TRAILS-Affiliated Courses

TRAILS courses have been offered at the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, Stanford Univ., Drexel Univ. and Pennsylvania State Univ. Courses began at Colorado and Stanford in 2002 and are continuing today. To date, a total of 152 students have participated in our courses, generating 34 creative projects.

To see what links these courses together, take a look at our course principles.

University of Colorado

Current title: Gamelet Design for Education (CSC1 4830 for undergraduates and CSCI 7000 for graduate students)

Alexander Repenning, Associate Professor; Clayton Lewis, Professor

• Spring 2005: 16 students
• Spring 2004: 29 students
• Spring 2003: 19 students

This is a project–oriented, interdisciplinary course with the goal of creating interactive educational games. The course focuses on creating simple (think Pacman) web-based games called “gamelets,” that address specified learning objectives.  Students create completely usable games, not just prototypes, paying attention to the connections between gaming and learning.

View the syllabus.

Stanford University

Current title: Collaborative design and research of technology-integrated curricula (ED124x/CS377f)

Shelley Goldman, Professor; Angela Booker, Teaching Assistant; Emma Mercier, Research Assistant

• Winter 2005: 11 students
• Winter 2004: 7 students
• Spring 2003: 11 students

This course provides a studio-based, hands-on, participatory approach to the development and research of technology tools and curricula for K-12 education. Students pool their disparate yet necessary and complementary knowledge and skill sets to work with a teacher to design, program, develop learning activities, field test and revise a curriculum sequence.

View the syllabus or a sample student project.

Pennsylvania State University

Current title: Designing Educational Technologies (TELS Collaborative Course)

Christopher Hoadley, Main Instructor; Yael Kali, Main Instructor; Marcia Linn, Instructor; Mike Clancy, Instructor; Tamar Ronen Fuhrmann, Course Designer Assistant

• Fall 2005: 29 students
• Spring 2005: 41 students

This course will engage participants in design and analysis of technology-enhanced curriculum materials. Students will explore the impact of technologyenhanced curriculum on student learning, study educational policy influences on curriculum design, analyze research methods that inform the design process, and review theories of curriculum design with technology. The class will critique various innovations, interview designers, and develop criteria for effective designs. Students will design their own innovation or customize an existing design with guidance from the instructors. Course activities include a) technology analyses using the Design Principles Database, b) technology critiques, c) readings, online discussion, and class discussions, and d) a course project.

Drexel University

Current title: Game Design:  Educational Games (CS498)

Frank Lee, Assistant Professor; Yelena Kushleyeva, Teaching and Research Assistant

• Fall 2004: 21 students

This course’s goals included teaching students about the psychology of play and the principles of game design while having them work in interdisciplinary teams to design educational games. The course had a strong focus on fields associated with the discipline of Human-Computer Interaction such as cognitive psychology, computer science, design, and sociology.

Related courses

• The School of Education at the University of Michigan regularly offers Education 626 – Educational Software Design and Authoring. Spring 1996 or later.
• Georgia Tech CS 4455 – Video Game Design and Programming. Spring 2002 or later.
• Georgia Tech CS 6398 – Design and Analysis of Educational Software. Spring 1996 or later.
• Brown University CS 92/ED 89 - The Educational Software Seminar. Students work in conjuction with local area teachers to develop educational software. Spring 2004 or later.

Is your related course missing from this list?

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0205625. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.