Instructional Computing is designed for teacher education students. A regular education section is offered for pre-service teachers in math, science education, language arts, social studies, and elementary education, while a special populations section taught by Chris Appert is provided for special education majors.
The regular education section provides an overview of ways to integrate educational technologies into content areas. Agreements with the Albemarle County and Charlottesville school systems allow participants to collaborate with practicing classroom teachers throughout the semester.
EDES 589 Educational Telecomputing and Networks
When this course was first offered on a trial basis, a group of instructional technology graduate students collaborated with classroom teachers on the conversion of the text-based interface of the Virginia Public Education Network (PEN) to a graphical Web-based interface. Since the initial offering, the course content has changed substantially each year in response to the dramatically evolving nature of the Internet. Currently the course provides an introduction to development of Web pages, commonly employed Internet tools and protocols, and local area and wide area networks.
EDES 766 Courseware Tools
This course is designed for Instructional Technology majors. It provides an overview of tools commonly employed in the development of course materials, including authoring programs, desktop publishing, Web design and development, graphical tools (image editing and illustration programs), and electronic discussion tools (mailing lists and newsgroups).
EDES 767 Courseware Design
Courseware Design is the second in a two-course sequence. The focus addresses use of the tools introduced in the prior course in group projects. Effective project management and an introduction to scripting are covered. Projects developed within the course are intended to provide an effective addition to participants' portfolios, demonstrating competency with real-world projects.
Past projects have included refinement of the graphical interface for Virginia's PEN, design and implementation of a community information server (Monticello Avenue), design and implementation of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts web site, and design of the first K-12 site in Virginia with a direct link to the Internet (at Virginia Murray Elementary School). Preference is given to implementation of non-profit educational technology initiatives.
Seminar in Educational Computing
This seminar provides an overview of current literature and best practice in the integration of educational technologies and teaching, particularly as it pertains to K-12 education.