(First Email)

Hi Class,

I am John Compton, the instructor listed for CS256 Section 301.

The fall semester officially begins tomorrow so I wanted to pass along some
important information to you.

First, I'll also be working with the in-person section of CS 256 taught by Dr.
Sternfeld, so we have merged both sections of the course together on
Blackboard. The general idea here is that we will mostly follow the same track
as his class regarding assignments, quizzes, etc. and that you will also have
access to any Zoom lectures either he or I post. 

In related news, your overall grade in the class will also be set up mostly the
same as his section, though as this is an asynchrous section there will be some
minor differences between this and the in-person section. I may require that
your section check in with me periodically to make sure you're still keeping up
with this class.

Do note that as your section is Asynchrous, there are no regularly scheduled
meetings, so you do NOT need to attend his lectures at the scheduled class
time. However, you will need to view any videos either he or I post in order to
keep up with the class.

Second, we are still in the process of getting class accounts ready for you to
log in to the server, you will be getting these within the next couple of
days.

Third, the following are my current lab hours, MWF - 1-2PM 3-4PM T TH  -
11-12PM

I may add more lab hours specifically for this section, the details are still
being worked out. 

Finally, the first subject we're planning on covering is using the UNIX/Linux
environment, so I strongly advise that you look through our Indstate CS Wiki
Page.

https://cs.indstate.edu/wiki/index.php/Linux_and_CS_Systems_-_Getting_Started

on getting started with UNIX/Linux and pay special attention to the "Getting
Started" section, and plan on having an assignment on this subject sometime
this week.



That should be it for now, more details regarding this class will be
forthcoming.

John