Computers, Technology and Education
Ed 610 Spring 2001 Course Portal

feedback on the links & glitches very welcome

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  • Student Projects
  • Syllabus, handouts, and grade information (most recent handouts are at the top)
  • Interaction among course members and with online advisers
  • Current issues and conflicting viewpoints about computers in education
  • Online resources for teachers who are students of computers in education
  • Links for teachers to the curriculum ideas/lesson plans/assessment ideas of other teachers
  • Links for computers-in-education instructors to the curriculum ideas/lesson plans/assessment ideas of other instructors
    Homework exercises sent out by email (Right-click (windows) or Option-click (MAC) to download)
  • Powerpoint on househeating exercise
  • PT's response to Electoral college Excel exercise
  • Powerpoint on using spreadsheets

    Ed 610
    Spring 2001
    Syllabus changes (11 Feb 01)

    Course Website (syllabus):     http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~ptaylor/610-01.html

    TEXTS: On reserve in Healey -- A binder of clippings; Folders of additional readings and additional materials (incl. CDs that can be viewed in the **Graduate** computer labs).

    Class 3 (2/13) Computer models of Global Change
    After class Reading: Taylor, "How do we know"

    Class 4 (2/20) Feedback and System Dynamics
    Reading: Richmond, "Bare essentials" (xerox)
    Additional readings:
    Richmond, "Systems thinking² (on reserve)

    Class 5 (2/27) Software for Problem-posing, Problem-solving, and Persuasion
    Additional readings:
    Cartier, ³A modeling approach" (on reserve)
    Eisenhart, "Learning science" (on reserve)
    Homework tasks:
    3. Digest your experience with the GCK by reading the additional readings by Cartier (more science oriented) and/or Eisenhart (more classroom-management oriented).

    Class 6 (3/6) Communicating knowledge
    **meet in TBA**
    Guest presentation (Steve Ackerman, Biology)
    Initial formulation of student projects.
    Homework tasks:
    1. Follow up activity formulating your projects by reading Elbow, chaps. 2 & 3 on opening up your ideas and sharing your work.

    3/20 Spring break at UMass = a good time for fieldwork in actual classrooms
    Homework task: Locate additional articles to support the positions(s) you favor in the readings for class 8 and counter those you oppose.
    *A* Asmt due by email: Revised initial description of your project (see Key Teaching/Learning Tools)

    Strand II emphasized for weeks 9 & 12-14
    Strand I continues in form of students' evolving briefing projects

    Class 9 (4/3) Enhancing artistic creativity or workshop on projects (TBA)
    *A* Asmt due: Notes on research and planning for your project (see Key Teaching/Learning Tools)

    Class 10 (4/10) Work-in-progress presentations by students I

    Class 11 (4/17) Work-in-progress presentations by students II


    KEY TEACHING/LEARNING TOOLS

    Stages of development for course project
    Notes on research and planning
    Record the citations (incl. URLs) for your sources.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY (* on reserve)
    Becker, H. J. (1994). ³A truly empowering technology-rich education‹How much will it cost?² Educational IRM Quarterly 3(1): 31-35.*
    Cartier, J. L. and J. Stewart (2000). ³A modeling approach to teaching high school genetics.² BioQuest Notes 10(2): 1-4, 10-12.*
    Eisenhart, M. A. and E. Finkel (1998). "Learning science in an innovative genetics course," in Women's Science: Learning and Succeeding from the Margins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 61-90.*
    Kling, R. (1996). "Social controversies about computerization," in R. Kling (Ed.), Computerization and Controversy. New York: Academic, 10-15.*
    Richmond, B. (1993). ³Systems thinking: Critical thinking skills for the 1990s and beyond.² System Dynamics Review 9(2): 1-21.*
    Richmond, B. (?). ³Bare essentials.² source to be supplied

    Briefing project

    This project addresses the course goal that you become better able to "fulfill the needs of your school, community or organization, address the information explosion, adapt to social changes, and collaborate with others to these ends."

    For this project you identify a topic that concerns you about the use of computers and educational technology to aid thinking, learning, communication and action in classrooms or other educational settings. You have to undertake research on this topic and prepare a 1200-2000 word "briefing" that will be uploaded or linked to the course website. (This may be designed as a fully-fledged webpage, left as simply coded html text, or prepared as a powerpoint or text file, which can be read from a website provided the user has the corresponding software.)

    Imagine as your audience teachers who you can interest in your topic, but who do not want to start from scratch in finding key resources on this topic and learning how to think about it. ("Resources" = key concepts, issues and debates, lesson plans, websites and bibliographic references, annotations on and quotes or paraphrases from those references, informants/contacts, relevant workshops, etc.) Moreover, you need to communicate knowledge, not simply list information. That is, you need to explain and support your thinking and, as a reflective practitioner, include reflection on the process of development of that thinking.

    If you need help getting started, see previous students' briefings (but note that these were from different courses) and ask me for initial suggested resources.

    Previous students' briefing topics (* indicates linked to course website)
    How to be well led (and not misled) by the WWW*
    Establishing internet/ email conversations within a group, such as this class*
    On Narrative and Computers*
    Guide to choosing/ using software and websites for teaching geography
    Computer access for the disabled provides a partial model of how to subvert the ways that other long-standing social biases are becoming built into computer access
    Effectiveness of Computer Simulations for Enhancing Constructivistic Learning
    Artful Explorations on the WWW
    The Exploration of How Constructivist Classroom Teaching and Computer Technology Can Combine to Teach Integrated Science
    Computers in the Math Classroom: Are Computers the Answer to Our Problems?
    Technology as a Tool in the Classroom
    Subaltern Use of the Internet

    Suggested new briefing topics
    Simple Tools‹Significant Changes? (Spreadsheets, Bibliographic Data Bases, Powerpoint & Presentation Software)
    Active analogizing to adapt computer games to teaching (the game of life)
    Guide to the Math Forum (website based at Swarthmore College)
    Guide to the MIT Media Lab
    Robotics at MIT
    Multimedia education
    Complexity theory and Santa Fe Institute
    Fractals and ethnomathematics
    Digital diploma mills/ critical analysis of distance learning
    Thwarting the middle school gender divide in computer use
    Facilitating different learning styles in using the WWW
    Guide to choosing/ using software and websites for teaching math./ biology/ science in general/ reading & writing
    Using the WWW educationally in unexpected or subversive ways
    Research on the development of thinking & learning processes as they are affected by using computers
    Filtering to restrict access to certain WWW sites
    Graphic design of WWW sites
    Converting text into a website (html & loading files onto servers)
    Enabling access to the internet/ WWW
    Virtues and shortcomings in webpage content and design
    Influencing government, corporate, and other administrative bodies in their decisions about WWW development and access
    Explaining & illustrating Java and its potential implications
    Social controversies about computers
    Multiple intelligences and computer use
    LOGO programming
    Fieldwork

    Possible Sites

    1. Attend one of the two days of "We wired the classroom -- Now what?"
    Sat-Sun, February 3rd-4th. at MIT. For program, location, other information & registration, view http://media-in-transition.mit.edu/classroom

    2. Meet with museum educator Otto Loggers (otto loggers@mit.edu; 617-253-4405) and help him as he plans K-12 educational program for the exhibit at the MIT Museum on Robots and Artificial Intelligence (then guide the rest of us when we visit the exhibit in April).

    3. With permission of the professor or teacher, observe a classroom use of computers at UMass or a school. Your report should analyze your observations in relation to stated goals for the software or for computer use more generally.

    4. Student-generated options‹consult with PT.

    Expectations

    Building on what you have learned in Teacher Inquiry courses:

    1) Observe and make a record of how computer tools are used in actual classrooms or interact with people who have considerable experience in using the tools. Your record could take the form of notes, interview, student work, sociograms, transcripts of audio- or videotape. If you have a specific concern or question to begin with, focus your observations and record around that. This will help you decide whether your note-taking will take a methodological, theoretical, or personal orientation (see Hubbard & Power).

    2) Reflect on and analyze that experience in 500-1000 word report. If you didn't have a specific question or concern in part 1, use part 2 to come up with a question and to design future teacher research. Revise the report in response to my comments.

    Hubbard, R. S. and B. M. Power (1993). "The artist's toolbox: Strategies for data collection," in The Art of Classroom Inquiry: A Handbook for Teacher-Researchers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 9-49 (on reserve).