CISC367 Service Learning with XO Laptops Syllabus

Terry Harvey, lastname@cis.udel.edu
Office Hours: Tues 2-4 (except 9/8), Fri 8-10, and by appointment

Lori Pollock, lastname@cis.udel.edu
Office Hours: TuTh 2:00-3:00 PM and by appointment, 302 831-1953

Richard Burns, lastname@cis.udel.edu

Tim McClory
Tim Walsh
Kyle Benson
Stephen Steward
Sola Johnson
Comfort Quarshie
Lisa Marvel

TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM, McKinly Lab, Room 061

Periodic Wednesday afternoons 12:30 - 4pm at the Chester Community Charter School (transportation provided)

Team Visit afternoon schedule

This course involves teams of CIS and IS majors learning to use and program the XO laptops with the python programming language, meeting with teachers at a regional K-8 school which has a deployment of XO laptops, and creating and testing learning software appropriate to different ages and subject areas in K-8. Students will participate in open-ended team projects, maintain reflective journals and a class wiki, and hone their communication skills giving presentations, training teachers and students, and class discussions. This course has a large service learning component.

At the end of this course, the students should :

• in XO for education
  • be aware of challenges/strategies and successes of technology in education
  • be aware of overall OLPC past/present/future
  • be knowledgeable of role and impact of assessment in education (PSSA for CCCS)
  • be aware of how learning styles differ and how to target each of those learning styles through software
  • be able to apply the theory of collaborative learning to the specs of software
• in using XO
  • be able to use and teach others how to use an XO laptop and its activities
  • be able to use all of the XO's features
• in preparing for Programming
  • be able to set up an XO for programming
  • be able to set up personal laptop for XO programming
  • be able to troubleshoot and set up for successful recovery of crashed XO
• in programming
  • be competent and comfortable with writing python programs
  • be competent and comfortable with linux commands
  • be able to build a GUI based python program that will run on both the emulator and the XO
  • be able to write a collaborative piece of software that will work with the networking on both the emulator and XO
  • be able to analyze a program based on efficiency

Any Python book of your choice. Start with python.org and look into Dive into Python.

A laptop (linux, windows, or mac) during class time. (Contact us if you do not have a laptop for class time). We will provide XO laptops on loan.

Your grade will be based on the quality of your contribution in the following areas:

• 25% Regular quizzes

• 10% Active participation during class time and team activities

• 20% Presentations – completeness, clarity, organization, style

• 10% Wiki journal of your reflection on your learning and learning challenges – regular, thoughtful entries; see Service Learning criteria

• 35% Project – design, testing, documentation, result, customer review, peer review

Class attendance is mandatory. All of these criteria will be taken into account by the instructors in assigning each student’s individual grade. We reserve the right to adjust the syllabus during the semester, and we will give you notice in class if we do.

UD email: If you want to receive your UD e-mail at a non-UD mailbox (e.g., AOL, Hotmail, etc.), you must forward your UD e-mail to that mailbox and ensure that it is working so that you can receive and read official UD e-mail, including course-related materials, in a timely fashion. Instructions for forwarding are posted on the UD Network Page [www.udel.edu/network]

In a course of this nature there is lots of collaborative work. However, collaboration happens within a team. If you use code or other materials that you or your team did not develop, we expect attribution to appear in your code indicating the original source (as best as you can determine). Always distinguish between materials developed for this class and materials developed outside the course. Collaboration does not extend to quizzes unless we specifically write it on the quiz. If you do not adhere to these standards and those expressed at the following website (where applicable), then we will follow University policy as described at http://www.udel.edu/studentconduct/ai.html