CS 6397 -- Educational Technology

Text:
Papers will be made available outside of College of Computing 136, to be copied by students;
plus websites

• 3/27/98 -- Will be setting up a Swiki site for this class; details to follow.

• Philosophies: What are the major schools of thought on how educational technology should be implemented? What roles should it play? What educational environment should it be integrated into?
• Technologies: What technologies are being used for educational purposes? How are people using those technologies?
• Designing educational environments: What roles should technology play? How do we decide that? What technologies? What dimensions should we take into account when designing technology? What things impact whether a given technology will work?
• Evaluation? What does it mean for an educational technology to be successful? How can we measure that?

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 their educational objectives, technologies chosen, and the reasons particular technologies were chosen.
3. Identify dimensions of the educational setting that impact the success or failure of educational technology.
4. Describe the trade-offs of various evaluation and assessment goals and techniques.
5. Describe a solution technology to an education problem, and identify the factors that will impact the success or failure of the technology.

• Readings: There will be a reading for almost every class meeting. Everyone is expected to read assigned articles.
• Participation in Discussion: Most class meetings will be a discussion of the assigned papers. Students are expected to participate in discussions.
• Two homework papers: Individual papers are required on topics announced here.
• Group design project: Group projects (required minimum of two people) where students will design (on paper) an educational technology, justify their designs in terms of objectives and dimensions of the educational environment, and identify factors that will impact its success or failure.

(Dates and readings subject to some change)

Date	Topic	Readings
Mar 31	Overview, who y'all are, what Janet does
Apr 2	Introduction: constructivism, social cognition, learning by doing, ...	Setting a CS Research Agenda
Apr 7	Philosophy: Intelligent Tutoring Systems	Anderson
Apr 9	Philosophy: Case-Based Reasoning, Problem-Based Learning, Goal-Based Scenarios	Kolodner and Schank
Apr 14	Philosophy: Constructionism	Papert
Apr 16	Philosophy: Cognitive Apprenticeship	Collins and Brown
Apr 21	Technology: Multimedia Homework #1 Due	Kozma
Apr 23	Technology: Collaboration technologies	Koschmann, Kolodner & Guzdial selections from recent CSCL workshop
Apr 28	Discussion of Homework #1 Comparison of 4 web sites, especially their philosophies	Look at all four web sites in preparation; read class Swiki
Apr 30	Designing: How do people learn?	Anderson, Reder & Simon Greeno reply Anderson et al. rejoinder
May 5	Designing: Learner-Centered Design	Soloway, etc.
May 7	Designing: Goal-Based Scenarios	Schank, Engines for Ed
May 12	Designing: Students as programmers	Koshmann, O'Shea, Papert, Soloway Media Lab website
May 14	Designing: Roles of teachers Homework #2 due	Schofield Tabak & Reiser
May 19	Discussion of Homework #2: what technologies are appropriate where and how?	class Swiki pages
May 21	Evaluation: How do we evaluate? Formative and summative evaluation	Neff Walker's primer
May 26	Evaluation: Complexities of real classrooms	Ann Brown
May 28 June 2 June 4	Student Presentations of Designs	class Swiki pages

First Homework -- Due April 21

• 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
  The Learning Sciences site covers many different projects. For this assignment, spend time on the ones that are NOT goal-based scenarios, as there is plenty of time to explore and discuss GBS during the quarter.

Second Homework -- Due May 14

Post your paper on the Swiki and hand in a paper copy.

Group Design Project

First draft due (on paper and Swiki ) upon oral presentation: May 28, June 2, June 4
Final version due Wednesday, June 10

Oral and written presentations should present both the product and the process of getting to it. Descriptions of environments should address (1) who the audience is perceived to be, (2) learning objectives, (3) known student needs and how they are being considered, (4) teacher's needs and teacher's roles (if any) and how those are being considered, (5) how your environment can fit into the technology infrastructure currently available in that educational setting, (6) how you expect it to fit into the culture of the educational setting, (7) any other factors that might impact its success or failure, (8) refinements you might expect to have to make after trial, and (9) how you will recognize and measure its success. Make sure to include two to four mocked-up screenshots. Tell us, as well, about other serious alternatives you considered and why you preferred your final one.

Groups of two to four are encouraged.