Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

My Computer Architecture and Computer Systems Organization classes for the school of IT and Computing are just rehashes of the classes on Digital Design and Computer Circuit Fundamentals already offered to all engineering majors.

What makes it awkward is that the computer engineering students take both subjects.

So I have to give them some advanced topics to not make them feel like they've wasted time repeating something they've already passed.

For one, I asked them to make a calculator using just logic gate configurations. That should be worthy of their talents.

In the lecture, I've started reordering the sequence of the topics to include something new for each session, about at least 40% of the discussion that I haven't given them last term.

But what I have noticed so far, is that the students are getting a bit overwhelmed especially in the note taking department.

In the past two sessions (and this is just the second week) there have already been complaints about not being able to write down everything that's on the board, and this not just from the people who showed up late, but also from those who were there and copying since the start of the class.

It does have something to do with the fact that I have two classes consecutive, where I don't erase what I wrote in the earlier session anymore, but also because of the need to cover more material than the previous engineering class - after all, they are computer science majors and should be able to handle it, being already familiar with basic algorithms.

I still have to find a balance (as netta says) to lessen the complaints.

Session 1979 wishes the flowcharts of computer studies and engineering were coordinated better. Class dismissed.