Welcome to Addison - Wesley Longman's on-line course on World Wide Web Programming. We hope that you will find both the content and the approach fresh and exciting.As an on-line course, the material is intended to be delivered to you, the instructor, and to your students primarily through the Internet, using the World Wide Web. However, it is not rigidly programmatic. The instructor is the focal point of the course. You can draw on course components for outside reading as well as in-class lectures. You can arrange them in any order you like or use the default schedule of topics provided. You may also replace any segments with your own or add new ones. You can even teach the course in a distant learning format that replaces conventional lecture with on-line forums for discussion and question-asking. Thus, the course is designed to provide maximum support for the instructor as well as maximum flexibility.
In designing the course, we have made several assumptions regarding the instructor. We have assumed that the instructor has taught conventional programming course before in which students worked on microcomputers/workstations or on-line with a mainframe system. However, we have assumed that because Java is a new language, he or she has not taught a course using that language. Finally, we have assumed that the instructor has not taught a course in which most course material as well as most student work are presented on-line.
If you have more experience than we have assumed, you may wish to skim some in the sections of this Instructors' Manual. But do read through them to understand our perspective and approach. On the other hand, if this is your first experience teaching a programming course, you will probably want to stick close to the default schedule and organization.
In the sections that follow, we discuss four main topics. First, we explain key concepts on which the course is based. Next we provide an overview of its content. We then describe the course's organization, the structure of its materials such as a schedule of topics, the various discussions and lecture presentations, and on-line tools. Finally, we describe different ways instructor and students can use these materials.
Concept
The course is based on two main concepts. First, the World Wide Web combined with Java comprises a new general-purpose computing environment. Thus, the primary goal of this course is to prepare students for writing programs both within and for this environment.Second, the course is intended to be conducted through the Internet and the World Wide Web. Most of the course content will be presented through a Web browser; students will present their programming assignments and class projects as Web pages; and a variety of on-line tools will be available to encourage student-student, student-instructor, and student-content interaction.
Content
The course includes three main kinds of content. First, several different contexts are discussed. These include the Internet, TCP/IP, and the architecture of the Web, including HTTP. An especially important part of this last component is the Web's Common Gateway Interface (CGI), since it provides the earliest mechanism for writing programs accessible through the WWW.Second, the Perl programming language will be introduced. For the past several years, it has been the programming language of choice for CGI programs, and, thus, will be presented in relation to CGI and as the vehicle for that type of program.
The majority of the course will be devoted to Java. The discussion will concentrate on the writing of applets that can be accessed through the network and run within a Web browser. It will emphasize the building of the user interface, handling the user's actions, and developing simple client-server network applications.
Organization
Drawing on materials provided, the instructor will create a structure of information and tools that constitutes his or her version of "the course." Included are likely to be administrative components, such as a pre-course description, a class schedule, a statement of grading policy, etc. Technical components could include class lecture notes and topic-presentations that discuss specific technical issues. Student components could be a list of students and their respective class homepages for their course-related work. A fourth set of components may include on-line tools, such as class forums, a chatroom for both informal discussion and scheduled help sessions, and a search engine for quick access to course materials.The instructor is free to set-up his or her own organization or he or she can use the default structure provided with the course.
Use
A given structure of course materials can be used by the instructor and students in many different ways. For example, the instructor may or may not hold regular lecture sessions. During these session, if they occur, the instructor may or may not lecture from on-line materials through a projected Web browser. Students may or may not present their class work through a class homepage. The class may or may not include on-line tools; if it does, the instructor may expect them to be used informally or he or she may include structured on-line events.This discussion will consider these and other options and offer suggestions for implementing them.