November 28, 2007
Final Project Progress Review
My project focuses on creating a form on our high school website that would allow parents to sign up online for spring 2008 conferences. Teachers would need to receive the time slots that parents signed up for and a teacher specific schedules would have to be available on the website so that parents would know what time periods were already taken. To acheive this I have to create a relational database.
Creating a webpage that parents could access and sign themselves up for conference would probably increase the number of parents who attend parent/teacher conferences. I believe creating this online form would open up the communication lines between teachers and parents, plus allow the administration to have access to how many parents are interested in attending these conferences and which teachers/subjects have a full schedule and which teachers/subjects do not have many parents sign up.
I have had many barriers in this project. The server that maintains our high school website does not support SQL files or .asp files. We will have new servers in the spring, so at least then we can use what I have been working on. So, when I create the forms and databases I have no way of testing them to see if they actual work. I have had to teach myself everything I have learned thus far. I have never tried to incorporate a database into a website. I have played around with this in DreamWeaver and FrontPage. I think I have the form set up correctly and the tables in Access as they should be. If not, I 'm going to be really stressing it next week. Thank goodness I have many years experience with Access and HTML. I have found in both web design software packages I have had to tweek a lot of things.
There are a lot of tutorials and articles on the Internet that I have read and worked through, which has been helpful. A former student of mine, who is currently at Rose-Hulman came by during his Thanksgiving break and gave me a few pointers on how to get everything started. I meet with Dr. Stuve on Saturday, and I am hoping to tie everything I've done thus far together.
I have captured a few screen shots of what I have done in DreamWeaver. This is the form and these are the individual teacher tables I set up in Access. I have completed the relational database wizard in FrontPage, but I'm not a FrontPage fan. I have the form created, but I think the FrontPage method is difficult to follow.
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November 02, 2007
Mini Tech Review-#4
A team from the University of Wisconsin has established a Local Games site that focuses on integrating augmented reality games into classroom curriculums. Augmented reality (AR) games focus on making learning hands-on and integrates virtual reality settings within real-world elements. There are eight different types of AR games listed on the site. Some of these games were discussed in Chapter 11 of The Design and Use of Simulation Computer Games in Education in detail, some were just mentioned. I will be focusing on the Hip Hop Tycoon simulation which enables students to experience being an entrepreneur.
I could easily integrate Hip Hop Tycoon into my entrepreneurship class. The class already does a real-world corporation where they sell "Golden Bear" (school mascot) themed merchandise. By adding an AR game like Hip Hop Tycoon, we could expand on the basic corporation activities that the class already is involved in. Since Hip Hop Tycoon is an augmented reality game where students role-play in teams, the students could build on their previous experiences and develop more defined roles such as specialists in business finance, sales and human resources. Games like Hip Hop Tycoon allow for trial and error via model building. Completeing simulations such as these allow students to work through situations/problems and the information resonates more so than memorizing notes or a lecture only long enough to pass a test.
The benefits for students who play this game is the ability to use technology and complete tasks that would be considered "real-world". When my entrepreneurship class participates in the real world corporation, they do not get to develop defined roles such as financial manager. I am the only one who has the authority to deposit and withdrawal from the account, so this does not give them experience in all aspects of a business. By working through the Hip Hop Tycoon simulation students could gain that skill. The only detriment to playing Hip Hop Tycoon would be the availabiltiy of hand-held devices needed to complete the simulation. If the teacher did not have access to a classroom set, then only a few students could play if any at all.
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