CS92 Project Pool and Initial Project Descriptions

Spring, 2004 -- Brown University
January 29, 2004 -- Blumberg
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs092/2004/cs92.pool.html

Last Update: 2/1/04


K-12 Education

Higher Education (Brown University)

Community Education


School: Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School
Teacher: Ellen Lynch
Audience: Kindergarten
Project: This year (and after three successful CS92 projects based on mathematics concepts) Mrs. Lynch would like a "word expander" program that would let students try to spell or identify words based on visual images and/or audio cues. She envisions a program that would let a student stretch a word out, based on something they hear or see, using some sort of engaging point and drag interface. Possible tools include Hyperstudio, Authorware, Director and HTML/Java.
Comments: Mrs. Lynch teaches an ESL Kindergarten class, and so the challenges here include designing effective interfaces for very young children who may have limited background in English.

School: The Lincoln School
Teachers: Connie Bryan and Betsy Hunt
Audience: Third graders
Project: In the Spring term, third graders at Lincoln study basic bridge design and construction. They learn about three main bridge types; beam, arch and suspension. They conduct simple experiments in the classroom to illustrate tension and compression, strength of different shapes such as triangles and circles, and learn vocabulary to identify bridge parts. They also learn about famous bridges, such as the Pont du Gard, the Rialto, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Unfortunately, there is little on the internet that is appropriate for this age group (9 year-olds). An interactive program, perhaps game-oriented, in which students could design bridges and test them against loads or sites is what the teachers would like. Maps to locate famous bridges and information about them would help make the material real. They envision the program reinforcing classroom instruction as well as engaging students in a different modality for learning. Possible tools include Director, Authorware and HTML/Java.
Comments: This project is a challenging gem, I think, and might build both on the elementary school architecture program we built for Claudia Pietros years ago (Building Blast!) as well as the Materials Science program we built for Nancy Nowack two years ago (Splash!).

School: The Lincoln School
Teachers: Connie Bryan and Betsy Hunt
Audience: Third graders
Project: Students begin the 3rd grade at Lincoln learning about the Wampanoag and Narragansett Indian tribes, and then about Roger Williams, his early life and reasons for coming to New England. Finally they study the Brown family, specifically Nicholas, Joseph, John and Moses. Ms. Bryan and Ms. Hunt envision a computer-based game that would reinforce, and expand on, information learned in the classroom or on field trips. There is also the possibility of using the game/program to motivate students to use the computer for research.
Comments: A challenging design project that could produce a program for widespread use in RI. Research suggests that designing a game that will simultaneously engage, entertain and educate is far from easy; here we have a rich set of materials and a wonderful classroom that could benefit from a successful instructional game.

School: Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School
Teacher: Claudia Pietros
Audience: Grades 3-6 Art
Project: Mrs. Pietros would like a program that surveys the historical and cultural uses of Masks across various world cultures, such as Native America, Africa, the Far East, and Europe. This might be a program students would use independently as well as in a teacher-directed whole group setting. The program would be rich in visual imagery, and would allow for various kinds of creative manipulation, in order for students to compare/contrast design principles and uses of masks across cultures. Possible tools include Director, Authorware, and Java.
Comments: The students who worked with Mrs. Pietros in 1999 found it an inspiring experience, and they produced a wonderful program called "Building Blast!". A new challenge to this project will be to find creative ways to assess students' understanding of the material in addition to presenting it in engaging ways.

School: Nathan Bishop Middle School
Teacher: Martin Caruso
Audience: 8th-graders
Project: Mr. Caruso would like a program that he could use in preparing his students to meet the 8th grade English standards recently adopted by the Providence Schools. The primary exercise in this program would be reading comprehension and text analysis, with additional reenforcement of grammar and vocabulary. Mr. Caruso is looking for a program that is interactive and engaging, and also instructive and useful for his students as they prepare for the exam. Possible tools include Directory, Authorware and Java.
Comments: This is a challenging and interesting opportunity to create an innovative program to help Providence students meet the English standards, and to work with a set of students for whom mastering English skills is often difficult.

School: The MET School (MET West)
Teacher: Brian Mills
Audience: grades 9-12
Project: Mr. Mills would like a Web-based program that encourages students to review books they have read and recommend them to other students. The MET does not have a required reading list, though students are required to document reading 20 books in the course of their four years at the School. The goal here is to use peer recommendations as a motivation for students to read and talk about books. As teachers have found that the avid readers are a little shy about speaking up in school assemblies, a virtual forum might make this task less intimidating. Possible tools include HTML/Java and HTML with a scripting language like (but not limited to) Perl.
Comments: The MET is an innovative approach to schooling in Providence. Although issues of authentication and database structure will require some work in this project, the primary challenge is to create a tool that engages and inspires a book culture among students who are pursuing individualized education plans.

School: Central High School
Teacher: Becky Coustan
Audience: 10th graders
Project: This is a World History project with several goals. Ms. Coustan would like a program that can present historical materials (e.g. documents and images) to students so that they can make connections between their lives and the past, and could at the same time help students develop critical thinking and analysis skills when working with documents. The emphasis here would be on literacy skills through the evaluation of a variety of document types. For example, while working on a unit on the Middle Ages, students would read a poem, evaluate images, study a map, etc. Students would choose one of the documents, work with questions about the document, and might respond to the document online. Possibilities include setting up a chatboard where students who'd viewed the different documents could discuss what they'd learned, or students could write, edit, and publish essays or stories or letters based on what they'd learned. The program might allow students to work individually on some parts, together on others. The program could also have review materials before final assessments -- quizzes, games, etc. to help students learn key facts, practice vocabulary, maybe even writing questions to quiz each other. Possible tools include Director, Authorware and HTML/Java.
Comments: This is an ambitious project for students who could benefit enormously from the use of computer-based multimedia and the sorts of interactions a program would allow/promote. Ms. Coustan has all the materials we need, and the proposal is flexible with respect to which activities a team might choose to include in the finished program.

School: Health, Science and Technology Academy
Teachers: John Marsula
Audience: Grades 10-11
Project: Mr. Marsula is planning an extensive lesson based on engaging inner-city high school students in the skill of debating. The topic he is using examines the role of the UN as a peace keeping force, and the lesson is expected to last 4-5 weeks. He envisions an interactive program that would let students practice their debate skills while learning the principles of debate; users could choose and structure arguments concerning the topic while receiving feedback and scores/ratings for each round of the debate. Possible tools include Director, Authorware, and HTML/Java.
Comments: This is an interesting and challenging design project, the goal being to use a computer-based exercise to motivate, teach and reenforce the principles of debate. Mr. was involved in CS92 nearly a decade ago, when we built a Hypercard program for his class at the Feinstein School. Now he is at the new Health, Science and Technology Academy and the programming possibilities are no longer constrained by what can be done in Hypercard.

School: The Virtual Medical School and Brown University
Teacher: Steve Smith
Audience: Medical Students
Project: Brown is one of the 52 schools worldwide involved in the Virtual Medical School Project, based at the University of Dundee, and Professor Smith is particularly interested in structuring the experience of students in such a "school" using the idea of the "virtual practice." He would like to develop a program that would allow students to "see" a patient (who would present with particular statistics and a narration of some sort), and write a report suggesting what may be the problem(s). The program would then provide intelligent feedback on this report, noting errors in the diagnosis and suggesting concepts and areas of medical knowledge that might be further studied. The program might also include a second visit by the patient, to allow the student to revisit and revise her/his report. Possible tools include Director, Authorware and Java.
Comments: This project can draw on the lessons we've learned from the two patient-interviewing projects we've done since 1998, and the challenge will be to create an engaging and effective program that is versatile enough to accommodate a variety of patients/modules.

School: University of Oregon
Teacher: Dev Sinha
Audience: Undergraduates in Linear Algebra
Project: In his linear algebra course, Professor Sinha has an innovative way of teaching affine transformations in the plane that involves the introduction of fractals. Trying to develop students' geometric intuitions about these transformations he introduces fractals encoded by collections of affine transformations. The encoding is essentially through the fact that such transformations actually determine the self-similarities of the fractal. Another way of saying this is that by identifying different subsets of the fractal image that "cover" the fractal, one actually defines the fractal uniquely. The project calls for the creation of a program to be accessed via the Web that allows students to visualize affine transformations and to generate fractal images by manipulating parameters of the transformations. The software produced will not only be a teaching tool but a tool for creating fractal art. The likely environment for this project is HTML/Java.
Comments: For students interested in mathematics, this is a fascinating project. You will be implementing procedural code provided by Professor Sinha, but the questions of how best to design and manage the interactions in the program are quite challenging, and the the drama of fractal images provides great opportunities for an effective engaging program. The fact that you'll be working at a distance with Professor Sinha, who was at Brown until last year, adds a further challenge the design and testing process.

School: Women and Infants Hospital
Teacher: Stephen Carr
Audience: Post-Graduates studying fetal echcardiography
Project: Fetal echocardiography is the study of structural heart disease in unborn babies. It requires evaluation of very small structures that are in constant and rapid motion. Fetal ultrasound only renders images in two dimensions, which makes evaluation of three dimensional structures extremely challenging. Teaching this material is even more challenging. Dr. Carr would like to be able to use a program that presents an interactive 3-D model of the fetal heart that will rotate, revolve, and allow the user to "slice" in various planes to show what the 2-D image will look like. Possible tools include Director, Authorware, and HTML/Java.
Comments: This is a great and challenging project for anyone interested in scientific visualization.

School: Brown University School of Medicine
Teacher: Mark Aloia
Audience: Community Patients
Project: Dr. Aloia has developed an intervention to improve treatment adherence in patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. The intervention is based on psychological theory, is interactive, and is designed to get patients to think about the barriers they have to treatment. The intervention is currently scripted for clinicians to give to patients in 2 45-minute blocks. He would like to make the intervention into an interactive program that would provide users with personalized and otherwise intelligent feedback regarding their disorder based on the interaction. Possible tools include Authorware, Director, and HTML/Java.
Comments: Aside from its obvious value for patient education, this is an interesting and challenging project both from the point of view of HCI and medical informatics.

School: Women and Infants Hospital
Teacher: Jeff Peipert
Audience: OB/GYN Patients
Project: Dr. Peipert would like a program that will teach women about smoking cessation. The intended audience is patients who have had abnormal Pap smears (or an abnormality of the cervix), which could lead to cervical cancer -- a cancer associated with smoking. He envisions a computer-assisted individualized intervention based on a behavioral model his group has used successfully in the past to counsel young women on how to avoid unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Possible tools Director, Authorware and HTML/Java.
Comments: This project provides classic design challenges, and the goal will be to implement and automate the intervention as or more effectively than can be done in person.


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