Educational Technology II: Professional Tools
Fall 1997
Course number: EDDV286
Credits: 1 credit
Instructors:
Morris W. Brooks
Willlard Hall 301C
Ph: 831-6813
|
Gary Feurer
Willlard Hall 301B
Ph: 831-2751
|
Description:
Designed for students in the freshman or sophomore year of the Elementary
Teacher Education program, this course develops competencies in the use
of technology in the teaching profession to prepare lessons and track student
progress. Topics include educational resources and communication on the
Internet, authoring for the World Wide Web, electronic grade books, statistics,
presentation technology, integrated learning systems (ILS), and assessment
tools.
Texts:
The following text was required for Educational Technology I. Students
do not need to purchase a new copy if they still have access to the version
used in that course.
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An Introduction to Computing Using ClarisWorks® Version 4 for Apple
Macintosh, Bruce Presley, Beth Brown & Elaine Malfas, Lawrenceville
Press (1995) CW
The following book should be purchased ar the University Bookstore.
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Internet for Educators, Randall James Ryder and Tom Hughes,
Merrill an imprint of Prentice Hall (1997) IE
Additional readings have been placed on reserve in the Education Resource
Center and on electronic reserve, accessible on the University of Delaware
campus via the World Wide Web.
Prerequisites:
Students are expected to have completed Educational Technology I. They
should be familiar with basic concepts in hardware and software and be
proficient with tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, and e-mail.
Requirements:
In addition to attending class, students are expected to complete weekly
reading assignments in preparation for each class meeting, and, for most
weeks, a computer-based laboratory activity building on the lecture.
Students may complete their lab assignment in the WHL
203-I PowerMac lab or in WHL 309 Multimedia Lab using Windows
95. Students in Ed Tech II are encourage to use Windows 95 for their
assignments. Students with access to computer in their dorm rooms, homes,
or other computing sites may complete the assignments in those locations
provided they have access to the required software - ClarisWorks 4.0 and
Netscape Communicator 4.0.
The course grade will be based on the following:
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Graded laboratory activities. Most weeks throughout the semester graded
computer-based lab activities will be assigned based on the class
lecture. Work for these activities is due the class meeting of the week
following the class in which the activity is assigned. The Web page authoring
activity is larger in scope and will be due 2 weeks after the last part
has been assigned. All printed assignments MUST have your name,
course and section, and the assignment name printed at the
upper left corner of each page.
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Mid-term exam.
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Summary of short reading drawn from list of readings for Week 13.
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Final exam.
Grades will be calculated from the four elements. The total points from
all weekly assignments will be worth 50%, with each assignment earning
10 points and the Web page earning 30 points. The article summary will
count 10%, the mid-term exam 15%, and the final exam 25%.
Final Grade = (Assignments x .5) + (Summary x .1) + (MidTerm x
.15) + (Exam x .25)
Readings:
Course readings from sources other than the textbook are available on reserve
in the ERC and through electronic
reserves.
Topics and Assignments
Week 1 (Sep 3, 4, 8): Introduction to Windows 95, Netscape
Communicator, and FTP tools.
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Lab Activity - FTP
Using Netscape Communicator, copy an interesting image from the World Wide
Web. Save it temporarily on a floppy diskette or the hard drive of your
computer. Using an FTP tool like WS_FTP on an IBM-compatible running
Windows 95, or Fetch on a Macintosh, transfer the image file to
your Copland account. Then, send the image to your instructor as an attachment
to an e-mail message. In the e-mail message, be sure to specify the URL
of the image on the WWW. Your image should be small and in the JPG or GIF
format. Almost all images on the WWW are of one of these two formats.
Week 2 (Sep 10, 11, 15): Netiquette and Newsgroups
IE, Chapter
2, Usenet Newsgroups
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Lab Activity - Newsgroups
Try reading newsgroups using Netscape Communicator. Look for newsgroups
with discussions that might be interesting or useful to a teacher in the
grade level or subject area you expect to concentrate in. Appendix B of
the IE book contains names of some newsgroups. These may or
may not be available through the UD news server.
Hint: In the Netscape Subscribe dialog, try using the words "education"
or "k12."
Report on the results of your search by writing a message in the class
newsgroup.
Week 3 (Sep 17, 18, 22): Search Tools. Review of
concepts of the World Wide Web. Searching on the Internet.
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Readings: IE Chapter 2 Finding Stuff on the Web
Murray, Janet, et al. (1995). Searchin’ the Net
http://arlo.wilsonhs.pps.k12.or.us/search.html
(on-line)
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Lab Activity - Resources
Choose a topic to related to teaching to search for on the Web. Use
one subject index and at least two search engines to conduct your search.
NOTE: You may want to try this for an assignment you really have for a
class. The results will be more meaningful if you have a real task at hand.
Use bookmarks to save a record of the WWW sites that you have located.
If you don't have your own computer, save the bookmarks to a floppy disk.
You will want to use them later. Report on your search, describing what
you were searching for, comparing the approaches used with each of the
tools, and the results with each tool. Use ClarisWorks (or any word processing
program you prefer) to write your report and submit it in printed form.
Weeks 4- 6: Authoring for the World Wide Web Pages
Week 4 (Sep 24, 25, 27): Creating a Web page, Part I. Text
and images.
Using the Web page authoring tools in Netscape Communicator to create a
page that uses a variety of text styles and includes in-line images.
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Reading:
IE Chapter 4
University of Delaware. (1996) Responsible Computing: A Student Manual.
http://www.udel.edu/eileen/Ecce/toc.html
(on-line)
Handout on creating a Web page. This is available in the bookstore.
Week 5 (Oct 1, 2, 6): Creating a Web page, Part II. Anchors
and links. Publishing to Copland.
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Lab Activity - Web Page
Using the standard UD policies for creating and publishing student Web
pages, create a Web page and send the URL to your instructor. The page
must contain the following elements: title, heading 1, text, an image,
a list (ordered or unordered), links to useful materials, and a link to
enable other users to send e-mail to you.
Your Web page should contain a series of 8 -10 links that will be useful
to your study of education. The links should be based on the resources
you located while exploring the World Wide Web and the newsgroups. With
each link there should be a brief description of the resource. At least
one of the links must be to a newsgroup.
Week 6 (Oct 8, 9, 13): Using audio and video in multimedia
presentations and on the Web. Demonstration of capture of audio and images.
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Reading:
Lecture Notes
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Lab Activity - Web Page
Using a Windows 95 PC in the WHL 309 classroom, capture a short audio
narration. Add a link to it in your Web page. Copy your audio file
to your public_html directory on Copland and be sure your links still work.
Your Web page, with all the required features, should be completed by the
class meeting of the Week 8.
Student Web Pages
Week 7 (Oct 15, 16, 27 ) Mid Term Exam
Week 8 (Oct 22, 23, Nov 3): Tools for creating classroom
materials. The important but sometimes difficult task of transferring data
between applications. Mail merge.
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Readings: CW Review the chapter on databases that was covered in
Ed Tech I and read Chapter 11, Sections 11.1 through 11.13.
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Lab Activity - Labels
Step-by-step directions.
Copy the class list file clist.txt from
the Ed Tech II: Data folder. Following the instructions given in class,
import it into a ClarisWorks database. Delete 5 students from the list
and add 3 new ones. Then, create a set of labels for student folders.
Each label should show the student's name with the first name first and
should contain a small graphic chosen from the ClarisWorks clip art library
appropriate to the elementary school classroom. Print your labels on a
standard sheet of paper. Do NOT use real Avery labels.
Week 9 (Oct 29, 30, Nov 10): Electronic grade books. Using
special purpose and general tools for keeping student records and grades.
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Readings: CW, Chapters 8 and 9. Review the chapter on spreadsheets
that was covered in Ed Tech I and Chapter 9, Sections 9.1 through 9.15
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Lab Activity - Grade book
Use ClarisWorks to create a gradebook based on a spreadsheet. Copy the
students' names from your student database into a spreadsheet. Use one
column for the first name and another for the last name, two columns for
two hour exam scores, and one column for a final exam score. Add another
column for a weighted course average based on the hour exam scores and
the final exam score. Each column should have a label at the top. Include
another row beneath the column labels that contains the weights to be used
for calculating the course average. Your formula for the course average
should use absolute references to the weights. Changing the value of one
of the weights should automatically change the computations of the course
averages for each student.
Print your completed spreadsheet. Also, choose Options|Display to display
formulas and print the spreadsheet with the formulas displayed. Hand in
both on paper to your instructor. Save your work on a floppy for
use in later assignments.
Week 10 (Nov 5, 6, 17): Statistical tools. Using
a spreadsheet or a statistical analysis package to compute basic statistics
on student performance.
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Readings: CW, Chapter 10, Section 10.5.
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Lab Activity - Stat
Working with the grade book spreadsheet you created last week, add cells
that display the average (mean) and the standard deviation
for each of the hour exams, the final exam, and the course average. Print
your completed spreadsheet. Also, choose Options|Display to display formulas
and print the spreadsheet with the formulas displayed. Hand in both on
paper to your instructor. Save your work on a floppy.
Week 11 (Nov 12, 13, 24): Displaying data graphically.
Using a spreadsheet to create useful and meaningful charts and graphs.
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Readings:
Teaching
Mathematics with Technology: Statistics and Graphing. Parker, Janet.
(1992) Arithmetic Teacher, 39(8), (on reserve).
Graphing in the Information Age: Using Data from the World Wide
Web. Dixon, J. & Falba, C. (1997) Mathematics teaching in the Middle
School 2(5).
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Lab Activity - Chart
Use the built-in function VLOOKUP to assign letter grades, A, B, C,
D, and F, based on the course average. You may use any criteria you like
for setting the breakpoints between letter grades. The using the built-in
function COUNT2, add to your grade book spreadsheet a tally of the number
of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s and F’s. Finally,create a pie chart to display the
distribution of letter grades and a line chart to display the change of
the class average for the two hours exams and the final. Print your completed
spreadsheet. Also, choose Options|Display to display formulas and print
the spreadsheet with the formulas displayed. Hand in both on paper
to your instructor. Save your work on a floppy.
Week 12 (Nov 19, 20, Dec 1): Classroom presentation hardware
and software. Demonstration and comparison between types of projection
systems.
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Readings: CW, Chapter 12.
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Lab Activity - Slide Show
Using the slide show feature of ClarisWorks, create a presentation for
Parents’ Night at your school. Your pages should be colorful, attractive,
and contain lots of graphics. There should be at least four pages in your
presentation. One page should show the pie chart of the letter grade distribution
that you completed earlier.
To hand in your work, change the name of the file on your floppy diskette
to "YOUR NAME - Presentation." Then copy it to the folder Ed Tech II: Homework:
Your Section: Your Name.
Week 13 (Dec 3, 4, 8): Integrated Learning Systems. View
video "Making a Difference in the Classroom" from CCC. Technology tools
for traditional and alternative assessment. View video on the Sunburst
Learner Profile system.