The workshop is the first in a series of continuing educational opportunities using the department's extensive computer facilities. It will run from 9 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. June 24-July 12 in Room 136 in the Center for the Arts on the UB North Campus.

The course will investigate the use of personal computers in teaching using innovative software applications. Among them are several that allow teachers to produce their own multimedia classroom presentations.

Classes will be conducted as intensive, hands-on workshops involving the development of interactive multimedia on a Macintosh platform. No experience in educational applications is required of participants, although basic Macintosh experience is preferred.

Tony Rozek, UB professor of art, was involved in the development of the course. One way for teachers and students to evaluate their classwork, he says, is through portfolio assessment.

In this course, he said, participants will develop their own electronic portfolios using a variety of software applications that involve scanning images, recording sound and grabbing video. By the time they complete the workshop, teachers will be able to produce high-level presentations using "authoring" software that includes SuperCard, Hyperstudio and PowerPoint, as well as software to develop graphics, audio and video.

The authoring software:

PowerPoint is a tool for making presentations to a group of people on computer. It has "wizards"-intelligent helping agents-that lead users through the steps, teaching them to build slides, 35 mm transparencies, painting tools and imported graphics into the program. A teacher can produce "a snazzy presentation" in a couple of hours.

SuperCard is an application that will help teachers develop their own hypertext programs for teaching on computer. Many applications are already written for classroom use, but teachers can personally design their own as well.

Hyperstudio is a software application that produces multimedia presentations with sound, voice, video and music.

Course instructors are Beth Troy, adjunct professor of learning and instruction in the UB Graduate School of Education and technology director at Frontier High School, and Louis Mang, interactive research developer and research associate at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., who is a frequent presenter and speaker at international conferences addressing educational technology.

For more information, call the UB Department of Art at 645-6878. To register for the course, Art 537X, call UB Summer Sessions at 829-2202.