CS 6397 - Educational Technology

Text: Course notes from the Student Center bookstore, and Web sites

Announcements:

• 2/25/97 - Please send at least one member of each group to class on Thursday 2/27/97! I want to define which groups are going to present their work when. Thanks!
• 2/6/97 - Update to HW#3 Writeup I plead brain death. Groups for HW#3 can be two to four people. I've fixed the sentence on that to read: "Groups of up to four are encouraged, and they are required to be more than two."
• 2/3/97 - HOMEWORK! Let's talk about Homework #2 in CaMILE as well as Homework #3. Homework #3 (design project issues) are in the referenced note, but I duplicate them here:
  • Since there are so many of us, we don't all have to agree on the same domain (subject area) to be taught in our designs, but I still want it to be a small number. I want us to be able to contrast approaches and point out similarities. So, I propose that we discuss potential subject areas here in CaMILE and decide by this Friday. Post your favorite subject area below this note (e.g., French, Calculus, Inorganic Chemistry, Hamlet, whatever). If we only get three, those are the three! If we get more than that, then make your arguments and I'll post a decision on Friday. If we get fewer, then we'll go with the fewer.
  • Pre-proposals are welcome! Post them here and we can all review and comment on them.
  • Your audience for the domain is entirely up to you, and it does make a difference. Consider how different it is to teach Reading to an adult versus a 5-to-7 year old versus a 3-to-5 year old.
  • I want you to consider the existing education (and economic!) infrastructure in your designs. You may say "Existing infrastructure is not compatible with my design," and then I want to hear how you'd want the infrastructure to be. You may say, "I want everyone to access this," so you might explain how you'll make your design work on calculators and game machines under $500. Whatever -- address the issue about how your vision gets realized.
• 1/28/97 - CHANGE TO SCHEDULE!. The EduTech talks will be Feb. 4. We'll discuss "Students as Programmers" on Feb. 6. The due date for HW#2 is moved from Feb. 11 to Feb. 13. And I promise more on the design project this week. (N.B. On Feb. 10, Amy Bruckman, perhaps the top researcher in educational MOOs in the country, will be here at Tech to give a talk. More detail when I get it.)
• 1/21/97 - Collaborative Learning URLs
• 1/8/97 - I've set up accounts for everyone on CaMILE. Signon with a username for first initial, underscore, last name, e.g., M_Guzdial for me, B_Arnette for Benjamin Arnette, K_Balcom for Kelly Balcom, etc. (Teresa, you're T_Younger -- I worried that CaMILE might choke on the hyphen. Jason, you're in there, too.) No password -- just leave it blank when requested. NOTE: CaMILE is only accessible from certain Internet domains: gatech.edu, mindspring.com, etc. Let me know if you need another added.

I've set up a CaMILE for this class, as you're interested.

Office hours: By appointment. (Email is definitely the preferred way to reach me)

The course has four parts:

• Philosophies: What are the major schools of thought on how educational technology should be implemented?
• Technologies: What technologies are being used for educational purposes? How are people using these technologies?
• Dimensions Besides Technologies: Besides the technology itself, what else impacts whether a given technology will work? What is the context of educational technology?
• Evaluation: What does it mean for an educational technology to be successful? How do we measure it?

Objectives of this course are for students to be able to:

1. Identify the aims and values of the major schools of thought in educational technology, and be able to classify others' research in terms of these schools of thought.
2. Describe some educational technology initiatives in terms of the technologies and why the given technologies were selected.
3. Identify dimensions of the education setting which impact the success or failure of educational technology.
4. Describe the trade-offs of various assessment goals and techniques.
5. Design a solution technology to an education problem, and identify the factors which will impact the success or failure of that technology.

Course Requirements:

• Readings: There will be a reading for almost every class meeting. Everyone is expected to read the assigned articles.
• Participation in Discussion: Most class meetings will be a discussion of the given paper. Students are expected to participate in discussions.
• Two Homework Papers: Individual papers are required on topics announced here (but with further detail during the quarter.)
• Final Group Design Project: Group projects (required minimum of two people) where students will design an educational technology.

Course Outline:

(Dates subject to change)

Date	Topic	Readings
Jan 7	Overview, who y'all are, what Mark does
Jan. 9	Philosophy: Constructionism	Papert
Jan. 14	Philosophy: Cognitive Apprenticeship	Collins & Brown
Jan. 16	Philosophy: Intelligent Tutoring Systems	Anderson
Jan. 20	Technology: Multimedia	Kozma
Jan. 23	Technology: Collaboration Technologies HW #1 Due	Koschmann Kolodner & Guzdial
Jan. 28	Technology: Goal-Based Scenarios	Schank (Hopefully, we'll watch an ILS video this day.)
Jan. 30	Discussion of HW #1	We'll discuss and compare the four Web sites. (You might want to visit the ones that you did not choose in preparation.)
Feb. 4	Technology: Students as Programmers	Papers by Koschmann, O'Shea, and Papert at Media Lab site. (Perhaps demos of relevant Logo-ware here.)
Feb. 6	EduTech Slot	(We'll line someone up.)
Feb. 11	Dimensions: How do people learn? HW #2 Due	Anderson, Reder, & Simon on cognitive science applications and misapplications.
Feb. 13	Dimensions: Where is the technology leading us?	Draft report on workshop on setting a computer science research agenda in educational technology
Feb. 18	Discussion of HW#2	Let's talk about what technologies are appropriate where and how
Feb. 20	Dimensions: Role of teachers	Janet Schofield
Feb. 25	Evaluation: How do we evaluate?	Neff Walker's Primer
Feb. 27	Evaluation: What should we be evaluating?	Reeves paper
March 4	Evaluation: How do we evaluate in the complexity of real classrooms?	Ann Brown
March 6, 11, 13	Student Presentations of Designs

First Homework Assignment: (Due Jan. 23)

Choose one of the Web sites below. For the selected research group whose work is described at this Web site, which of our philosophies do you think that they would agree with? Which would they disagree with? Why? Write 3-5 pages, please.

• Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) group at Berkeley
• Highly Interactive Computing Research Group at Michigan
• Center for Lifelong Learning and Design at Boulder
• Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern

Second Homework Assignment: (Due Feb. 11)

Pick a domain that you're interested in, and describe (a) how one of the technologies discussed in class is appropriate for learning in that domain and (b) how one of the technologies discussed in class is inappropriate for learning in that domain. Write 3-5 pages, please.

Group Design Project: (Due upon oral presentation: March 6, 11, 13)

Do a paper design of an environment for teaching a skill or domain (to be determined in class as a group). Each group must address (1) who the audience is perceived to be, (2) how student needs will be considered, (3) how teachers' needs will be considered (if any), and (4) how it can fit into the technology infrastructure currently available in that educational setting. Groups of up to four are encouraged, and they are required to be more than two. Paper designs must include two to three mocked up screenshots. A five to seven page text report and oral presentation is also required.