William M. Pegram
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ED 554-A Computers and Technology in the Classroom

The schedule below is being revised continually. The most recent version can be found at www.billpegram.com . Material listed under "other resources" is material on the topic not covered in class and the student is not responsible for this material. Material will be moved into and out of this category as the course progresses.

Completed Student Presentations (in chronological order):

Instructor Presentations

Date Topics Reading, Assignments
8/30

Course Overview, Introductions, Presentation Software (PowerPoint)

Uses of Powerpoint; Complete technology skills survey

 
9/6

Spreadsheets (Excel) - Teacher Gradebooks, Student Analysis of Data

Readings: Why Use Technology?

  1. Shirley Veenema and Howard Gardner "Multimedia and Multiple Intelligences", The American Prospect, Vol. 7, No. 29, November 1, 1996-December 1, 1996, available at www.prospect.org/print/V7/29/veenema-s.html
  2. "The Wizards behind the Screens: What are Online Teaching and Digital Degrees Telling Us about Learning" at www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/wizards01012003.html
  3. Karlyn Morissette "Exploring New Learning Technologies: An Interview with Wirth Professor Chris Dede", March 1, 2003 at www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/dede03012003.html

Assignment - Create resume in Word and email it to instructor as an attachment
9/13

Databases and Queries (Access)

Other resources related to Office software:

  • EndNote - Bibliographic software - Version X - 30 day free trial available
  • OneNote 2003 - Note taking software from Microsoft - 60 day free trial available
  • Impatica for PowerPoint - Software compresses PowerPoint presentations and makes them available through wider range of platforms - VCCS has a system license so their faculty can download the software by going to your Blackboard site, log on, and see the box on the right marked, My Organizations, Organizations of which you are a member, VCCS Faculty Help Site, and Click on the VCCS Faculty Help Site where you can find directions for downloading and for using Impatica.
  • Microsoft Office Assessment - free test to test your knowledge of Microsoft Office
  • Microsoft InfoPath is a new product that links forms to databases
  • Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing product
  • Voice recognition software - Dragon NaturallySpeaking and ViaVoice

 

  
9/20

Using Microsoft Applications Together; Mail Merge

Class Discussion

Other resources:

Mail Merge tutorial

 
  • "Saying No to School Laptops" by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Wall Street Journal, Thursday, August 31, 2006, p. D1-D2
  • "Arithmetic Problem: New Report Urges Return to Basics in Teaching Math" by John Hechinger, Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2006, p. A1, A16
9/27

Creation of Material for the World Wide Web (Text Formatting, Links, File Transfer)

HTML Skills - Creating and revising a web page, text formatting, creation of links
Software Skills - downloading and installing software, using FTP Program

Reading:

  1. Web Page Design Introduction

Other resources:

FTP Instructions. Web sites for learning HTML and related technologies:

 

  
10/4

Images and Graphics Software -

HTML Skills - Using images in web pages. Alignment of Text and Images
Software Skills - Using a graphics program to create images (draw and paint), resize and crop images, exporting images for web formats (setting quality or number of colors) - Notes on Paint
Technology Skills - Use of digital camera and scanner

Other resources:

Video Technology

 
  • Create a homepage and a bio page in Notepad. The filename of the home page should be index.html or index.htm. Create a relative link from your home page to bio page and from your bio page to your home page. The bio page should be at one or two paragraphs and there should be a little variation in text appearance (such as size, weight, font, or color). Either the home page or the bio page should contain an absolute link to another web site.
  • FTP the files to your Marymount or other site. If you want to do this from homoe, I recommend downloading CoreFTP which is free (www.coreftp.com). If you are hosting somewhere other than at Marymount, email the URL to the instructor. The FTP settings for Marymount are hostname: muweb.marymount.edu, username:
  • Once you have uploaded your files, you should be able to view your home page from the student page. If you cannot, this may require help from the the IT people to set up your account, but see me in class before you contact them.
10/11

Using HTML Editors to Create an Online Portfolio,

Using an HTML editor (Netscape Composer, Dreamweaver, FrontPage, etc.) simplifies the construction of web sites. This will simplify the creation of the online portfolio of all your work in the class.

Other resources:

 Using a picture that has been taken with a digital camera, transfer the file to your computer, resize it with a graphics program (rather than the height and width attributes of the img tag) so that it is an appropriate physical and file size for a web page, and use this as an inline image in one of your existing pages on your website, or a new page (if a new page, create a link from your home page to the new page and FTP the new and changed files to your website.  If you do not use a digital camera photo, you can use another image in which case you should provide a link to the image before it was resized.  You can do this as a thumbnail (the smaller image serves as a link to the larger image) or in another way.
10/18

Distance Education Tools - Windows Messenger - Chat

Other resources:

 

  
10/25 Windows Messenger Chat  
11/1 Television, VCRs, DVDs, IPods, Podcasting Experience Chat for Discussion Purposes and Assignment
11/8 Wikipedia, Blogging, and RSS Feeds  
11/15 Social Networking Sites; Internet as a Tool for Communication and Inquiry, Responsible Use of Technology

Instructor Presentations:

  • Using Google Reader as an RSS Reader
  • Plagiarism Detection Tools - www.turnitin.com

Social networking sites - www.myspace.com, www.youtube.com, www.facebook.com, http://spaces.live.com/

Other resources:

 

 
11/29

Discipline Specific Software

Tutorials, simulations, drill & practice, games, exploratory environments, multimedia

Instructor Presentation:

  • TinkerPlots (data analysis program designed for students in grades 4-8)

Other resources:

Other Math software

  • ArcView - mapping data
  • Maple - Symbolic computation in algebra and calculus
  • MatLab - Mathematical computing and visualization
  • Mathplayer - free software to display math pages encoded in MathML

Astronomy software

Statistical software

Visualization Software

Language Software

Exploratory Environments

Multi-User Virtual Environment Experiential Simulators (MUVEES) - www.gse.harvard.edu/~dedech/muvees/documents/AELppr.pdf www.gse.harvard.edu/~dedech/muvees/animations.htm

 1. Create a blog (click on link to see assignment detail) - the blog I created is at http://ed554.blogspot.com
2. Use turnitin.com (click on link to see assignment detail)
12/13 Take Home Final Exam (no class 12/6) Take Home Final Exam

 

Other material:

Assignments (not yet assigned):

  1. Write a review of some discipline-specific software or create a webCT/Blackboard course. See my Guidance on Software Review. If a webCT/Blackboard course, the course should be utilize a number of features of the course management system -- it is not something you can just create in an hour or two.

 

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Material not covered in course:

Recommended Resources (from Professor Brand syllabus)

Watts, M.M. (2003). Technology: Taking the distance out of learning. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Oppenheimer, T. (2003). The flickering mind : the false promise of technology in the
classroom, and how learning can be saved. New York: Random House.

Romano, M.T. (2003). Empowering teachers with technology: Making it happen. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press.

Sharp, V. F. (1995). HyperStudio 3.0 in one hour. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

Sheekey, A.D. (2003). How to ensure ed/tech is not oversold and underused. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Whitehead, B.M., Jenson, D.F.N., and Boschee, F. (2003). Planning for technology: A guide for school administrators, technology coordinators, and curriculum leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Wresch, W. (1997). A teacher’s guide to the information highway. Columbus, OH: Merrill, an imprint of Prentice Hall.

Assignment (Never assigned):

Use an online learning resource to learn a technology skill and critically assess the online learning resource and suggest specific improvements. This assignments has four goals:

Create a home page for yourself in webCT with a photo of yourself (if convenient), your email address and 2-3 paragaphs of information about you (what areas you include are up to you). This assignment has two goals: (a) Give you some experience with webCT, and (b) Provide some information to your classmates to help build community in the class.

Revised: December 8, 2006. Comments to William Pegram, bill@billpegram.com