Quick links, including email links, office hours, and lab hours, are all available from the Instructors tab above in the course menubar.
What follows is a more detailed introduction to the people delivering this class to you this semester. We are a team and will be working together to provide this experience to you.
I am the professor delivering this course. I am also the instructor of record for this course. If you have any significant problems, administrative or technical, please come to me about them.
I am excited to work with you and guide you through the journey of beginning to code!
Please feel free to leverage my office hours, email, text messages, Zoom meetings, or phone calls to find me. I would love it if every one of you who is in Missoula could come by sometime to introduce yourself. For those of you who are distance learners, please consider sending me an email about yourself, along with something to help me get to know you better, like your own website, or links to your creative work. You are also welcome to set up a Zoom meeting with me, and we can get to know one another better that way as well.
I would also like to say that I am a teacher first and foremost, so I will work to respond to your questions and problems as quickly as possible. Email is one of the best ways to get a hold of me. I check my email throughout the day, so you should hear back from me within a short timeline. My office hours are another way to get help from me. They are posted and updated in the Instructors tab of this website.
Michael Cassens is a teacher, a computer scientist, a creative technologist, a gamer, a game developer, and a mobile application developer. His current practice and research revolve on how to become a better instructor, how to use gaming practices and theories to deliver better course content and build better and more interesting games for the market place using different games engines and mobile platforms.
Some of his favorite games are: Mario Bros, Clash of Clans, Life is Strange, Syberia, Super Meat Boy, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Bastion, Overwatch, Super Smash Bros, Ms. Pacman, PubG, Don't Starve, Terraria, and more.
Michael is currently at the University of Montana as an Associate Professor in the School of Visual and Media Arts. In addition to continuing his other endeavors, Michael is teaching courses within the Game Design and Interactive Media concentration. These courses focus on preparing students to contribute to the gaming, technical and artistic industries. Below is a video of some of our students' work.
Game Design and Interactive Media Video
He is also the Director of UM Esports, where we focus on diversity and inclusion in all that we do. We compete in eight different games, including League of Legends, Overwatch, Pokemon Go, Tetris, Apex Legends, Super Smash Bros, Rocket League, and Starcraft 2. If you are interested in learning more, please feel free to join our Discord server or contact me. Here is a video about out team.
Before the School of Visual and Media Arts, Michael taught in the Computer Science Department for approximately 18 years as an Adjunct and Lecturer. He has taught several courses, including Introduction to Programming, Fundamentals of Computer Science I and II, Data Structures, Algorithms, Software Science, Database Design, Game, and Mobile Application Programming, Advanced Client-Side Web Programming and Advanced Server-Side Web Programming. Michael also started his own consulting company in 2002, where he still operates building software for small to medium-sized businesses. Michael has a BA in Biology as well as an M.S. Computer Science. Originally from Boulder, Colorado, St. Louis, MO, then, Hamilton, MT, Michael loves being outside with his family as well as mountain biking, snowboarding, hiking, photography, and just being in nature.