CUS 7205 INTEGRATING E-LEARNING INTO CURRICULA
(Elective for MED CUS students)
Course Description:
This is a two-credit unit elective course intended to offer hands-on experience to prospective Curriculum developers, instructional designers, and teacher trainers, step by step go through the process of uploading and enhancing the use ofe-curriculum/instructional materials via the web. The students will also be required to identify a client who would like to use the World Wide Web as a central resource for enhancing teaching and learning. Students will undertake the necessary planning, design the web pages and upload some e-curriculum materials, use the finished products in the classroom situation, and reflect on the results for purposes of improving the quality of the curriculum web. The students will be required to produce two deliverables for this course namely: (a) keep a portfolio and (b) create functional curriculum web pages for the class project.
Prerequisites: CUS 7105 Curriculum design and development and CUS 7203 Communication and Instruction design Systems are prerequisite courses. Basic knowledge in using computers and Internet will be of added advantage.
Course Aim/Objectives:
This course is intended to enable students be able to:
- Plan, design, and develop curriculum webs.
- Use curriculum webs in classrooms to facilitate meaningful learning.
- Evaluate existing curriculum webs.
- Use available resources in the computer labs to accomplish the tasks.
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the course the students should demonstrate competence to:
- Plan for an effective curriculum web.
- Design and create an effective curriculum web.
- Use the curriculum web in a classroom situation to facilitate learning.
- Evaluate existing curriculum webs and make constructive suggestion for improvement.
- Become reflective practitioners.
Course Outline and Content: (how can this content be reduced to fit in the 2 CUs? We also need to ensure that the Faculty of ICT will not claim the course as theirs.
1)Planning the curriculum for the web
What is a curriculum web?
Why build curriculum webs?
Some examples of curriculum webs
Standards and curriculum webs
Easing into building curriculum webs
2)Creating a simple curriculum web
What is a webquest?
The IQ webquest – measuring the Inquiry Quontient of webquests
3)Identifying curriculum goals
A process of identifying goals
General goals
Learner descriptions
Subject matter descriptions
Learning objectives
Perquisites
Aims
4)Laying out an effective web page
Basic page design principles
Use of white space on the page
Use of color
Styling text
Making accessible pages
5)Choosing learning activities
The complexity of learning
Differentiating the curriculum
Grouping learners
Selecting learning activities
6)Planning instruction and assessment
Planning instruction
Integrating/embedding assessment
Instructional plans
Lists of materials and equipment
Plans for assessment
7)Gathering web-based resources
Why use existing resources?
Bookmarking favourites
Searching the web
Evaluating web-based resources
Copyright issues
8)Designing an effective website
Steps of website design
Planning for your audience
Gathering information and materials
Establishing a theme
Chunking
Building site structure and navigation tools
9)Using multimedia
Graphics file formats
Acquiring images
Creating images
Placing images
Image maps
Incorporating sound
Incorporating video
PDF files
10) Constructing Interactivity
What is interactivity?
Java scripts
Cookies
Aids to navigation
Forms
Interactive animation
Blogs and wikis
11)Evaluating and maintaining curriculum webs
Plans for evaluation
Maintaining, revising, and updating
12) Teaching with Curriculum webs
People
Classrooms
Computers
Computer labs
Connectivity
Software issues
Ensuring successful teaching with a curriculum web
Assessment Criteria:
Students will be required to prepare a comprehensive Portfolio through out the semester [40% Marks]. The students will also create/develop a functional curriculum/instructional web [60% Marks]
References:
Bitter, G. G., & Piersom, M. E. (2005). Using technology in the classroom (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Cunningham, G. A., & Billingsley, M. (2006). Curriculum webs: weaving the web into teaching and learning (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Grabe, M., & Grabe, C. (2000). Integrating the Internet for meaningful learning. Boston: Houton Mifflin Comany.