My Fall Semester Classes

EdTec 670 Exploratory Learning Through Educational Simulation & Games

This course deals with aspects of the design process that are sometimes neglected. To design an instructional game well, you must be both systematic and intuitive, analytic and artistic. In mastering the ISD process, you've learned to handle the cognitive side of instruction (which, almost by definition, is the most important). In EDTEC 670, you'll also learn to deal with the affective side of instruction. Throughout the course we'll be addressing the questions: What makes some activities interesting or fun? How can we maximize enjoyment without sacrificing instructional quality? It's a difficult and fascinating challenge for any instructional designer.

A second major theme of the course involves the design of simulations. The questions that will dominate the second half of the course are these: How do we represent reality in a simulation? How do we balance simplicity, efficiency, and playability against realism, richness and complexity? These, too, are challenging design tasks.

EdTec 795A Seminar

This graduate seminar/practicum is part of several culminating experiences for students earning a Master's degree in Educational Technology. In this class, students serve as instructional design consultants for real clients with pressing needs. Each student is asked to reflect on instructional design, development (and, occasionally evaluation) case studies; examine the art and science of design and development while while engaged in their field work (particularly in light of new technologies); and self-assess competence/readiness to enter the workforce as performance professionals.

I'll Be Hiding In a Corner

Fun in the Pool With Kids and Dogs

New Home for the Francis Family

Myasthenia Gravis Awareness Month

I did not ever think of myself as a poster child (or poster adult) for a disease of the month, but apparently that is the challenge I am facing right now. Of course the internet provides lots of opportunities to learn more and connect with other people who have this condition. June is MG Awareness month. Really, I am fortunate, because I seem to have a mild case. Medications are helping a lot. This summer I plan to focus on health, rest, and decreasing stress.

At Long Last - the Cooking Show

My Courses This Summer

Advanced Teaching with Technologies
This course is provided to prepare working educators to be effective users of technology in their teaching. The class focuses on current technologies and strategies used in today's classrooms and also covers future advances that will likely impact teachers sometime soon. You will leave this course armed with new skills in several computer applications, but more importantly you will leave feeling confident and empowered in how to use technology to enhance your current or future teaching.

Methods of Inquiry
In ED 690, you'll develop the knowledge, skills, and aptitudes (or values) that characterize the competent educational researcher--regardless of the environment in which you might work. In this course, you'll think systematically about inquiry--and how it "fits in" with the instructional design and performance improvement principles around which our EDTEC Master's program is organized. It is inquiry that informs how we design, develop, implement, and evaluate instructional interventions (programs, products, systems, aids) so that we truly meet learner or user needs.