Dear MATH 111 Student,

In brief, here’s how the course will work:

1.      We’ll meet in a chat room each Thursday evening at 7:45 pm (beginning on August  28, 2008) for an overview of the week’s lesson.  You’ll use the CD ROM, Liberal Arts Mathematics, Sound Enhanced, 3rd Edition, to study the week’s lesson.  We will cover one chapter each week.  For each week, the CD has my lecture (be sure to turn up the sound on your computer) on the week’s topics, some sample problems and the week’s homework assignment.  After you’ve listened to the lecture and worked the practice problems, you are ready to work the week’s homework assignment.  Click on the icon named Assignments on your desktop to view the assignments.  You must complete the homework assignment and send the answers to me via email.  You must email your solutions to me by 7:45 p.m. of the following Thursday evening.  This gives you one week to work the week’s homework assignment.  I will post the correct answers on the walk thru site and email you your grade for each week’s assignment.  My email address is wbeck@ccbcmd.edu

2.      Four times during the semester, you will come to a campus for an hour exam.  Exams will be taken in the testing center of the campus most convenient for you.  All four of the tests will be taken online. I have established a deadline by which you must complete each hour exam.  You may take exams earlier, but not later.  The deadlines are:

a.       Test 1  October 6 , 2008

b.      Test 2  October 27 , 2008

c.       Test 3  November 24, 2008

d.      Test 4  December, 2008

3.      Your grade for the class will be the average of the four hour exams and your homework assignments (I will use your twelve best homework assignments from the fourteen chapters as your homework grade).  Thus each exam is 20% of your final grade and the average of your twelve best homework assignments will make up 20% of your final grade.

4.      My grading scale is:

a.       90% - 100%  -  A

b.      80% - 89%    -  B

c.       70%  -  79%  - C

d.      60% - 69%    - D

e.       Below 60%    - F

 

What do you need to do right now? 

1.      Purchase a copy of  the CD ROM, Liberal Arts Mathematics, Sound Enhanced, 3rd Edition by Bill Beck from the CCBC Essex bookstore.   For those of you who don’t live near the Essex campus, you can order a copy of the CD via the Internet at http://www.bookstore.ccbcmd.edu/essex/

Select as follows:

 

CCBC Essex – Fall 2008

MATH – MATHEMATICS

111

WE1  WE2 - Staff

Follow the instructions on the screen. The CD will be mailed to you.

2.  If you don’t have a copy of the Acrobat Reader, go to this site and download a free copy of the Acrobat Reader.  You’ll need this reader to read the weekly homework assignments that are on your hard drive.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

3.  Send me an email at wbeck@ccbcmd.edu

 

 

Here are the specifics of how to use the chat room:

 

We will meet in a chat room every Thursday evening (beginning on 1/29/08) at 7:45 pm.  To get to the chat room, launch your browser and go to:

 

http://www.ccbcmd.edu/distance//login.html

 

     

You will login with a username and password supplied by Joel Martin.

 

            Click on “Chat room”

            Click on “Math 111e Classroom”

In the upper right hand corner of the screen you will see these buttons: snagit.jpg  click on the middle button to resize the chat screen.  Place your mouse on one corner of the screen and make the chat screen small enough to fit along the lower 1/3 of the screen (see page three of this letter). 

Click on the icon named Walkthrough on your desktop.  You can use your mouse to toggle back and forth between making the chat room active and the Walk Thru screen active (see page 3 of this letter). 

For best results, you should set your screen display on 1024 by 768 pixels.  To set the screen display for Windows 95, click on the following:              

        START, Settings, Control Panel, Display, Settings, use the slider to adjust to 1024 by 

       768, Apply, Yes (to accept the settings), OK. 

From the Chat Room, I will indicate which week and which Walk Thru we will be using.  I’ll also indicate which page you should be viewing.  For example, I will type, “Now go to Week 1 and click on Walk Thru titled General Counting.  Begin with page 1.”  After I have typed my comments about page 1, I will type, “Now go to page 2,  please.”  Periodically, I will give you an opportunity to ask questions.  Occasionally, I will ask all of you to respond (sort of trying to keep you from slipping out for a snack during class).  When you want to ask a question or make a comment, type your comment in the field for messages and then press the enter key.  You are encouraged to have studied the appropriate material from the CD ROM so that you may ask questions. 

If you cannot meet in the Chat Room on some Thursday evening, you can get a copy of the log of the chat room from the Walk Thru on Friday.  Print a copy of the chat room log and walk thru the lesson as if you were in the class.  The only disadvantage of this is that you will not have the opportunity to ask questions.  E-mail or phone your questions to me as soon as possible.  Whether you are in the chat room or not, you are still responsible for the homework assignments!  Your screen on Thursday evenings should look approximately like this:

 

wholething.jpg

 

 

 

There is a calendar at http://www.mathsoftware.com/walkthru.html and another one on the WebCT site.  In addition, there are practice exams on the http://www.mathsoftware.com/walkthru.html site.

 

Have a great semester!

 

Bill Beck

 

P. S.  All of our classes will he held in the chat room.  We will not have any classes on campus.