What is The Educational Software Seminar?
The course missive describes the rationale and mechanics of the Seminar, but there are several things which distinguish CS92/ED89 not only among courses at Brown but among courses offered by CS and Education departments nationally. Briefly: the course is an exercise in applying skills, technical as well as analytical, to a “problem” posed by an independent “client”; and at the same time the course is meant to be an experience of thinking deeply about education, the relationship between computers and education, and the evaluation of technology generally. So while this is a production course of sorts, “the object is to think rather than to accept certain conclusions” (the line is Bertrand Russell’s). There are several things that distinguish the approach and structure of the Educational Software Seminar. First, and probably most importantly, the Seminar begins with proposals from local teachers (K-16) for programs they want to use in their teaching. The history of classroom technology ha
