I am a great advocate for developing a community of independent learners and team players. I use technology tools like Blackboard, ePortfolio, Internet, my own website, PowerPoint, and other software to deliver the best learning experience to my students. My projects are designed to simulate the Information Technology (IT) world enterprise environment. I have realized that engaging my students with real IT problems triggers their interest and enthusiasm so they work harder. This, in turn, maximizes their learning and interest in the IT field.
In an effort to make projects more meaningful and flexible for students, I ask students to use the ePortfolio functions to create an "About Me" webpage with detailed information about them. They post the link to their "About Me" page on the Blackboard Discussion Board. This helps students to connect to and communicate with other students. It also exposes students to collaboration and information sharing with peers, crucial skills to have in the workplace, especially in the IT world.
Students are required to post their projects and assignments on the Discussion Board. They can see each other's work, make suggestions, comments, and ask questions of each other. This helps to foster a creative and collaborative learning environment. To ensure that the Discussion Board results in meaningful work, I make it mandatory for each student to read at least two postings from other students, and I ask them to write reflective and thoughtful responses.
I use my website to post the course syllabus, general announcements, assignments, projects, exams, and course-related links. This way, anyone, including past, current and future students can access this information for free and without a password. I encourage students to use the Internet and library search engines to research their projects, assignments, and course-related materials. Students use a presentation tool like PowerPoint when presenting their work to the entire class. I believe that developing students' public speaking skills is very important for future job interviewing and career development.
The technology, critical thinking, problem solving, independent learning skills, and teamwork help students to produce more, become more efficient, and to continue studying even after taking the course. I don't want students to stop learning about the course topic once the semester ends.
Many LaGuardia students are parents and have full-time jobs to support their families or pay for tuition. It is difficult for these students to attend every single class, so I use the technology as much as possible to provide additional support to students who occasionally may have to miss class.
Activity Overview
Because IT technologies and solutions evolve so rapidly, to prepare for the project I draw not only on my seven years of experience in the IT industry and discussions with friends in the IT industry, but I also carefully read about hot topics in the IT field compiled from various IT websites such as:
- http://www.itworld.com
- http://www.networkworld.com
- http://www.computerworld.com
- http://wired.com
- http://www.microsoft.com
This preparation helps to ensure that I am providing students with the latest information and technologies they need to successfully complete their projects.
Before beginning their work on this project, I introduce concepts of scalability, cost of ownership, fault tolerance, and system uptime problems typical in many organizational computer networks. Through in-class discussions and case studies, I help students understand the technology used to overcome these kinds of problems. I inform students of the hardware and software limitations and also the affordability of the technology.
I encourage students to share information and cooperate as much as possible when developing their projects since this is what they will be doing in the real world. I emphasize and encourage teamwork and leadership in my classes. Teamwork and leadership are very important career skills.
Below is an example of the type of authentic IT problem that students are asked to investigate. They formulate a proposal to meet the needs of the situation described below, and present their solution to the whole class.
Context
Let's say that your group is an Information Technology (IT) consulting firm. ABC Corp (website http://www.abc.com) is an online service company, similar to http://www.amazon.com or http://www.bestbuy.com, that depends heavily on its web servers. Amazon and Best Buy are currently using clustering services. Currently ABC Corp is looking for a consulting company to improve its service availability and load balancing. Over the years the ABC website has become very popular and the service demand has been increasing very rapidly. When ABC Corp opened its doors to the public, it started with a single web server since initially it didn't have many customers. Over the years, upgrading its server to a more powerful computer to accommodate the demand has become very expensive. This solution offered limited scalability since ABC Corp would have to depend on the hardware companies to release a more powerful system, and ABC Corp would be vulnerable to single system faults or crashes.
In the past, bringing the server down for maintenance or rebuilding the server when it crashed was not a big problem. Today, the story has changed because high service availability is critical and load balancing is very important since there are so many customers accessing the servers.
Problem
ABC Corp wants to minimize the service downtime for maintenance or for crashes because it doesn't want to lose customers to competitors. ABC Corp wants to find out which technology it should implement to be able to accomplish its goal. ABC Corp wants detailed pricing of the hardware, software, and service for the implementation. There are several other consulting companies bidding for the same contract so delivering the best solution with the best cost is crucial.
Assignment
Develop your proposal including the total cost of ownership, consulting fees, software, hardware, licensing, training, and maintenance. The lowest bidder with the best strategy will win the contract from ABC Corp.
You have until two weeks before classes end to finish your project and present your proposal to the rest of the class, who will act as the ABC Corporation Board and IT Department. Your presentation should include a PowerPoint component. After the presentation, a question and answer session will take place. The presenters must clearly explain any acronyms mentioned in their presentation. For example, they cannot assume that everybody knows what HD I/O is. Instead, they will make sure that everybody knows about it by briefly explaining that HD I/O is the hard drive input and output of data.
Your participation on the Discussion Board and final presentation is worth 30% of your final grade. The grade assessment is based on the time and effort that you will have to put into the project.
Materials and Resources
Before engaging students in this project, I present them with materials about clustering. I've noticed that providing this basic information to students is crucial in guiding their research and helping them to complete the project. Students are instructed to read information from the following websites:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/technologies/clustering/default.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/server/clustersteps.asp
Note: I also suggest that students research additional websites found through their favorite search engine (e.g., http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/library/, http://google.com, http://www.vivisimo.com , http://www.a9.com, etc.).