CS 4660:Educational Technology

Time: TTh 1:30-3:00
Location: College of Computing Building (CCB) 101
Instructor: Amy Bruckman
Office TSRB 338
Email: asb@cc.gatech.edu
Office Hours: Find me after class or email for an appointment
   
Teaching Assistant: Andrea Forte, aforte@cc.gatech.edu
Office Hours: After class, or find me at TSRB 338a, the Electronic Learning Communities lab. Email first to make sure I'm around...

Schedule and Assignments

Course Swiki

Required Texts:


Prerequisite
There are no prereqs. Students from all departments are welcome.

CS majors should know that the class requires more reading and writing than most CS classes. It's time consuming, but a nice mental break from programming and problem sets. You'll get a chance to practice your writing skills, which are one key to your future career success regardless of what career you choose.

Focus of the Course
In this class, we will begin by studying theories of learning. Next, we'll explore how those theories lead you to design different kinds of educational software and hardware. A variety of different approaches to educational technology will be presented. In the software analysis assignment in the first half of the semester, you'll evaluate an example of educational technology and explain the theory of learning behind its design. In the design assignments in the second half of the course, you'll propose designs for educational technology based on two different approaches to learning.

Ethical issues in appropriate use of technology in educational settings will also be discussed.

Grading
Your grade will be based on these assignments:

  1. Personal Learning Experience (5%)
  2. Starlogo Analysis (10%)
  3. Midterm (20%)
  4. Design Assignment (30%)
  5. Final (25%)
  6. Class Participation (10%)

Suggested assignment lengths are approximate. Some people will do a good job in fewer and some will require many more pages. Please don't play games with the margins or fonts to try to make it come out a certain length--no one is counting. Don't worry about the page count--just make sure that you've completed the assignment well. Please remember to double space papers so we can write comments.

Computing Resources
If you registered for the class and you already have a CoC account, you have been given access to College of Computing machine clusters (if you didn't have access already). If you register late, you should be added later automatically. If not, mail help@cc asking to be given access.

Late Policy
Each student may have a total of three late days over the course of the semester. Once you've used those up, late work will be penalized at a rate of one grade-step per day (max grade becomes A-, then B+, etc.) Work will not be accepted more than one week late. We always make an effort to return papers promptly; however, late papers may be returned substantially later.

Your presentations may not be late.

Honor Code
This class abides by the Georgia Tech Honor Code. A few highly relevant points for this class:

These two points are not the whole honor code! These are simply important things to bear in mind in a class that emphasizes writing about designs and ideas. Please read the Code and contact the instructor or the TA if you have any further questions.