You can get the software here: iTunes site  ).

Once you have iTunes installed, click the link at the end of this section to "subscribe" to the lectures. This is a one time step that you will never have to do again. iTunes will handle the rest. It will automatically update the entry in the podcast  section of iTunes with the names of new lectures as they become available. (Depending on your setup, you may have to hit the triangle next the podcast name, to open up the list and see all the lectures. Also, you may have to click the Get button next to a lecture name before actually playing it.) So any time you reopen iTunes, you will be able to access all the lectures, including any new ones that have recently become available. 

You DO NOT need an iPod to access these lectures. You can see them on any computer that you have installed the free iTunes software on. Of course, if you happen to have an iPod, iTunes will also automatically synch the lectures down to your iPod, so you can play them on that too.

When you have the latest version of iTunes installed and are ready to subscribe to Jt's CS110 lectures click the link below.

   
Click here to subscribe