Technological Tools for Learning

This course explores the design and use of new technologies in the learning environment (schools, museums, after-school programs, etc.). The underlying philosophy of this course is "constructionism", which states that people learn better when engaged in making and designing their own computational meaningful projects; therefore, we will become designers of technological tools to be used in educational settings with children pre-K to high school and we will become researchers to assess the thinking and learning fostered by the different tools. We will also explore current research and debates regarding educational technologies. Through the semester we will read and discuss materials from a wide variety of sources. We will also become familiar with new technologies ranging from collaborative on-line systems to robotic construction kits, to programming environments for children. The goal of the course is to build both technical expertise as well as theoretical knowledge to be able to choose adequate technology, integrate it into the learning environment and design research studies to evaluate its success or failure.

There are no pre-requisites.

• Thursdays 9-11:30am, Spring 2010
• Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development, Curriculum Lab
• Professor Marina Bers (email)
• 617-627-4490
• Office Hour: Mondays 11-12 and by appointment
• Elist: cd145techtools@elist.tufts.edu

• Readings and class participation (On-going): All students are expected to do the readings, and to participate in discussions of the readings in class. Readings will be linked from the syllabus. Students are expected to print them out and have them available in a folder. Prof. Bers book, “Blocks to Robots: learning with technology in the Early Childhood Classroom” will be used (Teachers College Press, 2008). This will count for 10% of your grade.
• Class presentations (On-going): Class time will be organized as discussions, not lectures. To help get discussions started, each session a student will be asked to summarize the readings and describe one question or provocative issue. This will count for 10% of your grade.
• Mid-term project Photo essay on powerful ideas (Due February 25): Students will work individually. They will create a Photo essay documenting how the children they have worked with during the classroom experience, encountered and struggled with powerful ideas on the technological domain. The photo essays will document children’s learning experiences and will put those in the context of children’s cognitive, personal and social development. This will count for 30% of your grade.
• Technological fluency scope and sequence project (Due April 1): Students will work in small groups. Each group will develop a plan for a PreK-8 school or after-school environment to promote technological fluency while adhering to the standards studied in class. The plan should take into consideration what students will learn at each developmental level by proposing a scope and sequence of content. In addition, each group will choose a particular segment (PreK-2; 2-4; 5-6;7-8 grade) and will propose a sample pilot project that will illustrate how the particular content is put into practice. This group project will count for 25% of your grade.
• Final project (Final project presentations April 23). Students will work in pairs. Each pair of students will develop a learning game using the Swinxs platform and will prepare a game scenario and presentation. Games will be played on April 23 in class. This group project will count for 25% of your grade.

• January 21: Introduction and Course Overview
  Readings.
  -Koschmann, T. D. (1996). Paradigm shifts and instructional technology: An introduction. In T. D. Koschmann (Ed.), CSCL: Theory and practice of an emerging paradigm (pp. 1-24). NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  Design studio
  Papert's videos.Class activity with the four paradigms and Logo
  
• January 28: Playful learning with robots
  Readings.
  -Papert, S. (1999, March 29). Papert on Piaget. Time Magazine, special issue on "The Century’s Greatest Minds," 105.
  -Bers, M (2008) Blocks to Robots: learning with technology in the Early Childhood Classroom”, Teachers College Press, NY (Introduction and Part 1—chapters & vignettes)
  Design studio.
  Garden activity with WeDo. WeDo Intro
  
• February 4: Robotics in the classroom I
  Design studio.
  Prof. Bers will provide directions and guidelines
  
• February 11: Robotics in the classroom II
  Design studio.
  Prof. Bers will provide directions and guidelines
  
• February 18: No classes. Substitute Monday's schedule
  
• January 25: Technological fluency
  Readings.
  -Resnick, M., Berg, R., & Eisenberg, M. (2000). Beyond Black Boxes: Bringing Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Investigation. Journal of the Learning Sciences, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 7-30.
  -Bers, M (2008) Blocks to Robots: learning with technology in the Early Childhood Classroom”, Teachers College Press, NY (Part 2—chapters & vignettes— and Conclusion)
  Assignment due.
  In class presentation of photo essays
  
• March 4: Computational literacy and technological fluency
  Readings.
  -Technologically Speaking: What is Tech Lit? Report from the National Academy of Engineering
  -Technological Fluency
  -Jenkins, H. et al. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. MacArthur Foundation.
  -Alliance for Childhood Tech Tonic: Towards a New Literacy of Technology
  -Technological Literacy standardsTechnology Education Association) (ITEA International
  -Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks
  -National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council, 2002:
  -NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) Project, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education):
  Design studio.
  Students will compare and contrast the ways in which the different documents define what it means to be computer literate and will start working towards their group project. They will be able to access the following resources as well, in case they find them useful:
  -Miami Assassment Tool
  -TCET Study
• March 11: Tangible Kindergarten project (TangibleK team)
  Readings.
  -Bers, M. & Horn, M. (In Press). Tangible programming in early childhood: Revisiting developmoental assumptions through new technologies. In I. R. Berson & M. J. Berson (Eds), High-tect tots: Childhood in a digital world. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
  -Zuckerman, O et al (2005) Extending tangible interfaces for education: digital montessori-inspired manipulatives, SIGCHI
  Design studio.
  Students will explore tangible programming
  
• March 18: New interfaces for learning
  Readings.
  -Druin, A., Bederson, B., Quinn, A. (May 2009) Designing Intergenerational Mobile Storytelling
  -Klopfer, E, Osterweil, S & Salen, K (2009) Moving Learning Games Forward . The Education Arcade, MIT
  Guest Speaker at 10:30am- Arnout Asjes, Swinxs.
  Playing with Swinxs and developing a learning game.
  
• March 25: No class. Spring break
  
• April 1: Current debates on Educational Technologies
  Readings.
  -Cuban, L So much high-tech money invested, so little use: how come?
  -Wartella, E. A., & Jennings, N. (2000). Children and Computers: New Technology-Old Concerns. The Future of Children: Children and Computer Technology, 10(2).
  -Papert, S. (1987). Computer criticism vs. technocentric thinking. Educational Researcher, 16(1), 22-30.
  Design studio and Assignment due.
  In-class debate. Students will turn in their technological fluency proposal
  
• April 8: Virtual Communities for learning (maybe out of town)
  Readings.
  -Rogoff, B (1994) Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, Culture & Activity, Vol1 Num 4, Fall 1994
  -Barab, B (2003) An Introduction to the Special Issue: Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning The Information Society
  -Barab, S, MacKinster, J; Schekler, R (2003) Designing System Dualities: Characterizing a Web-Supported Professional Development Community. The Information Society
  -Dieterle, E., & Clarke, J. (in press). Multi-user virtual environments for teaching and learning. In M. Pagani (Ed.), Encyclopedia of multimedia technology and networking (2nd ed). Hershey, PA: Idea Group, Inc.
  -Barab, S (1994) Making Learning Fun: Quest Atlantis, A Game Without Guns
  Design studio and Assignment due.
  Students will explore different educational on-line communities:
• -Zora
  -Tapped In
  -The Inquiry Learning Forum
  -Quest Atlantis
  -the Math Forum
  -River City
  -CurriKi
  


• April 15: Design-Based Research I
  Readings.
  -Barab, S and Squire, K (2004) Design-Based Research: Putting a Stake in the Ground Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 1, Pages 1-14 , NY: Lawrence Erlbaum
  The Design-based research collective (2003) Design-Based Research: An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry
  -Bell, P (2004) On the Theoretical Breadth of Design-Based Research in Education Educational Psychologist Vol. 39, No. 4, Pages 243-253 NY: Lawrence Erlbaum
  Design studio and Assignment due.
  Students will work with the technological fluency scope and sequence project and will use the readings to propose a methodology for investigating the success of a hypothetical implementation (part I).
  
• April 22: Design-Based Research II
  Design studio
  Students will work with the technological fluency scope and sequence project and will use the readings to propose a methodology for investigating the success of a hypothetical implementation (part II)
  
• April 29 Final Projects
  Assignment due.
  Students will show their Swinxs projects (guest visitors)
  
• May 1: Debriefing