Java Capstone Series Pt. 1

The Java Capstone Series is a completely new course format.

Fewer videos and more hands-on activities.
Together, we will develop small Java projects from scratch to transform knowledge into competencies.

For the first iteration we will develop a little game, e.g. Pong or BreakOut.

The idea is to work on these projects in teams, but if you prefer you can also work alone. This format is completely new for us as well. We see ourselves rather as co-learners and facilitators than as teachers.

Until the course will officially start in mid-September, we have prepared a short survey consisting of basically just one question: What do you expect from this course? Topics, approaches, tools, tasks,...

Self-paced since September 24, 2018
Language: English
Advanced, Programming

Course information

The Java Capstone Series is a completely new course format.

Fewer videos and more hands-on activities.
Together, we will develop small Java projects from scratch to transform knowledge into competencies.

For the first iteration we will develop a little game, e.g. Pong or BreakOut.

The idea is to work on these projects in teams, but if you prefer you can also work alone. This format is completely new for us as well. We see ourselves rather as co-learners and facilitators than as teachers.

Until the course will officially start in mid-September, we have prepared a short survey consisting of basically just one question: What do you expect from this course? Topics, approaches, tools, tasks,...

We will certainly not be able to integrate the complete wish-list in this first iteration of the course, but we hope that further iterations will follow, so that we will be able to cover many of them sooner or later.

The prerequisite for this course is a basic understanding of the Java programming language concepts.

You should have successfully completed one of the Java courses on our platforms

https://open.hpi.de/courses/javaeinstieg2017
https://open.sap.com/courses/java1

or have a similar body of knowledge.

P.S.: For those of you who already have participated in one of our previous workshops, we've tried to incorporate a lot of the feedback that we've received from the learners in these courses:

  • Most of all: Slow down. The projects are taking smaller steps. The idea is to offer a series of these workshops.
  • Let the learners start from scratch. We will no more give you broken source code that needs to be fixed, but we will start with a completely empty project from scratch.

The timeline for this course will be as follows:

Registration for teams open: Thursday, September 6, 2018 11:59:00 AM (UTC)
Deadline for team registration: Thursday, September 13, 2018 11:59:00 AM (UTC)
Start peer assessment: Friday, September 14, 2018 12:01:00 PM (UTC)
Deadline submission: Friday, September 27, 2018 11:59:00 AM (UTC)
Deadline evaluation: Friday, October 4, 2018 11:59:00 AM (UTC)
Deadline results: Monday, October 8, 2018 11:59:00 AM (UTC)

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Credits: The art for this course was created by Lea Gerneth and Thomas Staubitz.

Course contents

  • Intro:

    Some Basic information about this course and the collaboration and peer assessment features of the platform. Teamwork registration: If you intend to work on the project in a team, you have to register here for the teamwork before September, 13th 11:59 am (UTC)
  • IDE:

    This section provides a short introduction to Integrated Development Environments and shows how to get started with Eclipse.
  • git:

    This section is about version control with git and GitHub.
  • GUI:

    This section shows how to use Processing and very briefly introduces other GUI frameworks, such as AWT, Swing, and JavaFX.
  • Design Patterns:

    This section contains an introduction to Design Patterns. We'll have a look at Model-View-Controller and the patterns of which it is composed: Observer, Strategy, and Composite. Furthermore, we'll demonstrate the Factory pattern and will discuss the Singleton and if it is an Anti-pattern or not.
  • Teamwork and Peer Assessment - How To :

    This section contains information on how-to work in teams and the peer assessment process.
  • The Project:

    This section contains the Peer Assessments. If you want to work on the task alone, please choose [The Project - I want to work alone]. If you have registered for teamwork, please choose [The Project - I want to work in a team]. The task is the same, whichever option you choose. Those who've decided to work on the task alone, will have to do 3 reviews of other submissions. Those who've decided to work in a team will have to do only 2 reviews.
  • Outro:

    How did you like the course? Submission Gallery. What's next?
  • Additional Material:

    This section collects interesting things, mostly provided by you

Enroll me for this course

The course is free. Just register for an account on openHPI and take the course!
Enroll me now

Learners

Current
Today
4,212
Course End
Sep 24, 2018
2,327
Course Start
Sep 10, 2018
1,369

Certificate Requirements

  • Gain a Record of Achievement by earning at least 50% of the maximum number of points from all graded assignments.
  • Gain a Confirmation of Participation by completing at least 50% of the course material.

Find out more in the certificate guidelines.

This course is offered by

Dr. Thomas Staubitz

Dr. Thomas Staubitz is a Senior Lecturer at the Internet Technologies and Systems group of Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam. His general research topics are in the area of eLearning and MOOCs. A particular focus is on collaboration and interaction among course participants and assessment strategies beyond multiple-choice quizzes.

Ralf Teusner

Ralf Teusner is a PostDoc at the Enterprise Platform and Integration Concepts research group of Professor Dr. h.c. Hasso Plattner, located at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam. His research area is centered around eLearning and MOOCs. Especially the adoption of programming languages and concepts as well as the potential and influence of social interaction are in his focus.