Class Technology 🛠️

Hardware 🔌

Bring a laptop or personal computer to (nearly) every time we meet.

Need a spare laptop? Try CCNY’s Laptop Loaner Program.

Phones or Tablets: I strongly recommend using a laptop for this course, even though it is technically feasible to take notes and run snippets of code on smart tablets or mobile devices. Relying solely on these devices will present challenges when need to view or modify Jupyter notebooks, run Python files, or stage coding environments that require computational resources which smart devices lack. Still, if you’re unable to rent a laptop, then please reach out to me as early as possible so that we can discuss alternative arrangements.

Software 🖥️

Jupyter Notebook: In-class lessons and homeworks are done in Jupyter Notebook so that we can use markdown and Python simultaneously. The notebooks assume a Python 3 installation with the standard modules from the Anaconda installation (e.g. NLTK, Pandas, Numpy and Matplotlib) linked on the schedule.

Hypothesis Annotation: Expect to post 2-3 annotations for most critical readings we do in this class, each about 25-50 words in length and assessed on thoughtfulness, style and craft, and a demonstrated effort to respond to others. Hypothesis can also be a useful research tool and means of information management, so I encourage you to engage with it throughout the course. Moreover, if you have not yet joined our private annotation group, please reach out to me for the invite link.