Hi Makers,

This is just a heads up about the *March 27th* deadline to apply for my Spring course "Beyond Bits and Atoms: designing technological tools for thinking and learning". Enrollment is limited.

In the past, students from several departments at Stanford have taken the course (Education, Psychology, CS, Engineering, Business, and others), since many students are interested in learning how to understand, implement, and design new technologies for learning, and all the cognitive/psychological/HCI/learning theories which could inform the design -- beyond the superficial excitement about how technologies will "magically" change education. At SUSE, students from International Comparative Education, Science Teaching, Teacher Education, and LSTD have taken the course.

Note that no programming or technical knowledge is needed or assumed for the course. This class is a good fit for students with and without a technical background -- extensive support will be given to non-technical students.

The course will have a lecture and a lab section. Email me if you have any scheduling problems with that, but for the most part students are highly recommended to take both.

The application form, a full course description, the syllabus, and a photo gallery of past projects are available at:

http://beyondbitsandatoms.stanford.edu/

Below is a short description of the course

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EDUC 236X/CS 402 - Beyond Bits and Atoms: technological tools for thinking and learning

This course is a hands-on practicum in evaluating, designing and building technology-enabled curricula and learning environments. We will use many rich software toolkits and state-of-the-art prototyping technologies (3D printers, laser cutters, routers, robotics, sensors) designed for novices to get their "hands dirty" designing educational software, educational toolkits, educational toys, and tangible user interfaces. The course is based on the theoretical foundations of constructivism, constructionism, and critical pedagogy, and a special focus will be to design low-cost, appropriate technologies, particularly for urban schools in the US and abroad.
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Feel free to forward this email to other lists or students who might be interested. If you have questions, please email me.

Best

Paulo