Educational Technology II: Professional Tools

Spring 1998

Course number: EDDV286

Credits: 1 credit

Instructor:

Morris W. Brooks 

Willlard Hall 301C 

Ph: 831-6813 

e-mail: mbrooks@udel.edu 

  Description || Texts || Prerequisites || Requirements ||Assignments

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.

The following book should be purchased ar the University Bookstore.

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 the 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 5.0 and Netscape Communicator 4.0.

The course grade will be based on the following:

  1. 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.
  2. Mid-term exam.
  3. Summary of short reading drawn from list of readings for Week 13.
  4. Final exam.

Grading Scheme

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)

Vocabulary for Final Exam

Readings:

Course readings from sources other than the textbook are available on reserve in the ERC and through electronic reserves.

Topics and Assignments

Choose a week
1  2  3  4  5 
6  7  8  9  10 
11  12  13     

 

Week 1 (Feb 10, 11, 12): Introduction to Windows 95, Netscape Communicator, and FTP tools.

  • 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 (Feb 17, 18, 19):  Netiquette and Newsgroups

               IE, Chapter 2, Usenet 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 posting a message in the class newsgroup.

    •

    • Week 3 (Feb 24, 25, 26):  Search Tools. Review of concepts of the World Wide Web. Searching on the Internet.

  • 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

    Student Web Pages

    Section 010

    Section 011

    Section 012

    Section 013

    Week 4 (Mar 3, 4, 5): 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.

  • 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 also available in the bookstore.

    •

    • Week 5 (Mar 10, 11, 12): Creating a Web page, Part II. Anchors and links. Publishing to Copland.

  • 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 (Mar 17, 18, 19): Using audio and video in multimedia presentations and on the Web. Demonstration of capture of audio and images.

  •  Lab Activity - AUDIO
    •
  • 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 (Mar 24, 25, 26) Mid Term Exam

    Week 8 (Mar 31, Apr 1, 2): Tools for creating classroom materials. Introduction to (or review of) creating ClarisWorks databases. Labels.

    Create a ClarisWorks database with two text fields called Last Name and First Name. Add at least 15 records to your database. You can choose the names. Sort your data base alphabetically by last name.

    Now, create labels that could be used to identify a folder used for a student's assessment portfolio.. 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 ONE PAGE of your labels on a standard sheet of paper.  Do NOT use real Avery labels. You names should appear in order alphabetically by last name.

    Week 9 (Apr 14,15, 16): Electronic grade books. Using special purpose and general tools for keeping student records and grades.

    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

    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.

    Hand in both on paper to your instructor. Save your work on a floppy.

    Week 10 (Apr 21, 22, 23): Using spreadsheet functions to assign letter grades and get summary information.

    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.

    Week 11 (Apr 28, 29, 30): Displaying data using charts and graphs. Spreadsheets and statistical tools.

    CW, Chapter 9. Sections 9.15 - 9.21

    Create a pie chart to display the distribution of letter grades for your class.
    Also, create a line chart to display the change of the class averages for the two hours exams and the final. Print your completed spreadsheet with the charts. Hand it in on paper to your instructor. Save your work on a floppy.

    Week 12 (May 5, 6, 7): Classroom presentation hardware and software. Demonstration and comparison between types of projection systems.

    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 (May 12, 13, 14): 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.

    Integrated Learning Systems: What Does the Research Say. (1995) Warburg, Karin. The Computing Teacher, 22(5), (on reserve)

    Can Integrated Instructional Technology Transform the Classroom? (1995) VanDusen, Lani. M. & Worthed, Blaine R. Educational Leadership, 53(2), (on reserve)

    Touching the Mind: Technology and Assessment. (1994) Jenkins,Yolanda L. The Computing Teacher, 21(6), (on reserve)

    Technology-Supported Assessment Portfolios. (1994) Barrett, Helen C. The Computing Teacher, 21(6) (on reserve)

    Portfolio Assessment in Mathematics: Lessons from the Field. (1994) Johnson, Judi M. The Computing Teacher, `21(6) (on reserve)

    Select one of the articles listed above and write a short summary of the article.  You should describe the main ideas in the article and your reactions to it.