Course Syllabus CUIN 6397/8397: Creating Educational Materials for Digital Storytelling Class # 31177 (Masters) 35247 (Doctoral) spring 2010 Course Description Creating Educational Materials for Digital Storytelling is a graduate course at the University of Houston that deals with researching and updating educational materials that can be used on the Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling website (http://www.coe.uh.edu/digitalstorytelling/) and developing new ways that educators and students can use the site. This course is offered as both a Master's level course as CUIN 6397 and 8397, as a Doctoral level course. Creating Educational Materials for Digital Storytelling is being offered as an hybrid course, which combines one face-to-face class meeting per month with online discussions and independent work. Students will meet face-to-face on some Saturdays during the spring 2010 semester, with online activities and independent work scheduled each week. Students in thecourse will explore the use of Digital Storytelling as a teaching and learning tool as they help make the website a more useful educational resource for educators and their students interested in this technology. During the course, students will participate in weekly topic-related activities and discussions primarily using the Moodle online discussion forums. Students will complete reading, research and online posting assignments each week as well as complete a midterm project and final semester project that will be presented at the end of the semester. Course Goals and Objectives Upon successful completion of this course, students will gain: - A solid foundation in the art and technology of Digital Storytelling; - An understanding of how Digital Storytelling can be used to support instruction; - An understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of Digital Storytelling and the research that has been and currently is being done in this area; - Experience using a multimedia software to create digital stories; - Experience in planning and developing a web project; - An understanding of how Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, podcasts and wikis are used in relation to Digital Storytelling; - Experience working with other students and educators to locate existing content and create new content for the UH Digital Storytelling web site. Upon successful completion of the course, each student will be able to demonstrate that they understand Digital Storytelling’s place in education, research, problem-solving, and web-based product development. Students will learn to design and develop projects that require critical analysis and evaluation; and present the products they develop during for the course. In addition, students in this course will plan, lead, and participate in activities that encourage lifelong learning and will promote equitable, ethical, and legal use of computer technology. Students continually assess their own growth as they seek to create coherent representations of the knowledge, linking new information with existing understandings in creative, meaningfulways. Relevant, authentic learning tasks will be explored in a motivating, learner-centered environment. Learning will be facilitated through both face-to-face and online interactions among the classroom participants. To ensure that diverse student preferences for learning and expression are honored, a variety of learning modes and assessment strategies will be utilized, including whole-class discussions and debates, individual and collaborative group work. Students who successfully complete the course will gain new knowledge and skills through investigation, discussion, design, development, and evaluation of instructional materials situated in authentic contexts. Prerequisites for this Course: It is assumed that students entering this graduate-level course have some computer skills and are familiar with the process of designing instructional materials. Students who enroll in this course should have some basic familiarity with the web and web editing software. Experience designing and developing simple web pages is helpful, however advanced technical skills are not required for this course. Introductory or advanced skills in HTML are not the focus of this course. The focus instead will be on many of the associated skills that are needed to construct comprehensive, educationally-relevant online resources, such as organization of information, navigation, writing for the web, graphic design and page layout, accessibility and usability issues, and evaluating the educational value of web-based resources. As mentioned, regular use of a computer will be essential for this course. Whether you have a computer at home or are planning to use a computer in one of the computer labs on campus, the most important thing is to have a place you are familiar with where you can use a computer, can install software, and save files. Windows computers will be used in this course and are available in the College of Education CITE computer lab and at other labs on campus. The computers in the CITE Lab, where our classes will be held, will have all of the software needed for this course installed and operational. You can find information about how to set-up an account that will allow you to access the computers in the CITE Lab by going to the College of Education's My Advisor system at: http://myadvisor.coe.uh.edu and selecting the Create/Reset Your Account link.Required Materials Textbook There is no required textbook for this course. Readings for this course will come from articles published on the web and from handouts given out in class. To access the online readings, students will need to have access to a computer that is capable of connecting to the Internet, as well as a recent version of a common web browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, or Google Chrome). Important Note about Web Browsers: We are using the Moodle course management system for this (and other IT courses) and although Moodle content many be accessed with any web browser, it seems to work best with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Web browsers should be configured so that you can access multimedia content online. Below are links to some of the more popular browser plug-ins and helper applications that may be downloaded for free. Adobe Acrobat Reader (to view PDF files) RealPlayer (to hear RealAudio and view RealVideo