| Instructor |
Dawn Song |
|---|---|
| Teaching Assistant (Co-Instructor) |
Kristin Stephens |
| Location |
Soda Hall 310 |
| Lecture Times |
Monday/Wednesday, 6:00-7:30pm (Note: May change) |
In this course we will explore today's online education landscape, learn and discuss what to consider when designing education tools, and contribute to a next generation online education technology.
We will have guest speakers and a lot of discussion. Together we will debate and discuss: what makes a good education technology? What trade-offs need to be considered? What purpose does a particular design or mechanism serve? Why should we include it in an education tool?
After a few weeks of discussion and guest speakers, we will go through the entire life cycle of a project from design to full implementation. During the semester you will contribute ideas and discuss with classmates and then as teams create a concrete implementation which will have a chance to be deployed in the real world.
You will develop on the framework Ruby on Rails or Django. Knowledge of one of these frameworks is a prerequisite.
The class is discussion and project oriented.
At the beginning of the semester we will have discussions on questions that may not necessarily have a correct answer, but hopefully get us really thinking about the many aspects of education technology. We will also invite guest lecturers to talk about selected topics that will help inform the design process of student projects. After the first few weeks of the semester lecture will become time for groups to meet with the TA for code reviews and Q/A, as well as to meet and work with each other.
The class is project oriented. Students are expected to form groups that will go through an entire project life cycle for one of our provided web services. The life cycle will include designing, implementing, testing, and supporting their addition. Their project will be dog fooded within and potentially outside the class.
Each week students are expected to turn in something to show they have done an amount of work expected for a class of this many credits.
The beginning of the semester will be discussion and philosophical debates. Students will prepare by reading a seed resource, find and summarize another online resource related to the topic to share with the class, and respond to thought questions. One student each discussion will not need to answer the questions, instead he/she will read the seed resource, summarize everyone's answers, and take notes during class discussion.
Individual responses are due 24 hours before class. The response summary is due before class.
Turning in an individual response late will result in a reduction of points.
This is a discussion based class, therefore attending class is mandatory. Failure to attend can lead to a reduction of your class participation grade. If a student misses class he/she must contact the instructors immediately and preferably before the class in question.