CS92 Project Pool and Initial Project Descriptions

Spring, 2000 -- Brown University
January 27, 2000 -- Blumberg
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs092/2000/cs92.pool.html


Elementary Education

Secondary Education

Higher Education (Brown University)


School: Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School
Teacher: Karen DiPrete
Audience: 3rd Grade Mathematics
Project: Ms. DiPrete has her students do a "Mad Minute" of multiplication everyday, in which they work through a series of multiplication tables (for 1 minute each), and then do 30 mixed problems (also for 1 minute). Afterwards the students work on 100 problems and try to answer them correctly as fast as possible. The project is to design and build a program that students can use for these exercises that would be more engaging, challenging and effective than the current paper and pencil medium, and Ms. DiPrete is also considering having the program include division problems as well. Possible tools include Authorware, Director, and HTML/Java.
Comments: This is a interesting project not so much because of the content but because of the pedagogical constraints and the challenge of making a computer-based exercise that is superior to something that is currently done (well) without computers.

School: Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School
Teacher: Claudia Pietros
Audience: K-5 Art
Project: Mrs. Pietros is interested in a program to go with a unit she is developing for her students entitled "African-American Artists and Their Art." The project involves the development of a program that would allow students to survey specific artists, learn about the style of art they practiced, as well as how they applied elementary concepts and principles of art. In meeting with new Art Standards her students need to know how to pick out specific themes in the art work, learn about how a specific idea can be portrayed in a series of art pieces, and how art work can be used to tell a story and/or convey emotions. Another objective of the program will be for students to see how the history and events of a certain time period may influence the artist's work, along with his/her cultural heritage and background. An analogy that the student should be able to make is that just like an author tells a story with words and sentences, an artist often communicates feelings and ideas with visual imagery. Possible tools include Director and Authorware.
Comments: The students who worked with Mrs. Pietros last year found it an inspiring experience, and they produced a wonderful program called "Building Blast". We are fortunate to have another great proposal from her, and this year the pedagogical and creative challenges include meeting a set of standards that influence how students' understanding of art will be assessed.

School: Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School
Teacher: Jacqueline Fish
Audience: 5th Grade students of Ancient Japan
Project: Ms. Fish teaches a unit on Ancient Japan each year and she uses the unit in part to teach her 5th graders to understand the Feudal system. In the past, this was the first time any of the students had ever heard of this type of system and she found that it was difficult for them to understand and that it was rather complicated considering the grade level. This project calls for the creation of a program to help teach the unit, especially the visual aspects of Ancient Japanese culture. Ms. Fish suggests that perhaps through the use of a game, which the students might play in pairs or small groups, where through a series of questions, the players distinguish themselves as Shogun, Samuri, serf, etc. Ms. Fish would like the program to provide a clear visualization of the hierarchy of the government and present visuals of Japanese weapons, Bonsai, maps, the Tea Ceremony, rice pad dies, and clothing in an effort to bring students into the world of Ancient Japan. Possible tools include Director and Authorware.
Comments: The challenge of this project is clearly how to present rich cultural material to elementary school students in ways that keep them engaged and facilitate an understanding not just of cultural details but of the structure of a particular political system as well.

School: Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School
Teacher: Christine Mendonca and Holly Polhemus
Audience: 4th grade multi-subject
Project: Ms. Mendonca is an ESL teacher and Ms. Polhemus is a "regular" ("EFL?") teacher, and they each teach Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts to their students, who range in age from 9-11. They are interested in a program that they could both use with their students to cover one or more of the following subjects: 1) The muscular, skeletal, nervous, circulatory, respirattory, endocrine, reproductive, digestion, and excretory systems of the human body; 2) the geometric concepts of perimeter, area and volume; and/or 3) the concept of a fraction, and elementary mathematical operations on fractions. Possible tools include Director and Authorware.
Comments: This is a very challenging project regardless of how many of the content areas are addressed because what is requested is a program that will be as useful and engaging to the regular 4th graders as to the ESL group. This is a unique opportunity because you'll get to work closely with both Mendonca's and Polhemus' classes in the design and testing of the program.

School: Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School
Teacher: Ellen Lynch
Audience: ESL Mathematics, Kindergarten
Project: Ms. Lynch would like her students to understand the concepts and computations involved in finding the perimeter and area of various object shapes. In class the students use blocks, spheres and cubes of various sorts, and this project calls for the creation of a program that would let students apply the concepts they've learned, reenforce their understanding, and assess that understanding as well. A second component of the project (or a separate second project) involves the presentation of simple functions as "function machines", and she would like a program that could provide engaging visualization of and exercises using this idea of function machine. Possible tools include Hyperstudio, Director, Authorware, and HTML/Java.
Comments: Ms. Lynch's students have limited skills in English and perhaps the greatest challenge of this program is to create something that does not rely on English text to convey the concepts and offer exciting exercises for the students on the computer.


School: The Met School

Teacher(s): Charly Adler and Suzette Thiebault
Audience: Grade 9 Health
Project: The Met School (The Metropolitan Career and Technical Center), is an alternative high school in Providence, and a lab school for the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). Among its innovative practices is the use of personalized learning plans that allow students to make decisions about what to study, how to study, and even where to study (through the use of an extensive internship program). As you might imagine such individualized learning poses interesting challenges for traditional ideas of teaching and curriculum. This project is meant to provide the 9th grade class at the Met with a program to help students understand the material covered in the Health curriculum recently required by RIDE, and to prepare them for the exam that all 9th grade students are required to take each March. You'll work closely not only with the 9th grade teachers at the Met but with their students, who will assist in the production of this program. Possible tools include Director, Authorware, and HTML/Java.
Comments: Health is an important area of new curriculum these days, particularly in Rhode Island, and this project is a great opportunity to create something innovative and effective, for students working in a remarkably flexible school environment.


School: Classical High School

Teacher: H. Peter Turner
Audience: Latin students, grades 9-12
Project: This project has two components. In the introductory Latin course, taken primarily by 9th graders at Classical, Mr. Turner covers the basic conjugations and declensions of the language, and he is interested in a program that could help students learn these through a more visual and dynamic presentation than traditional texts allow. For example, he has in mind an interactive illustration of bases, stems, and the attachment of endings in order to improve and deepen students understandings of the basics. This would assist the begin ning students in mastering the declensions and conjugations. The second componenet of the project is aimed at the students enrolled in AP Latin, mostly 11th and 12th graders, where the focus is on Latin literature (e.g. Catullus and Ovid). Mr. Turner would like a program that would help teach his students metrical schemes of Latin verse and give students clear and compelling exercises in scanning lines of poetry, identifying long and short indicators and dividing the lines into the appropriate metrical feet. Possible tools include Authorware, Director and HTML/Java.
Comments: If you have ever taken Latin you know that there is something pleasingly mechanical about its structure (well, ok, not everyone finds it pleasing). This is an excellent project that features a well-defined curriculum, a knowledgeable teacher and some very good students for whom to design something engaging and effective.


School: Mt. Pleasant High School

Teacher: Diane Cresto
Audience: Writing for ESL and Special Education Students
Project: Ms. Cresto works with both students in special education classes as well as students for whom English is a second language. Because the reading levels of the two groups is similar in English, she would like a program that focuses on basic writing skills concerning grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. The project calls for the creation of a program that engages these students (perhaps using a game, or video-game metaphor) and provides constant reinforcement of these basic skills. Possible tools include Director and Authorware.
Comments: The challenge of this project is to figure out a way to not only engage students in exercises they will like to spend their time on, but in designing them in a way to improve the students' understanding of the basic language concepts. A program that did these things well would have tremendous appeal in almost every high school in the US, and to be able to design it with the students and faculty at Mt. Pleasant is a great opportunity.

School: Providence Country Day School
Teacher: Carol Conrad
Audience: 11th Grade American History
Project: Ms. Conrad has put together a curriculum called "Visions of Revolutionary America: Form and Function," that aims at engaging students in the study of 18th century America using a combination of original photographs, primary documents, and linking narratives in innovative ways. She has emphasized the interdisciplinary nature of historical studies by focusing on topics in agriculture, architecture and art (to take just three examples), and she is anxious to have these materials presented in a medium that can integrate such materials more flexibly and effectively than a traditional textbook. The project involves the creation of a program that, using this curriculum, weaves the different media into self-paced instructional modules that allow for multiple paths and different uses of images, documents. (and assessment techniques), in the study of history. There is also the possibility of designing the software so as to give students an instructional context for (and links to) the various archival material of the period available on the Web. Possible tools include Director, Authorware and HTML/Java.
Comments: With an excellent curriculum already in place, this is a great opportunity to create an effective multimedia program that will give students a deeper understanding of aspects of 18th century U.S. history than they would find in any textbook. Challenges include not only how to design effective presentations for a variety of student styles and interests, but how to structure interaction so as to direct, reenforce and assess the learning process.

School: Dept. of Mathematics
Teacher: Dev Sinha
Audience: Undergraduates in Linear Algebra (MA0052)
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.

School: Dept. of French
Teacher: Annie Wiert
Audience: Introductory French
Project: The main objective of this project is to help beginning French students bridge the gap between the spoken language and the written language. It is a fact that the written code in French (as in English) does not allow students to establish a one-on-one correspondence between sounds or groups of sounds and letters: one oral utterance may have several possible transcriptions (e.g. "temps", "tant", "tend", "taon", "tends", "t'en" all have the exact same pronunciation!). Furthermore, many letters or even entire syllables are not pronounced in the spoken language, which is very confusing for visual learners. The project is to create a program that will allow Professor Wiert to create and allow her students to use, dictation-type exercises on the computer. For each lesson in the textbook, she would like the following computer-based exercises: 1) Students hear vocabulary items and have to check all the possible transc riptions of what they hear (multiple choice); 2) Students hear phrases and have to check the correct transcription for what they hear (multiple choice). 3) Students hear phrases and have to type in the transcription (with accent marks). They should get immediate feed-back on their transcription: words that co ntain mistakes might be highlighted and either a hint might be provided to help the student correct the mistake, or the correct transcription might be provided; 4) Students hear questions or commands and have to type in their answers. Ideally they could print these answers and turn them in to their instructor. This program would be designed for use in the Language Lab (or the Clusters), and might allow students to work in pairs as well as individually. Possible tools include Director, Authorware, HTML/Java.
Comments: This is an extremely challenging project, both because of its technical requirements and because it raises a number of important questions about the design of effective instructional programs. The opportunity to work with Professor Wiert, who has a clear idea of what she wants in this program and how her students can benefit from dictation exercises is another great aspect of this project.

School: Dept. of Politcal Science
Teacher: Darrell West
Audience: Undergraduates in Mass Media (PS111)
Project: For a course he will teach in the fall semester focusing on the Presidential Election, Professor West is interested in teaching students aspects of analyzing and deconstructing a campaign ad. This project involves the creation of a program built around a 30-second television spot that would be broken down into sections of perhaps 5-10 frames each in order to illustrate how ads are put together, who the target audience is, and how people respond to ads, etc. One possibility for the ad is George Bush's 1988 "Revolving Door" ad, and the material included in the program could draw on Professor West's own work (e.g the studies reported in AIR WARS). Possible tools include Director, Authorware and HTML/Java.
Comments: This project offers great materials to work with and significant design challenges to create a program that will be a compelling unit on the analysis of political ads and images. This is obviously a great chance to create something with great and widespread appeal to anyone studying politics, and to work closely with a faculty member whose expertise in the area is well-known.

School: Dept. of Psychology
Teacher: Leslie Welch
Audience: Undergraduates in Perception (PY0027)
Project: Each year Professor Welch covers aspects of perception having to do with color, depth, and motion. This project calls for the creation of a program that would allow students to explore the details of these topics, and understand how perceptions of color, depth and motion are produced by cues and other aspects of a particular scene or environment. The program would allow students to manipulate scenes and see the objective basis of both accurate perceptions and illusions. Possible tools include HTML/Java, Director and Authorware.
Comments: The computer is well-suited to the sorts of investigations Professor Welch is looking for, and the project offers technical challenges (e.g. implementing motion algorithms) and design challenges (e.g. embedding and orchestrating the interactions so as to make for an effective instructional program).

School: Dept. of Visual Art
Teacher: Roger Mayer
Audience:Students in VA 10
Project: In 1998 a group of students in the Seminar created a Web-based program for Professor Mayer called Color Theory. The program has been used in VA10 for the past two years with great success. This year he would like to both expand the program to include a complex tiling unit and have a redesign of the 1998 project that, among other things, would allow it to run more smoothly on the various platforms used by students at Brown. The tiling module will allow his students to develop a complex modular design in which the experience gained in the color mixing and color contrast modules might be applied. This entails developing geometric or free form designs in individual modules which would then hold mixtures of color to be ramped to other locations in the larger modular design. These ramps should be able to flow horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Other directions might also be explored (e.g. a spiral). The required new module would be a drawing/design program that is linked to the very useful color chooser of 1998 project. This program needs to be developed and (re)designed in HTML/Java
Comments: This is a great opportunity for both programming and design, and it's the first time we will try to build on and improve a project completed in a previous year. This is a project with an interesting user-study component as well, since the redesign will be based in part on feedback from users of the Color Theory program over the past two years.


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