Course Information

COSC 497 / IDIA 750 Interactive Educational Design - Summer 2011
Instructor: Anastasia Salter (asalter -at- ubalt.edu)
Course Meeting Time: 5:30 to 8:00 Tuesdays Office Hours: AC 200B, 2:00 to 5:00 Tuesdays and by appointment

The integration of technology in educational design is tranforming how we consider every element of the learning experience. Throughout the summer, we will be examining these transformations in light of both theoretical and practicial considerations of re-imagining the classroom. Topics will include:

Educational Game Design
Future of Books and Textbooks
Online courses and courseware
"Teacherless" Learning

With devices like the iPad and other mobile systems growing in popularity, mobile educational design is on the rise. Students working in groups will build, from design document to bare bones prototype, an interactive mobile app for delivering public history materials born from original research conducted by Dr. Betsy Nix's students, who will be working through the summer.This model is designed to give you experience working with others' content and considering novel models for educational delivery that go beyond the early experiments that we will examine as part of the theoretical background of the class.

This is a hybrid course, so we'll be meeting in-person every Tuesday night from 5:30 to 8:00 and completing online exercises in the Sakai space each week. The hybrid elements are asynchronous.

Class Texts

The required text for this class is:

A New Culture of Learning, Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown

Additional readings will be assigned from online sources and posted within the Sakai course space. Students are also encouraged to have HTML 5 references on hand. We will be building the final project using Adobe Dreamweaver Cs 5.5: you can download a free demo version to use on your home computer during the last 30 days of the semester, and it will be available use in the computer lab. Additional optional in-class meetings will be available as needed for group work on coding.

Assignments

Mobile Educational App (30%)

Students will work in pairs or groups of three on designing mobile educational apps for release based on content generated by the art and history research from the corresponding class. Apps will be built using Dreamweaver (HTML 5 and JQuery) and ported directly as native apps for the iPad. These projects will include layered and interactive experiences of content and ideally will be submitted to the Apple store as public educational resources.

Design Document (20%)

Based on the content received, students will design an interactive educational experience for a mobile platform. The design document will include theoretical grounding that demonstrates an understanding of educational theory. The design document will go through a round of peer-review and be presented formally in class.

Educational Design Research (30%)

Students will conduct and present original research on different existing models of interactive educational design: results will be reported through the online Sakai space or presented in class.

Class Participation (20%)

Class participation is determined by attendance and completion of both in-class and online exercises

Course Policies

Late Work

Late work will be accepted for no higher than a B. The final project will NOT be accepted late, as this would delay the submission of final grades.

Late Arrivals and Absence

If you are late to class, enter without interrupting. You will receive a zero for any work assigned before you arrived. In the event of documented excused absence, alternate assignments will be arranged. You are responsible for finding out what you’ve missed from classmates.

Classroom Technology Policy

This class meets in a computer lab, but this is not an invitation to use the computers in ways that detract from your learning or the learning of others. Headphones will not be tolerated in class. Personal electronics, such as cell phones and iPods, must be turned off during class time. If you have an exceptional reason for needing a cell phone, such as the impending arrival of an offspring, let me know before class begins.

Plagiarism

The University of Baltimore policies on academic integrity will be strictly enforced in this class.