How Technology is Used in the MCTP Project

An adequate utilization of technology is essential to prepare our teachers to live, work, learn, and teach in an uncertain future that, despite the innate conservatism of the educational bureaucracy, is sure to be more technological than it is now, not less. Although there is understandably some variation in the extent of technology access to faculty and students across the institutions, most campuses have recently added or expanded computer and other technology facilities. The larger campuses already have extensive computer labs for students, but even the smaller campuses now have suitable facilities. For example, Coppin has recently installed an IVN facility and two student labs of PCs which are now being networked. BCCC has a Science Learning Center and a Math Learning Centers with new computers. Frostburg has a new Macintosh lab. Bowie has sufficient networked computer facilities that they offer a series of summer workshops in computer applications and Internet literacy for local teachers and faculty.

The two main aspects of the use of technology by the MCTP project are the use by project participants to conduct project-related business and the use by students within the MCTP courses.

Use of Technology by Project Participants

Interactive Video Network (IVN)
The Interactive Video Network allows project participants all over the state to engage in real-time multi-way video conferencering. This continues to be a popular means of communication, especially for the Frostburg and Salisbury groups. However, the high demand for IVN time by courses and by other organizations has made scheduling very difficult and as a result we now make less use of this facility.

E-mail and the MCTP Listserv Discussion group
Email has been very successful in facilitating day-to-day communication throughout the project that would not be practical in any other way. It is a constant means of communications between the Executive Director and the PIs. The problem with the email communications is that it is not universal. A few participants in the MCTP project do not use email regularly. Several of our teacher colleagues do not have computers at home or in their classrooms, thus making access to email inconvenient. Buying computers for them is beyond what we can expect from the grant at the present time. We continue to work on ways to make email more universal in this project.

The listserv discussion group (MDCETP@UMDD.UMD.EDU) has proved to be very successful for those who participate. As of Spring, 1996, there were 107 subscribers to the MCTP listserv, including at least one representative from every institution in the project. Listserv traffic averages 30 to 40 messages/month (about 2500 lines/month). In addition to the usual administrative announcements of MCTP activities, the list is also used to share interesting math and science news, resources, opportunities, and cross-postings from other lists followed by our members. Several faculty are posting regular updates on their ongoing MCTP courses - observations, student journals, experiments, student handouts. We continue our efforts to find exciting discussion topics that will stimulate a wider and more substantive participation from the MCTP participants.

Appendix 1 lists the most popular subjects of discussion over the period Jan., 1994, through Feb. 1995. A wide array of topic is evident. A typical example of the use of the listserv is shown by the thread in Appendix 2 , which illustrates not only a nice example of inquiry and information sharing but also some faculty development in terms of a change in attitude concerning the utility of e-mail (see added emphasis). Among the most popular topics were those inspired by the daily class journals from the introductory physical science classes taught by John Layman and Tom O'Haver at College Park. The thread shown in Appendix 3 is an example of one Journal entry and the discussion that ensued. A significant aspect of the listserv discussion is that everything is archived automatically by the listserv host computer (this is a standard feature of listservs) and can be accessed after the fact. The research group (directed by Randy McGinnis (Science Education:College Park) and Tab Watanabe (Math Education:Towson) plans to use the listserv archives for research purposes.

In addition to the MCTP listserv, some MCTP participants subscribe to other listserv lists in their areas of specialization (e.g. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Chemical Education, Physics Education, etc.) and actively participate in those forums. MCTP people contribute or answer an average of 12 messages/month on the MDK-12 listserv list, which gets to 1000 Maryland K-12 teachers and administrators across the state.

MCTP Web page
We have set up a World Wide Web page for the MCTP project, to be used both internally to facilitate information sharing within the project, and externally as a means of dissemination of project information to the wider community:


This site contain information about the MCTP project, people, and courses; a collection of selected essays on constructivism and education; descriptions and tutorials on technology used by the MCTP project (e-mail, software, etc); the Resource Library Hypercard Stack; and a large collection of hypertext pointers to "Internet Resources for Science and Mathematics Education", which is used as a starting point for Internet exploration.

The MCTP Web site has been growing steadily and now incorporates over 125 pages. New areas added since last year include a section on the Summer Internship program and a description of the Mentor Teacher Worshop. Newly expanded sections include Internet Resources, Technology use, Essays, more information about the participating campuses, and links to the NSF and to the Web sites of Collaboratives in other states. Additional staff personel are now involved in the Web production effort.

Access data for the fall of 1996 show that accesses to the MCTP Web site has been increasing steadily over time. The MCTP top menu (home) page is now accessed nearly 500 times per month. Other highly popular pages on our Web site include the Science and Math Internet Resource Collection ( over 800 hits/month) and the Chem 121/122 page (over 500 hits/month), and the Chemistry Internet Resources page (over 1000 hits/month). The majority of these hits are from outside the University system.

Direct evidence of the impact of the MCTP's "electronic" visibility are the instances in which external organizations cite MCTP and MCTP-sponsored activities on their own sites. These include the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse, the Virtual Schoolhouse, the BBN Copernicus Project, the Benton Foundation, Oklahoma Partners for Biological Sciences, Columbia University, SUNY Potsdam, Marshall University, the University of Kentucky, among others. A list of hyperlinks to these organizations is kept on our Web site.

In an effort to increase the number of MCTP college faculty, project teachers, and mentor teachers who have access to the World Wide Web at home and in their classrooms, we have prepared and distributed "Netscape Kits" for both Macintosh and Windows, containing the software on diskettes and detailed step-by-step instructions. (The College Park Computer Science Center offers free dial-up accounts to all Maryland teachers for educational purposes; these accounts now allow graphical access to the World Wide Web via Netscape). We have conducted hand-on workshop sessions for college faculty, mentor teachers, and for the student interns that include training in email, Internet, and the Word Wide Web.

Software lending library
We maintain a collection of computer software of use in science and mathematics instruction that can be borrowed. The main categories are mathematics, chemistry, physics, earth and space science, life science, and interdisciplinary programs. Many of the programs are public domain or low-cost shareware packages that can be freely copied and distributed; these have been featured in order to demonstrate what can be done even if extensive funding is not available. A list of holdings is on the MCTP gopher/Web site.

Technology events
At various times we have held special events for project participants or for other teachers and faculty to highlight the applications of technology in learning.

June 7, 1994. Hands-on Microcomputer-Based Laboratory (MBL) activity organized by John Layman, attended by many of our schools colleagues.

June 9, 1994. Evening of software and CD-ROM explorations in a computer lab organized by Tom O'Haver.

July 25, 1994. Hands-on workshop on graphing calculators, by Jim Fey.

February 6, 1995. Hands-on workshop on the World Wide Web for MCTP students, also attended by several college faculty, MCTP staff, and teachers from a local elementary school.

February 13, 1995. Five MCTP students took a field trip to a local elementary school that is a leader in technology integration, visited science and math classrooms and observed students working on projects in the computer lab.

March 16-17, 1995. MCTP presented a display booth for the Math Madness fair at College Park for 150 area high school students interested in science and math. The display included live computer demonstrations of interactive mathematics programs and video tapes of kids using high-tech computer and multimedia production equipment in a local elementary school.

April 3, 1995. Presentation by Tom O'Haver at the "Teaching with Technology" workshop for College Park faculty, sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence.

June 3, 1995. Hands-on workshop on the Internet for high school science and math teachers of the Lockheed-Martin Graduate Fellows program, UMBC.

June 15, 17, and 18, 1995. MCTP participants gave a pre-conference workshop on classroom multimedia production for college- and K-12 teachers and gave some conference session presentations at the National Educational Computing Conference in Baltimore, conducted by Tom and Mary O'Haver.

June 29, 1995. MCTP participants gave a hands-on session on educational technology for a group of student teachers and their cooperating teachers at an Eisenhower-supported math/science teacher training workshop at Frostburg State Univ, conducted by Tom and Mary O'Haver.

Nov. 3, 1995. Hands-on workshop on Web authoring for Maryland teachers, sponsored by the Maryland Instructional Computing Conference. College Park, conducted by Tom O'Haver.

Dec. 12-13, 1995. MCTP participants gave two sessions and a hands-on demonstration on integrating modern instructional technology into the classroom at the Governer's Technology College, Univ. of Baltimore Business School, Baltimore, (One of those sessions was visitied by Maryland Govenor Paris Glendening and his staff). Presented by Tom and Mary O'Haver.

March 14 - 15, 1996. MCTP participants gave several worshops and presentations at the 1996 MICCA (Maryland Instructional Computer Coordinators Association) meeting in Baltimore. Presented by Tom and Mary O'Haver.

Use of Technology in MCTP Courses

Preparation of class materials
Many project participants use computers effectively to prepare class materials, including word processors, math equation formatters, graphing and drawing programs, and specialized scientific drawing programs (e.g. programs for drawing chemical structures and plasmids).

Microcomputer-Based Laboratories (MBL)
The most extensive use of microcomputer-based laboratories has been by John Layman (Physical science:College Park) in this introductory physics course, using the motion detector and temperature probes. With MCTP support, Gurbax Singh (Physical science:UMES), Mark Holland (Biological science:Salisbury), and Pallassana Krishnan (Physical science:Coppin) are also using MBL activities in their science courses.

Graphing calculators
The project has purchased classroom sets of graphing calculators, which have been used in several courses across the Collaborative. We have also purchased two Calculator-Based Laboratory (CBL) systems, which are now being used by Gurbax Singh (Physical science: UMES) in his physics course.

Spreadsheets
Several courses are using spreadsheets with students in their MCTP classes. Don Cathcart (Math:Salisbury) and Joe Hoffman (Physical science:Frostburg) have been using Quattro Pro spreadsheet program, using a tutorial module developed by Eleanor Ennis. Mark Holland (Physical science:Salisbury) has had students analyzing data from the science class using the same software. Students in Tom O'Haver's (Physical science:College Park) introductory physical science course have used the Clarisworks spreadsheet to set up and solve multi-step word problems. Dick Weimer (Math: Frostburg) has used spreedsheets to have students relate the linear dimensions, surface area, and volume of cylinders constructed from paper.

Electronic mail and use of Internet
MCTP students at Salisbury and at College Park are making extensive use of e-mail and Internet in their courses. Students in Mark Holland's integrated science course at Salisbury keep electronic journals and e-mail them to the instructors each week. A computer lab is scheduled for their class once each week throughout the semester; the time is used for journal writing, Internet exploration, and analyzing data they have collected in laboratory experiments. At College Park, students in the MCTP seminar class (EDCI 288) were set up with e-mail addresses on the first week of class and given hands-on workshops on e-mail, Internet navigation, and Web home page construction. Each student was given an assignment to log on to and investigate a different Internet site of interest to math or science education and report back their evaluation of the site to the class. In addition, each of the students signed up on the MDK-12 listserv list, the state-wide K-12 teachers' discussion group (over 1000 teachers). Frostburg has set up a listserv for students, who are being trained in email, gopher, and WWW. Student access to email has been improved at UMES and at Coppin. At BCCC, several MCTP faculty are making personal progress in learning email and World Wide Web. AT Coppin, faculty development workshops in technology are being given by their computer science faculty. Students in Tom O'Haver's introductory chemistry lab did an experiment in Chemical Informatics, in the form of a scientific information "scavenger hunt".

Instructional software in MCTP Courses
UMES students are using Mathematica, Interactive Physics (simulation), and CUPLE (Physics Courseware). Students in several courses are using modern computer packages, including Coppin (Mystat) and Frostburg (MINITAB). Students in Tom O'Haver's (Physical science:College Park) introductory physical science course have used Brooks-Cole's Beaker, an interactive structure-drawing-cum-expert-system tool, and MacMolecule, a public domain 3D molecular visualization and animation tool from the University of Arizona, in activities intended to develop the students' ability to describe chemical bonding and molecular geometry. Don Cathcart (Math: Salisbury) taught a unit on Logo, a computer language well suited for novices. Genevieve Knight (Math: Coppin) taught a unit on probability using a computer program written by Glen Dorsey. Phil Sokolove (UBMC:Biology) has used the cardiac function module from the BioQUEST CD-ROM in his introductory biology course.

Last updated December, 1996.