Teaching the Design and Development of Educational Technology

The Department of Educational Technology at Saarland University is preparing an interdisciplinary master program for students with either a background in social or computer sciences. In the third semester, I will teach the required class “Programming for Educational Technology.” In that class, students will learn how to design and develop robust, effective, and usable educational technology. The subjects covered in the class include software engineering, usability, and design, with an emphasis on interaction design for children. In addition to this ambitious learning agenda, the educational technology that students create should be able to serve as the basis for their master’s thesis in the fourth and final semester. This paper describes the challenges involved in this course and some preliminary ideas of how to address those challenges.