Course Resources
You will find the following resources helpful to your success in CS 124.
Activating Google LoginActivating Google Login
You must enable Google Apps integration to participate in CS 124. Doing so will allow you to participate in discussions on the forum, as well as access your grades and complete your daily lessons on this website.
The process is simple:
- Log in to the Illinois Cloud Dashboard
- Turn on Google Apps integration:
Course ForumCourse Forum
CS 124 runs a Discourse forum.
The forum is the right place to ask questions, get help, and interact with other students and the course staff.
Please use it for all course-related questions that are not of a sensitive nature, since answering them there helps other students with the same question.
To log in, you will need to activate Google Apps integration for your @illinois.edu email account.
Please also get in the habit of searching the forum before asking a question. Chances are fairly good that your question has already been asked and answered, which means that you can find out what you wanted to know immediately! On public forums this is also considered good forum etiquette.
Why not Piazza (or CampusWire, or some other crappy LMS)?Why not Piazza (or CampusWire, or some other crappy LMS)?
We are using the excellent open-source Discourse forum software to power our course forum. There are four main reasons that we consider Discourse a better choice:
- Discourse enables discussion. Piazza encourage students to converge to one answer. But in computer science, we frequently have multiple ways to solve a problem. Discourse helps us discuss the tradeoffs instead of pretending that there is one “right” answer.
- Discourse has a future. You will never again use Piazza once you graduate. (Unless you find yourself back at a univeristy.) However, you’ll frequently find yourself on Discourse forums as you continue your journey in technology.
- Discourse is good tech. Discourse is a modern, rapidly-evolving, responsive, and interactive forum application. Piazza… is not.
- Discourse is free and open source. We believe in both the power and the principles behind open source software. Discourse is a great example of what talented volunteers can do working together. And they have no incentive to monetize your personal data, like Piazza, Campuswire, and similar products. Our Discourse instance is hosted right here at Illinois and your data never leaves the premises.
If you want a full write-up, click here.
CS 199 124CS 199 124
CS 199 124—formerly known as CS 196—is the honors section of CS 124. Note that you should sign up for CS 199 124, not one of the other CS 199 sections.
CS 199 124 is a great experience! It also has its own website, forum, and sources of information. Please use those resources to ask questions about the class. But here are the leads to introduce the course to you:
To sign up to find out more about CS 199 124, use this form.
If you are a James Scholar or are taking the course for honors credit, you should complete an Honors Credit Learning Agreement (HCLA). On your HCLA, state that you are completing the work for CS 199 124 for honors credit. You should not enroll in CS 199 124.
If you are not a James Scholar or not taking the course for honors credit, you should enroll in CS 199 124. The course is no credit hours and S/U graded. However, you will need to participate in CS 199 124 to earn an S grade!