Notes for the first class meeting

• What is CS92?
• What are the components of a CS92 project?
• For Next Week
• Notes added after the 1/22 class

What is CS92?

Andy's model for the Educational Software seminar, and this year's version

The projects this semester, briefly.

Vartan Gregorian Elementary School
The Wheeler School
Classical High School
Blessed Sacrament School
Engineering, Art and Sanskrit courses at Brown
Hasbro Children's Hospital
The Providence Children's Museum

This semester's syllabus, in detail.

Four differences this year; what's the difference?

• The institutions. This semester projects are drawn from K-16 and community-based "non-school" institutions.

• The readings. This semester we begin with the culture of programming, the history of classroom technology in the U.S., and try to integrate the cs, cogsci and education literatures.

• The documentation component. This semester it is essential that we document the teacher's specification, the project team's vision and strategies, as well as the reasons for design and implementation decisions in the projects.

• The tools. This semester we have access to Hyperstudio and Authorware (two powerful authoring tools) in addition to Hypercard and traditional cs languages and Web tools.

What is interesting about combining cs and education?

• Comparing the role of technique in cs, education, and other disciplines.

• Comparing the nature of expertise.

• Comparing the standards for good work, and the different vocabularies developed to describe that work, in cs, education, and other content areas.

• Dreaming about a fully integrated cs & edu curriculum.

What are the components of a CS92 project?

• The teacher's project description
• The student team's project description
• The strategy and storyboard
• The documentation of the project
• The documentation for the software
• The program

For next week:

• Read chapters 1-4 of Ullman's Close to the Machine for Tuesday, and finish the book for Thursday; read the Bierman article for Tuesday and then Weizenbaum for Thursday.

• Bring in a small computer program that you have written or identified, and be prepared to explain or question carefully what it does and how it "works".

• Volunteers to present the readings next week?

Notes added after 1/22 class

• The Ullman book has now arrived in the Bookstore and one copy is on reserve at the Science Library.

• The required books by Cuban, Sandholtz et al., Gardner, and Tiffin and Rajasingham are on reserve in the Rockefeller Library, and available in the Bookstore.