College of Education
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Web-enabled databases are playing key supporting roles in technology education at the U of I's College of Education. We welcome inquiries about each of the resources we have been developing, and are willing to collaborate with other educational institutions interested in using them.
OVERVIEW
Our work with these resources began over two years ago with the Technology Competencies Database, a web-based resource for preservice teachers and their methods instructors. The TCD gives learners the opportunity to describe how they have achieved the ISTE/NCATE " Foundation Competencies," and allows their instructors to assess whether the learners have in fact reached the competencies.
Visitors are welcome to learn about and try out a version of the TCD at http://lrsdb2.ed.uiuc.edu:591/testdb/tcd.html.
Institutions which would like to obtain a copy of the TCD source files to create a similar resource are invited to contact Dr. Jim Levin, j-levin@uiuc.edu. The TCD can be hosted on Macintosh and Windows95/98/NT computers running Filemaker Pro 4.0 or higher and with a dedicated IP address.
The TCD design has been adapted to create two kinds of course activities resources for the College, which we call CTERbase and TEbase. We use the CTERbase to support online interaction between students and teachers in our two-year Master's program in Curriculum, Technology and Educational Reform (CTER). The TEbase is a similar resource for our preservice teacher methods courses. In its simplest form, the CTERbase/TEbase permits the same kinds of interaction as the TCD: individual students are shown descriptions of assignments to complete for a course, and can exchange information with their instructors about their progress.
Visitors are welcome to learn about and try out the basic CTERbase and TEbase at http://lrsdb2.ed.uiuc.edu:591/activdb/default.html Requirements for hosting this version of the same as those for the sample TCD, above.
In recent months we have discovered a need to move beyond the capabilities afforded by the Filemaker-only versions of TCD/CTERbase/TEbase. We needed to be able to monitor group as well as individual projects, to track student progress across semesters, and to handle unlimited numbers of students, instructors, courses, and assignments. This has led us to develop revised versions of the CTERbase and TCD, utilizing a full-featured web server (WebStar 3.01) and Blueworld's Lasso middleware, as well as Filemaker Pro 4.0. At present, these resources operate more slowly than the basic versions; we are currently working on a Java applet interface for the TEbase and CTERbase, which will require much less server-based record-sorting and so should speed things up considerably.
Visitors can learn more about and try the enhanced CTERbase and TEbase at http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/TCD/tryout.html.
HOW THE TCD WORKS
The Technology Competencies Database is a web-based software tool which allows students to describe and provide evidence of how they can meet each of the 18 ISTE/NCATE Foundation Competencies. Faculty can read the studentsí descriptions and assess the studentsí accomplishments, choosing either to certify that the student has satisfied the competency (by grading the description with a "star" and providing a narrative comment) or requesting further information and evidence (by grading the description with a "question mark" and requesting further information). With the studentís permission, the most outstanding examples become available for other TCD users to see and learn from, so the tool grows in utility as students add to it.
Our pilot evaluations of the TCD in 1997-98 showed that while our students enjoyed the flexibility of satisfying competencies on their own schedule, our faculty found it very difficult to provide assessment in such an individualized manner. Partly for this reason, we adapted the TCD somewhat for use with two new sets of courses in 1998-1999. Our main changes have involved replacing the competencies themselves with sets of project-like activities that differ from class to class; for our undergraduate methods courses, faculty create activities that accord with the various Foundation Competencies.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS FOR TCD-STYLE DATABASES
In the sample versions whose URLs appear in this handout, web-database interactivity is accomplished through use of Filemaker Pro 4.0 and its built-in WebCompanion features. Our basic (Filemaker) online databases are running on a five-year-old Macintosh Server 60. Filemaker Pro 4.0 and WebCompanion can also be used on personal computers running Windows 95/98 or NT. Our enhanced databases currently operate with Filemaker Pro 4.0, the WebStar 3.0 HTML server and Lasso 2.5, a middleware package, on a Macintosh G3. Later versions of Lasso (3.0 and 3.5) are available for Windows NT Server as well as PowerPC Macs.
WebCompanion versions of the TCD and TEbase/CTERbase are suitable for use with individual classes working with a single set of requirements (e.g. the ISTE/NCATE Foundation competencies). With Lasso and WebStar, we find the flexibility to interact with a single set of relational databases with information for multiple classes, course assignments and sets of students.
CREDITS
Development of the TCD, CTERbase and TEbase has been a team effort. Among those who have been instrumental in its design and trial are Dr. James Levin, Dr. Michael Waugh, Keith Garrett, Edward Malczewski, Jim Buell, and Brian Pianfetti. Instructors Chip Bruce, Nick Burbules, Michael Waugh, Sandy Levin, Karl Koenke, Dan Thompson, Marsha Woodbury, Patricia Wojtowicz, Jesus Garcia, Rene Stofflett and Renee Clift have used the resources with their students and offered suggestions for improvements. Other valuable advice has come from Marianne Handler and Bob Blomeyer at National Louis University, and from Bill Weiler and James Andris at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
Levin, S.R., and Buell, J.G. (in press). Stranding Technology into Teacher Education: Technology Tools and Faculty Collaboration. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education.(A draft version is available here.)
Levin, S.R., Buell, J.G., & Levin, J.A. (1999). TEbase: Connecting pre-service teachers and technologies via web-enabled databases. Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education SITE í99 Conference (pp. 1865-1870). San Antonio, TX.
Levin, S.R., Buell, J.G., & Levin, J.A. (in press). The TEbase initiative: Research, development and evaluation for educational reform. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education. (A draft version is available here.)
Levin, J., Buell, J., Waugh, M., Garrett, K., & Malczewski, E. (1998). Computer Supported Collaborative Evaluation: Teaching Teleapprenticeships and the Redesign of Teacher Education. Session 11.04 AERA Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA. [Online]. http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/people/jim-levin/lbw.aera98
Waugh, M., Levin, J., and Buell, J. (1998). The Technology Competencies Database: Computer support for assessment, teaching, and portfolio management. Technology and Teacher Education Annual,1998, 728-734. [Online]. http://www.coe.uh.edu/insite/elec_pub/HTML1998/pt_waug.htm
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