Collaboration

Because this course is open resource (ie book, computer, note, etc.) I would like it generally to remain closed person and closed intelligence (the thinking done should be your own, not outsourcing it to some artificial entity). The reason for this is that the amount of resources available to you are vast, and the goal here is to discover and learn the material through individual initiative.

Individuals are allowed and expected, to assist others through the mailing list and class chat WITHOUT GIVING EXPLICIT ANSWERS, so long as it does not interfere with any other existing circumstance. If group work is required on anything, that attribute will be specifically stated.

Explicit copying on or of any class work is forbidden. If any evidence or suggestion of non-authentic work is discovered (and I can tell you some stories) in your particular direction, you risk both my wrath as well as the possibility of disciplinary action by the school. Academic dishonesty and plagiarism may be prosecuted under the purview as laid out in the school's Academic Honesty Policy, as listed under the Code of Student Conduct: Academic Honesty section in the CCC Course Catalog.

So just play it safe and make sure your work is your own, and borrowed information is appropriately cited or referenced.

Everyone has their buttons that can be pushed the wrong way. Here are a few of mine, that I would prefer not encountering:

• the eager, often surface-only desire to destroy things (especially with no desire to understand the why behind it all)
• the notion that 'old', 'unpopular', 'uncomfortable', or 'different', especially in terms of technology or experiences, is somehow bad (there are plenty of useful things to learn, for the patterns will often remanifest in future technologies down the road)
• apologizing: “sorry I had to ask a question”, “sorry I misunderstood”, “sorry I failed to do that action”; I WANT people to ask questions. Questions are based on not fully understanding something. And if your actions come up short, apologies only serve to highlight the deficiency. The best solution: to fix it and not keep repeating the same mistake. There may be things worthy of apologizing for. For most incidents of apology I encounter related to classes, such is irrelevant. If you feel you are in the wrong for asking a question, you're doing this whole learning thing wrong.
• overhelping “the weakest link”; a somewhat modern trend, where I see woefully unprepared/unready individuals overly assisted through the course (where the intent is to save them from failing). This is but a short-term perspective, contributing to their long-term failure.
• opting out of things that seem overwhelming, yet somehow expecting things will get better as time goes on.
• the desire to impress me– impressing comes by being impressive, not selling an act to me (in short, don't try to impress me, just do your best work)
• avoiding the developing/strengthening your own memory and recall, and relying on others (including the instructor) to be your memory.
• the obsession over and recitation of hardware specs– this has nothing to do with computing, yet many mistakenly believe it to be such (a small aspect of IT and an occasionally fun hobby? sure.)
• the compensation for lack of knowledge by clinging tightly to (perceived) known knowledge– I expect everyone not to know things; knowing we don't know enables us to learn.
• the avoiding of questions out of fear they may not be worthy of asking– how else can I know where you are if you don't ask?
• the asking for the answer as if it were a question, to avoid thinking or doing the work yourself. Questions are the a result of your thinking, not “I don't know, so tell me?”, or the worst (literally): “What do I need to do in order to get an A/full credit?”
• the absolute belief that if I say something then it is the truth (same for the inverse, converse, contrapositive, etc.)– being open-minded and questioning is one of the greatest abilities we can have. Society trains you to be compliant with external authority at the expense of your own; to be educated and intelligent, in part, means you have cultivated your own self-authority so you can make your own decisions.
• the impression that if you say something frequently or confidently enough, then it must be true, and that you are an expert that should be believed, followed, and unquestioned.
• the tendency to brute force through something instead of trying to think or learn new approaches– memorizing and regurgitation will often not work out in your favour here (or greatly annoy me).
• being tangibly obsessed with knowing your exact grade, while being uninformed about the process of calculating it yourself from available information.
• trying to add me to your “LinkedIn” network; I delete these e-mails without even reading them (nothing personal, I just do not use LinkedIn).
• complaining upstream about me/my class without actually bringing issues to me first to address.
• destroying context in asynchronous communications (ie deleting Discord messages after making a post, asking a question, and getting some sort of resolution): this makes it entirely unhelpful for others to also benefit, and leaves gaping holes in the existing conversation. Please do not delete your Discord messages after getting a response.

For maximum success in the class, please adhere to the following rules:

• start on activities early
• observe/study, read/intuit, and comprehend the subject matter
• play/tinker/experiment with the subject matter (external to assigned projects)
• ask well-informed and copious questions

Struggle and problems in the course almost immediately arise when one fails to follow one or more of these guidelines.

The following criteria should be kept in mind when contributing content to collaborative documentation, the wiki, your journal, and any pertinent class-related communications:

• Never use a form of a word in its own definition
• Use external hyperlinks only as citations
• Content first, then formatting
• There is only one empire- ours
• Contribute only original content
  • paraphrase and cite existing information
  • do NOT blatantly copy existing information
• A healthy wiki is an active wiki
• Do not focus on just your contributions
• Mistakes are opportunities for future contributions