At first, most students used Claris Home Page to create their Web pages for the course. Only a small handful of students knew html before enrolling in cognitive science, so teaching the rest how to use Claris Home Page was an important first step. More recently, however, students have used PowerPoint to create their presentations. I simply convert students' PowerPoints into html using the built-in utility. A big advantage to using PowerPoint is that students already know how to use it.
Early in the semester, I introduce cognitive science as a field of study. Students choose one of the possible topics listed on the course Web page by e-mail. They list their top three choices. Then, on a first-come-first-served basis, I create groups to make student presentations on the listed topics. The class meets twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday) and just before we get to the assigned week for a student topic, those students e-mail me their PowerPoint presentation. Often, I do not get the presentation until a few minutes before class. Usually, that is not a problem as I can convert their PowerPoint to html quickly and then upload it to our departmental server.
On a Tuesday, the students present their Web-based PowerPoint using the department's laptop computer and video projector. Some students have never used a computer in this fashion or used a trackpad. Soon, though, they master the technology and make their presentation. The rest of the students and I have paper copies of their PowerPoint and take notes on it while they talk. Afterward, I ask the rest of the class to ask them questions. I require the class to ask at least 10 questions before I begin to ask them further questions. This process usually consumes the entire 80 minutes of class time.
On the following Thursday, I cover the same topic that the students did two days earlier. My presentations are made using html pages. Both my pages and the student pages can be seen on the course website:
http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/kardas/Courses/CS/
In addition, every year I create a new page and make links to the previous year's page. The course Web page now contains seven years of content, from 1997-2004 (The course was not offered in 2001.).
Tests have always been take home essay exams. The exams are posted (and remain) to the course Web page about a week before they are due. Students must return them prior to the posted deadline. Because they have a week to write answers, my grading criteria are fairly strict. Occasionally, there have been problems with copy and paste plagiarism. Now that I instruct students about plagiarism before the first test, that problem has become minimal.
Over the last two years, the course has become much more applied in its focus. Starting in 2002, topics like usability, visual displays, and interaction devices replaced topics like animal cognition and various logics. This change of emphasis reflected, I believe, a change in cognitive science itself. In 2004, I divided students into two groups and had them design cardboard mock ups of cell phones. Each group was designated as a rival design team and each had to create a new cell phone. I plan to continue to use this type of exercise in the future.
In summary, my cognitive science course has evolved through several generations. It started as a seminar on the general topic of intelligence, moved to a textbook based and computer supported cognitive science course, abandoned textbooks and moved to a Web-based course. A recent evolutionary step has been to make the class more applied. Most students have no idea what to expect when they first enroll. Most have no idea what cognitive science is, at first. By the end of the class, however, they do understand. In the past, teaching students hypercard or html took up much course time. Now, though, most students already know how to create PowerPoints. I just take those PowerPoints one step further by serving them. I plan to continue teaching the course in this manner and adding to the course Web page.
References
Decker, Richard & Stuart Hirshfield, (1990) The Analytical Engine; An Introduction to Computer Science Using Hypercard, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing,.
Hofstadter, Douglas R., (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books, Inc.