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Introduction:
Educational
Psychology 490I, "Analysis of Advanced Instructional Technologies," is a
4-week summer intensive course for CTER students. It is being
co-taught by Jim Buell, Jim Bertelsen, and Jim Levin. The focus will be on
"Highly Interactive Web Pages
for the Classroom." The course runs from Monday,
June 4, through Monday, July 2. There will be a face-to-face
meeting on Saturday, June 30th at the UIUC College of Education.
Because
this is a summer intensive course, students can expect to spend 25 to 30
hours per week involved in course activities. About one-third of the
course time each week should be spent on the week's Technology Focus
(educational simulations in Week 1, streaming multimedia in Week 2,
database-backed resources in Week 3). Another one-third of the course
time will involve a Theory Focus - reading and discussing core
literature in educational technology; all readings are available online,
and all discussions will be in WebBoard. Finally, students will spend
about one-third of their time in this course focusing on their Major Project,
an educational website which
incorporates one or more of the advanced technologies we explore.
Course focuses:
Ed Psy 490I is the capstone technology
course for the CTER2 cohort. The overall goal is for students to explore
advanced uses of the web and to apply their learning to projects with
instructional value for the subject areas and levels they are teaching. In
keeping with class members' suggestions, we will be focusing on four main
technical areas: educational simulations on the web, streaming multimedia,
server-side and client-side interactivity, and troubleshooting. Additional
course readings and discussion will focus on theories undergirding the
field of educational technology, with an eye toward their application to
the range of educational resources we explore.
In Week I (June
4-10), the Technology
Focus will introduce
the concept of highly interactive web pages for the classroom. In
particular, we will look at and discuss educational sites which use
advanced web-delivered technologies to simulate real-world resources.
The Week 1 Theory Focus will include a WebBoard discussion of
educational technology theories (Thursday) and a closer look at
resources based on 'one right answer' paradigms (Sunday). The
Week 1 Project Focus is on creating a Project proposal (Friday).
In Week
2 (June
11-17), the
Technology Focus is on streaming media for education. We will
look at examples of streaming audio and video, learn about technologies
that enable these features, and discuss potential benefits and drawbacks
of using digital audio and video in web-based resources. The Week 2 Theory
Focus involves concepts of Cognitive Constructivism (Thursday) and
Digital Literacy (Sunday). The Week 2 Project Focus is on
commenting on others' project proposals and formalizing your own into a
web page.
In
Week 3 (June
18-24), the Technology Focus is on educational uses for
web-enabled databases. WEDs are a powerful way to combine advanced
content management, in a structured database, with the global reach of
web documents. We will look at a wide range of WED-enabled sites, and
gain hands-on experience with using WEDs to create content and construct
new kinds of resources. The Week 3 Theory Focus looks at
theoretical underpinnings of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
(Thursday) and Interfaces and Design Metaphors (Sunday). The Week 3 Project
Focus involves putting up a draft version of your Project website
(Tuesday) and collaborating with classmates to improve your resource
(description due Friday).
In
Week 4 (June 25-30), the Technology,
Theory, and Project focuses will merge. Your main work
will involve putting the finishing touches on your project sites,
considering how your projects relate to theories of educational
technology, and drawing extensively on one another, your instructors,
and the web's distributed knowledge base to complete implementing your
project's advanced technology features.
Getting Ready:
The most important thing is to decide what
you want to work toward. If you have an existing site you would like to
expand with highly interactive features, that could be your project focus.
If you want to start something entirely new, that's okay too. Remember
that time in a 4-week course is very short. Try to limit your project to
something you can accomplish in 20-30 hours of work.
It may be helpful for you to limit
yourself to using technologies that we will be exploring together as a
class. However, if you are familiar with other technologies and have the
resources to implement them yourself, you are welcome to make use of
those, too. (For instance, we don't plan to provide instruction in using
Microsoft Front Page extensions, streaming PowerPoint, Macromedia Flash,
or the HyperStudio plugin, but if any of those are your preferred
technologies and you have the tools and expertise to implement them, jump
right in.) We hope everyone will freely share their expertise with
classmates ... and instructors, too!
Other Course Pages Worth a
Look:
Already in the CTER program, you have
focused on educational technologies in Chip Bruce's C&I 335,
"Computer-Assisted Instruction," and Brian Pianfetti's Ed Psy 490NET,
"Networks for Learning." In preparing for Ed Psy 490I, you may find it
useful to return to those course pages and review your and your
classmates' work there.
C&I 335 (Fall 1999):
Main course page:
http://cter.ed.uiuc.edu/cter2/ci335/
Course webboard (guest login ok):
http://webboard.outreach.uiuc.edu:8080/~ci335
Ed Psy 490NET (Summer
2000):
Main course page:
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/edpsy490ci/cter/
Course webboard (guest login ok):
http://webboard.outreach.uiuc.edu:8080/~edpsy490_net
Projects from the CTER3 cohort's Ed Psy
387 course in Fall 2000 are also worth a look:
CTER-3 Ed Psy 387 (Fall 2000):
Main course page:
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/edpsy387/fa00/
Projects by category:
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/edpsy387/fa00/major-projects.html
Course webboard (guest login ok):
http://webboard.outreach.uiuc.edu:8080/~edpsy387
Your and your classmates' ePortfolios also contain many projects which you may wish to develop further in Ed Psy 490I. You can access these from the CTER2 Cohort Page.
Jim Levin, Jim Buell, and Jim Bertelsen will be the instructors of this
course, with assistance from David Stone, a biology teacher at Uni High in
Champaign and CTER-1 graduate. David developed the Week 1 content on
educational simulations; Jim Bertelsen developed the Week 2 streaming
media content; Jim Buell developed the Week 3 focuses on web-enabled
databases and client-side interactivity.
Basic enabling
technologies will be those already familiar to CTER2 students: a set of
static web pages (on cter.ed.uiuc.edu) will contain a syllabus and
relevant links; students will continue to upload basic HTML pages of their
own design to the LRS server (lrs.ed.uiuc.edu); assignment progress will
be tracked using C-base (cternt1.ed.uiuc.edu/newcter); asynchronous
discussion among the full class and among small groups within the class
will occur in a WebBoard, and synchronous chats among instructors and
students will occur in the WebBoard chat space (these discussions will be
archived for later review).
Additional
background:
When offered on
campus, Ed Psy 490I is a proseminar in which students develop a project in
the area of computer-assisted learning, over a 15-week semester. Students
typically are expected to bring a project idea into the class, or to begin
articulating one shortly after the semester begins. Classes are held in
three-hour blocks once a week; the first 90 minutes consists of
presentation and discussion in the classroom, and the last half of each
class is spent in the College of Education computer laboratory. Over the
years, students have completed widely varied projects, utilizing all
manner of computer technologies. Here are links to Ed Psy 490I projects
completed in:
Spring 2000 (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/EdPsy490I/Sp00/projects.html) Spring 1999 (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/EdPsy490I/Sp99/projects.html) Spring 1998 (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/EdPsy490I/Sp98/projects.html) Generally, students
begin with some background in the technologies they intend to use for
their projects, but typically they learn more about how those technologies
work, in the process of creating their projects. This can be a highly
individual process, but in the classroom setting the students have
opportunities to learn from one another, as well as from the instructor.
(It is understood, however, that neither the instructor nor classmates
might know enough about a particular technology e.g. a programming environment,
scripting language, or client-server protocol - to serve as a mentor.
Self-directed learning is essential.) Besides creating their projects,
students are expected to evaluate their creations' effectiveness as
educational tools, often by surveying or engaging in focus groups with
early users.
Adapting this course to be
in online format for CTER has involved a number of changes. On
campus, students have access to a common set of tools, in the form of a
computer laboratory with standardized hardware and software. While
on-campus students may and often do make use of additional tools of their
own, the physical laboratory forms a core resource. The classroom, too,
offers common resources in the form of a shared workspace, an arena for
collaboration, and an instructor well versed in the core technologies as
well as some peripheral ones of special interest to certain students.
Comparable resources are not as readily available at a computer-mediated
distance. Just as importantly, adaptation is required for refocusing Ed
Psy 490I as a four-week intensive course, rather than a 15-week course.
Project-based instruction typically relies on students having time to
explore new areas independently, digest large chunks of new information,
try out and discard some ideas that do not ultimately become part of the
final project, and mull over alternative potential realizations of the
evolving "mental models" for their projects that they carry in their
heads.
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