Week 1

Preparations

Download and print this week's notes before continuing.

Quarantine

If you are in quarantine, I have prepared a care package for you. The College driver should be bringing this to you on Monday by noon. Inside the care package:

1. this week's notes
2. stationary
   1. a red/green pen
   2. pencil
   3. post-it notes
3. snacks
   1. sweet
   2. salty

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Difficult situations

I know some of you have restricted access including lack of a computer, power outage, and internet censorship. I hope the following adjustments mean online learning is still possible.

• no computer: I designed and built this website to be mobile-first, and tested everything on a phone myself. You should be able to access most of what you need. However, your other experiences (e.g., Google Sheets / Docs) will depend on the extent of that app being available on your phone OS (Operating System).

• power / Wifi outage: You are probably also in a different timezone. This combination means that synchronizing internet access to the class is difficult. That's OK! All of the activities in the first weeks are designed so that they can be done in your own time. We will meet but we will tailor meetings to when you are available.

• internet censorship: This is difficult. I don't know what we can do when your state do all it can to keep you from learning 😃

  • If you can get access to a VPN, consider that.
  • Google is blocked in China, but all the material is on the Google Drive. I have added a copy to Microsoft Sharepoint that you may be able to access though the MS Teams channel.
  • The videos are hosted on Vimeo, which usually can be accessed in China. However, the Great Fire Wall grows higher at sensitive times (for example, 1 Oct). Do as much as you can when you can access to the outside world.

• English fluency: I try to help you get started by providing

  • most material in writing (so you can take your time),
  • simpler language and slower speech, and
  • videos have captions that you can access by clicking on the CC button on the lower right. (Well, I try; it's me doing chemistry and art and code and filming and video editing, so additional captioning pass may not be available immediately.)

I hope this makes enough of the course available to you. If you have other difficulties that I did not anticipate, let me know, and we see what can be done.

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Start Session 1 (Boxes) in your first chem lesson, Session 2 (Time) on the second lesson, and Session 3 (Colors) on the third lesson. If there are two chem lessons on a day, use only one of them: choose the lesson that is convenient for you.

If the activities within the session cannot be finished within one hour, complete the remainder at a time of your choosing.

Complete and submit the homework for each session before their due dates.

• Session 1: Boxes
• Session 2: Time
• Session 3: Colors

Class Collage

In this section I will post a selection of the homework your class submitted. Check back next week!