CSC 3560
Mobile Application Development / Android
Spring 2015 -- 3 credit hours
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Meeting in Edgerly 203
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| CSC3560 |
| Tuesday, Thursday 9:30AM-10:45
| | Jan 13 -- May 7
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Contact Information
| Instructor: | Stephen Taylor
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| Office: | Edgerly 312A
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| Office hours: | Wed 12PM-1:30PM and Thu 11AM-1:30PM
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| Web page: |
http://computersystemsartists.net/
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| Emails: | staylor@fitchburgstate.edu; StephenEugeneTaylor@gmail.com;
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| Office phone: | 978-665-3704
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| Home phone: | 508-867-9288
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Catalog description
This course is aimed to provide students with the tools and knowledge necessary to create applications that can run on mobile devices. Topics include mobile operating systems and development environments, memory management, user interfaces for mobile devices, wireless mobile networking, event handling, and animation using 2-D/3 D graphics, audio and video application programming interfaces, and data storage. Students planning to enroll in this course should have background in computer science and be familiar with computer programming.
Course goals
Students will learn concepts of object oriented programming with Java and practice their programming skills; they will become familiar with the execution
models used in mobile devices.
Course Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, a student will have demonstrated knowledge of:
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Application development environment for Android phones and tablets.
- Graphics concepts for rendering and animation
- Using the network and the internet from within an application
This is a project-oriented course, and during the term we will write a number
of small programs, 50-500 lines of code and commments, at roughly the rate of
one every two weeks.
Attendance policy
This is partly a lab course, even though there is no separate lab.
Although you may not need it every day, I hope that you will be able to
bring a laptop to class with you.
One of the good things about dealing with rapidly evolving technology is
that
since all of us are racing
to learn many details which have recently changed
you have the opportunity
to know more about some things than anyone in the class, including me.
With this achievement comes the responsibility to share your knowledge.
I hope you will be able often to help me and your fellow students, both during
lectures and outside of class.
During the first several meetings of the course, I call the roll. Once I learn names and faces I stop calling the roll, but I continue to be interested in your presence.
Textbook
Zigurd Mednieks and Laird Donin and G Blake Meike and Maumi Nakamura: Programming Android second edition, O'Reilly 2012
Course resources
Here are some useful links:
I intend to place some programs that we discuss in class
on the web .
Projects
This is a project-oriented course, and it is absolutely essential for you to
work on each project. The point of the course is to
practice programming, and of course to improve with
practice.
Learning to program is like learning a human language in
that it involves a number of different skills, and you must
practice each in order to master it. These skills include:
writing code of course, but also reading code, writing specifications,
writing documentation, debugging.
Final Exam
There is a final exam, a mid-term exam, and two practice exams, all of which are in
very similar formats. Because the time available for an exam is short,
I usually test code reading skills, rather than writing skills, on exams.
Topics
Lecture topics
Grading policy
| Class Participation, quizzes: | 10%
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| Mid-term exam: | 10%
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| Final exam: | 20%
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| Programming Projects: | 60%
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Late work
Assignments are due at midnight on the designated day, but I'm already asleep
at midnight, so I'll count anything turned in at the Blackboard dropbox by
the time I get up on the following morning as on time.
I may give credit or partial credit for late work,
but you should talk to me as soon as you know it will be late.
I will always give at least partial credit for partial work,
so turning in something incomplete but on time is a sensible strategy.
Peculiar procedures
There are non-programming activities which
are included in each project. Sometimes I will ask you
to interpret your results, or provide charts or graphs.
For every assignment, I expect you to turn in a Development diary.
The development diary will be at least two pages long, and I actually like longer ones better.
It will be neatly word-processed and beautifully formated.
Since Android apps are so visual, I expect you will include pictures of
your apps various screens.
The diary will explain what you did, and it will tell me about
your successes and frustrations in coding up the program, which blind alleys
you went up, how you figured out where you went wrong, etc.
If you never make any mistakes at all, you can tell me how how avoid them,
because I'd sure like to know!
Part of your grade for the project will be based on this development diary.
Each student is responsible for completing all course requirements and for keeping up with all activities of the course (whether a student is present or not).
Academic Honesty
I expect you to be so interested in your projects and homeworks that you discuss them with everyone, including your mom, your little brother, and other members of the class (who will at least know what they're being sympathetic about.) So I won't be too surprised if several people come up with the same idea, or even the same programming trick. But I want you to do each homework yourself, and I don't want you to share typing, even if you both worked on the problem together, and you can't really tell anymore who came up with what. (Except of course for group projects, for which the group will be designated in advance.) To keep from confusing me, you should mention everyone you talked to and every web site you looked at in your development diary. You can skip mentioning your little brother, if you think he wasn't any help at all...
I consider it plagiarism to share typing or fail to give credit to other peoples' ideas.
Accommodation
If you require course adaptations or accommodation
because of a disability or acute medical condition
or if you require assistance in the event of an emergency
evacuation of the classroom, please see the instructor
as soon as possible. Students with disabilities are
encouraged to register with the Office of Disability
Services on the 3rd floor of the Hammond Building.