Course Schedule

Order, structure, and basically everything subject to change.

Sep 4

Discussion: Introduction
Technical:
Assignment: Instructional Thing, Part I

Sep 11

Show & tell: "Offline" assignment
Technical: HTML & CSS
Assignments:
- Watch "How to Teach Yourself to Code"
- Instructional Thing, Part II

Sep 12, 6:30-8pm

GitHub workshop

Sep 18

Discussion: The Ed-Tech Landscape
Speaker: Mattan Griffel, One Month
Assignments:
- Read "Using Google Docs to scale a lean startup"
- Watch Salman Khan's TED Talk
- Complete Iconomation assignment

That Night

Another GitHub workshop, this one run by GitHub itself: https://github.com/blog/1887-patchwork-night-nyc-edition

Sep 25

Discussion: Audience
Technical: JavaScript
Speaker: Darrell Silver, Thinkful
Assignments:
- Read "Rethinking Assessment, Supporting Diversity"
- Read "Assessment on the Web"
- Complete React assignment, Part I

Oct 2

Discussion: Course structure
Technical: jQuery basics
Speaker: Vanessa Gennarelli, P2PU
Assignment:
- Watch "Inventing on Principle"
- Spend 10-15 minutes playing with Scratch
- Complete React assignment, Part II

Oct 9

Discussion: Assignment/exercise design
Technical: More JavaScript:
- Review
- Objects
- Multiple event handling
- $(document).ready()
Assignments:
- Read "How to Train Your Robot"
- Make your project move, e.g.:
  - Reveal steps using parallax (via a library like Stellar.js)
  - Make objects on the page moveable/draggable/resizeable/etc.
    - Using a library like jQuery UI Interactions is recommended

Oct 16

Discussion: Incentives
Technical: Animation
In-class exercise: Pair programming
- Game options:
- Tips
Speaker: Nikolaos "Nikos" Michalakis (a.k.a. Dr. Techniko), Knewton
- Book recommendation: The Diamond Age
Assignments:
- Read "Whose agency matters? Negotiating pedagogical and creative intent during composing experiences."
- Learn about Play With Your Music:
  - About
  - Meet & Greet
- Iterate on React

Oct 18-19 (strongly recommended)

Education Tools Hackathon

Oct 23

Discussion: Support mechanisms
- Community
- Mentorship
Technical: Persistence
In-class exercise: Repeat pair programming?
Speaker: Alex Ruthmann, NYU MusEdLab
Assignments:
- Read NYTimes article about Stanford's online Intro to Artificial Intelligence course
- Complete stateful assignment
- Come up with elevator pitches for three distinct final project ideas

Oct 30

Discussion: Outcomes
Technical: APIs
Speaker: Kara Chesal and Preeti Berla, iZone (NYC Department of Education)
Form final project teams
Assignments:
- Read Five Common but Questionable Principles of Multimedia Learning
- Start on final projects. In a shared place (Google Doc, wiki, etc. – somewhere publicly readable):
  1. Decide on a target demographic
  2. Interview target users to find out what their challenges and motivations are
  3. Write up two or three user stories
  4. Come up with a one-paragraph project proposal

Nov 6

Present project proposals
Technical: GitHub workshop II
- Set up a repository for each team
- Issues
- Merge conflict when pulling
- Branching
- Pull requests between branches
Speaker: Bror Saxberg, Kaplan
- See also: Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling
Assignments:
1. Watch Divergent Thinking
2. Do collective market research with your team
  - Have each team member do a written review of a different resource/tool loosely related to your project (750+ words)
    - Who is it targeting?
    - What prior knowledge is assumed?
    - What design elements are being used?
    - What learning theory(s) are being used?
    - What are its biggest strengths?
    - What are its weaknesses?
  - Find two or more existing resources related to your focus area – they do not need to be electronic/interactive
3. As a group, wireframe your tool/resource
4. Create an absolutely minimal prototype

Nov 13

TBD

Nov 20

Final project presentations

Additional speakers

John Resig, Khan Academy