This week Team 3ST began to construct a prototype of our curriculum to help teachers become more aware of their own assumptions and help them to recognize how stereotypes can affect their communication with students. We brainstormed and decided on an appropriate title for the program, which proudly includes our team name, 3ST. We focused in on educators as end users, and determined together what information would be contained in each gamified level of the program. We also talked throughout the week about how the information could be presented to our colleagues. While an iMovie trailer was a wonderful idea, it ended up not giving us enough room to write our ideas or even showcase enough photos to convey our thoughts.
Our colleagues in EDL655 really enjoyed the idea of gamification and badges for the 3ST Racial Cultural Gender Stereotyping in Education program. Colleagues also noted that there may need to be a student component added after the teacher program is completed. Additionally, colleagues wondered if there was a specific time frame for course completion, and if there is potential to add this in as a part of teacher credentialing courses. There is definitely a lot of feedback to continue to ponder during the rest of the design thinking process.
With structure as a personal strength, I continued to add to and organize Team 3ST’s collaborative Google document. I even added a table of contents to it, as our document is now nearing forty pages. I participated in several Google Hangouts with my team to discuss each piece of the Experimentation Phase, and stayed up a lot later later than usual to collaborate with my team. During that late night session I helped to construct the narrative for our video. Finally, I selected appropriate background music for our presentation.
During this week, our group had several challenges. First of all, Team 3ST knew that experimentation was supposed to focus on creating a prototype, but we also knew that we would not have enough time to fully develop that prototype. So, we had to improvise and do as much as we could with the short amount of time. Additionally, when we did decide to present our prototype via a video format, we could not fully collaborate on it. It is not technologically possible to synchronously and virtually collaborate on video editing. Maybe some day in the near future this will be possible, using a similar platform to Google Docs or Slides. Being able to edit along with my classmates on a video would make the process much more interesting and exciting, and would be another opportunity to come together as a team.
Next time, I would make sure that the prototype is fully developed before presenting it. The prototype should be shown to end users to examine and experience for themselves. This gives the development team a chance to see what the product is like from the audience who will actually be using it. Better feedback can be gathered, and that data can be analyzed. For Team 3ST, there was not enough time to fully develop the prototype or test the prototype with a number of end users.
If Team 3ST’s prototype was to be implemented with actual end users, the designers would need more time to create the levels of the game and provide a full user experience for each user. The designers would want to make sure they create levels that are applicable, engaging, and interesting for the end users, and the prototype would hopefully demonstrate that. Again, being able to do all of this would take more time to design and plan out. Time for educators, the end users, to sample the product would be part of the experimentation process. This would be challenging to find that time, as educators schedules can already be quite full. Perhaps an incentive would need to be put in place, or maybe the prototype could be brought directly to the campuses of end users.
Collaboration is more than just working together. It includes being willing to share creative ideas and allowing others to build upon them or modify them for their own use. It includes being able to asynchronously collaborate using a variety of tools such as Google Docs, Slides, and Mural.ly. Collaboration can also happen between classmates within an LMS such as Blackboard, Canvas, or Haiku. It even can happen through blog posts and comments, Pinterest pins, Twitter, and Instagram. A face to face group discussion can still be collaborative, but tools such as Google hangouts, Adobe Connect, Blackboard Collaborate, Skype, and BlueJeans provide a way for multiple people to communicate when they are not physically in the same location. The collaborative potential is growing with the emerging and quickly changing technology, and these many available avenues for collaboration give way to a variety of possible ways to execute the design thinking process. However, one note of caution: the design thinking process takes a lot of synchronous time. It cannot reach its fullest potential without spending time interacting, either virtually or in person, with one another.
Our colleagues in EDL655 really enjoyed the idea of gamification and badges for the 3ST Racial Cultural Gender Stereotyping in Education program. Colleagues also noted that there may need to be a student component added after the teacher program is completed. Additionally, colleagues wondered if there was a specific time frame for course completion, and if there is potential to add this in as a part of teacher credentialing courses. There is definitely a lot of feedback to continue to ponder during the rest of the design thinking process.
With structure as a personal strength, I continued to add to and organize Team 3ST’s collaborative Google document. I even added a table of contents to it, as our document is now nearing forty pages. I participated in several Google Hangouts with my team to discuss each piece of the Experimentation Phase, and stayed up a lot later later than usual to collaborate with my team. During that late night session I helped to construct the narrative for our video. Finally, I selected appropriate background music for our presentation.
During this week, our group had several challenges. First of all, Team 3ST knew that experimentation was supposed to focus on creating a prototype, but we also knew that we would not have enough time to fully develop that prototype. So, we had to improvise and do as much as we could with the short amount of time. Additionally, when we did decide to present our prototype via a video format, we could not fully collaborate on it. It is not technologically possible to synchronously and virtually collaborate on video editing. Maybe some day in the near future this will be possible, using a similar platform to Google Docs or Slides. Being able to edit along with my classmates on a video would make the process much more interesting and exciting, and would be another opportunity to come together as a team.
Next time, I would make sure that the prototype is fully developed before presenting it. The prototype should be shown to end users to examine and experience for themselves. This gives the development team a chance to see what the product is like from the audience who will actually be using it. Better feedback can be gathered, and that data can be analyzed. For Team 3ST, there was not enough time to fully develop the prototype or test the prototype with a number of end users.
If Team 3ST’s prototype was to be implemented with actual end users, the designers would need more time to create the levels of the game and provide a full user experience for each user. The designers would want to make sure they create levels that are applicable, engaging, and interesting for the end users, and the prototype would hopefully demonstrate that. Again, being able to do all of this would take more time to design and plan out. Time for educators, the end users, to sample the product would be part of the experimentation process. This would be challenging to find that time, as educators schedules can already be quite full. Perhaps an incentive would need to be put in place, or maybe the prototype could be brought directly to the campuses of end users.
Collaboration is more than just working together. It includes being willing to share creative ideas and allowing others to build upon them or modify them for their own use. It includes being able to asynchronously collaborate using a variety of tools such as Google Docs, Slides, and Mural.ly. Collaboration can also happen between classmates within an LMS such as Blackboard, Canvas, or Haiku. It even can happen through blog posts and comments, Pinterest pins, Twitter, and Instagram. A face to face group discussion can still be collaborative, but tools such as Google hangouts, Adobe Connect, Blackboard Collaborate, Skype, and BlueJeans provide a way for multiple people to communicate when they are not physically in the same location. The collaborative potential is growing with the emerging and quickly changing technology, and these many available avenues for collaboration give way to a variety of possible ways to execute the design thinking process. However, one note of caution: the design thinking process takes a lot of synchronous time. It cannot reach its fullest potential without spending time interacting, either virtually or in person, with one another.