Week

Topics covered

Jan 11 - 17

Jan 18 - 24

• Using the 203 lab computers: [My help link]
• Submitting assignments using D2L: [UC-IT help link]
• A1 assignment description
• Examples in logic: [Examples]

Jan 25 - 31

• Excel ribbon, commonly used tabs
• Formatting data
• Completing a series: auto-fill and fast-fill
• Formulas: user-defined and some pre-created functions: SUM, ROUND, TRUNC, COUNTIF, AVERAGE, COUNTIF, COUNTA, MAX, MIN, NOW, TODAY AND, OR, NOT)
• Order of operation

Second tutorial (Wednesday or Thursday): Advanced features of Excel

• If
• Using Logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) in conjunction with 'If'
• Conditional formatting
• LOOKUP, VLOOKUP
• Absolute vs. relative addressing
• Inserting graphs and charts

Feb 1 - 7

• Pivot tables
• Multi-threading mode in Excel
• Visualizing data effectively in Excel
• Final points about A1 marking
• Overview of A2 requirements

Second tutorial (Wednesday or Thursday): Basic introduction into databases

• Overview of databases and MS-Access
• Design view and planning out the design of a database
• Creating graphical forms

Feb 8 - 14

• Relationships between databases: multiplicity
• ERD diagrams

Second tutorial (Wednesday or Thursday): Database queries

• Single and multiple table queries
• Logical operators and queries: AND, OR, NOT
• Contradictions and empty queries
• Using the wildcard in queries

A1: Due Monday February 9

Feb 15 - 21

Reading Week, no classes

(Catch up material for MS-Word). It's assumed that everyone has worked with the very basic features of word processors such as MS-Word. After Reading Week the TA's will go over some of the more 'advanced' features of Word which some of you may not be familiar with partly so you can learn some useful features but also because it will be quite helpful to know the existing features of Word well before trying to write programs to augment these features.

If you don't feel like you are already an expert using Word or even if you wish to review some features here are some help tutorials provided by Microsoft which you can work through over Reading Week:

Very basic features

• Creating your first Word document, using basic features
• Tips for working with Word online (the interface is the same as the latest version of office so topics such as find/replacing text and printing could still be helpful)
• Setting margins, headers and footers
• Getting statistics about Word documents (counts of characters, words, lines, paragraphs, pages)

More advanced features

• Using formatting 'styles' in Word (which begs the question: Why use styles in Word)
• Creating an academic paper using the MLA template
• Writing resumes with Word
• Using mail merge
• Advanced table of contents

Feb 22 - 28

• Catch up on the queries not covered before Reading Week e.g., ordering queries, using the wild card
• Normalizing the database to first, second and third normal form
• Creating graphical reports for MS-Access queries
• (Likely the above topics won't take up the entire tutorial time, the remainder of the tutorial is an "open tutorial": the TA's will be available to answer questions during the tutorial but no new material will be taught i.e., it's extra CT help time).

Second tutorial (Wednesday or Thursday): Advanced features of MS-Word

• Linking documents between different MS-Office applications (e.g., Excel and Word)
• Find and replace: case sensitive and employing a wildcard
• Change tracking
• Using, creating and modifying styles
• Citations, bibliographies, footnotes, figure captions, table of figures
• Master and sub-documents

A2: Due Friday February 27

Mar 1 - 7

• Discussion of A3 requirements
• Review of the features of the Visual Basic Editor: creating and running programs
• Displaying output with the MsgBox and title bar
• Variables and constants
• Mathematical expressions
• Documenting programs
• Find/replace

Mar 8 - 14

• Describing what is allowed in terms of acceptable collaboration vs. academic misconduct: [Online reference link]
• VBA branching/making decisions: if-then, if-then-else, nested branches, if, else-if, using logical operators (AND, OR) in conjunction with branching
• VBA repetition/loops: do-while loops,  for loops
• VBA tables: counting(), sorting()
• VBA strings: how they store character information, length via the len() function, using the left() and right() functions, checking if strings contain numeric data.

Mar 15 - 21

• TA's return the midterm
• Tutorial exercises: using branches and loops
• Solutions to the exercises: [Counting a number series] [Counting numbered items]

Second tutorial (Wednesday or Thursday):

• "Open tutorial": the Teaching assistants will be available to answer questions during the entire session but no new material will be taught.
• It's a question and answer session that in effect acts like an extra CT help time.
• You can go to any tutorial for help: You don't have to go to the tutorial that you registered, any 203 TA should be able to help you.

A3: Due Friday March 20

Mar 22 - 28

• Open tutorial": the Teaching assistants will be available to answer questions during the entire session but no new material will be taught.

Second tutorial (Wednesday or Thursday):

• Introduction: creating a University of Calgary web pages
• HTML and formatting 'tags'
• Linking to images, videos, other web pages

Mar 29 - April 4

• Advanced html: creating graphical controls: text boxes, radio buttons, check boxes, combo boxes, buttons, password
• Linking to documents in sub-folders

Second tutorial (Wednesday or Thursday):

• Defining a JavaScript function
• Tying JavaScript instructions to GUI 'events' such as button presses
• Documenting programs
• Differentiating graphical controls with the 'id' property
• Creating variables
• Displaying output with an "alert()" popup

April 5 - 11

• JavaScript: branching and loops

April 12 - 15

• Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: "Open tutorial": the Teaching assistants will be available to answer questions during the entire session but no new material will be taught.
• A4: Due Wednesday April 15