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I believe this project demonstrates my ability to come up with an idea I am passionate about and not fall in love with the first solution I think of. Our team agreed on the initial goal to make project-based learning easier, but we didn’t land on a solution/product until at least halfway through the semester. We successfully navigated the ambiguity and adjusted our ideas to work with each week’s deliverables and constraints. Additionally, as our team’s project manager, I demonstrated my ability to break down larger challenges into smaller tasks that could be distributed equitably. This also required me to get to know my team members and understand what each person would be good at and excited about.

I think my favorite experience of this class was learning how to communicate with individuals in various sectors/domains. I learned enough about programming and design to talk about relevant ideas and goals with my team members, while staying true to my academic/classroom experiences that drive my EdTech interests. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I also learned that I want to return to schools rather than working in a private EdTech company. The user testing was my favorite part, and that was really illuminating for me. I would much rather use products with students to help children learn than design products with a bunch of adults. I believe it is equally (if not more) important to learn what I do not want to do, and I learned that I really miss children when I am working only with adults.

I definitely advanced my personal learning goals, as I think I continued to build my collaboration skills to work well on this project team. Even though I was not our team’s programmer, I also learned a lot of HTML skills from the programming labs. For me, this demystified programming for me - I always thought it was a domain that was really challenging and I felt like I missed the boat on learning to program. I learned that it is not as hard as I thought it was, and that I can actually learn it pretty quickly whenever/if I decide to do so. But like I mentioned before, I realized I would probably not be happy as a programmer who does not work with children. Designing for children is not enough for me - I really enjoy directly interacting with them and watching them learn. I am also really happy with the project team I picked, and I think this gets at my goal to establish professional connections with classmates who will be helpful in the future. My teammates have been really helpful in their ability to give me advice and guidance, and I am sure I will continue to learn from them in future years.

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I have really enjoyed working with my project team this semester. I think this course (and my other design courses at HGSE) have helped me build strong collaborative/teamwork skills for projects that I was really invested in. In my undergrad/K-12 academic experiences, I always chose to do projects by myself rather than in a team (if it was an option). I was reflecting on this last night - and I think that is because of two main beliefs: the belief that I was always going to do more work than my teammates, and the belief that I was probably going to have the best ideas. I now recognize how incorrect and inefficient that mentality is, and I think I have really grown in my ability to work on a team and see value in others’ contributions.

My teammates, Kris, JJ, and Steve, have known each other for a few years and worked closely together in their Ed L.D. program. I wanted to join this group because I recognized similarities in our work ethics and interests. At first, I was a little worried that I wouldn’t have very much to offer the group, since they knew each other well and had already developed many projects together. But that concern was quickly dissolved, as I recognized that I brought valuable and new insight/experiences to the table. I was a teacher for 5 years (a tech specialist/CS teacher/IT member for 3 of those years), so I have been able to contribute a lot of practical insight on how our ideas might play out in a real classroom setting. Kris and JJ have been superintendents (and teachers for a few years), and Steve has worked in EdTech product development/consulting for many years. These different experiences and perspectives have helped us develop a well-rounded project idea that considers the many stakeholders in EdTech products (students, teachers, school leaders, developers, investors, etc). These different perspectives DID mean a lot of back-and-forth/friendly argument about what we were designing, but I appreciated everyone’s directness and investment in creating a great project.

I think our team handled the role distribution pretty well, although there was a lot of overlap in who was doing what role. I did the major organizational tasks, Steve did almost all of the programming, and then the rest of the responsibilities were divvied up between all of us. Because our product has 5 phases, we decided to assign a point-person to each phase. I think this was helpful in some ways - everyone knew what phase they were responsible for and it made the distribution of work pretty equitable. This strategy did have some drawbacks - primarily that our 5 phases are very interconnected and some parts of a particular phase couldn’t be developed until something had been created for the preceding phase. I’m not sure if I would distribute the work differently if we were to start over - we will see if the product looks/feels consistent in our presentation!

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I took the lead on our team’s user testing, and this was one of my favorite parts of the project. Kris and I developed a mock-up interface of our program and introduced it to two of my former 6th grade students (as shown in the User Testing Report). It was fun to design this together, and it was helpful to have a second perspective on what we should be testing. I recognize that the user testing wouldn’t be objective if I was doing it independently with my former students, so I am glad Kris helped make the materials and joined me for the school visit. We both took ownership over the preparation and implementation of the user testing. We co-designed the materials to show the students (based off of helpful mentor and team feedback), and co-interviewed the students. It was definitely helpful to have another person there with me, as we were able to cover a lot of ground by asking different questions and taking turns on who was leading the activities in the session.

This student interview also helped me remember how much I love working with students and being in the classroom. The transition from teaching/interacting with students in a classroom everyday to being around HGSE adults all day has been both exciting and jolting. These moments make me realize how much I miss meaningful connections with young people (from teaching), and the tradeoffs of working only with adults. I have had this feeling multiple times throughout the year, and I have interpreted it as a signal that I should return back to K12 schools and continue to work directly with students. I am in the LDIT (Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology) program, and I think a lot of my courses, peers, and career workshops articulate subtle biases against those who graduate from the program and work as teachers, rather than as EdTech professionals. This has made me feel somewhat isolated/lonely in the program, as I love teaching students directly and that passion motivated me to pursue a Master’s Degree at HGSE. So I have been especially appreciative of the user testing opportunities in all of my projects at HGSE, and I have taken it upon myself to reconnect with former students & teaching colleagues, and spend as much time in the classroom as possible. I think it is ironic that a lot of designers and K12 EdTech developers don’t like user testing - that has been my favorite part!

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David Dockterman’s Innovation by Design course (T522) stimulated the most academic ambiguity I have ever experienced! The first uncertain experience was when we formed our project groups for the entire semester based on one or two interests we had in common with other classmates. Because this was right at the beginning of my time at HGSE, I was really nervous to form project groups because I didn’t know any other students and I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to focus on for an entire semester. Dock reassured us that it would work out, so I tried to believe him… I ended up forming a group with two other women (Branda Sun and Lauren Kim - both in T581) around an interest in early childhood education. This process resembles the one we used to pick groups in this course, but this time around I felt better equipped to make that decision because I knew more classmates and also knew some qualities to look for in groupmates. As a side note, I will mention that I got SO lucky with my T522 group pairing - we worked really well as a group and had a lot of complementary skills that enhanced our project. I assume my T581 group will be the same way!

The next layer of ambiguity came when we needed to settle on a problem statement to explore for the semester. All three of us knew we were passionate about early childhood education but had pretty different backgrounds and interests related to EC. I am a former EC teacher and I am really interested in how technology can be used with young children; Lauren is a former psychology researcher and had a lot of interest in how adults can be supported in EC work; Branda is a former researcher who also does a lot of UX/UI design. So we had to figure out a problem we wanted to solve in the EC space with all of those interests in mind… There were a ton of ways we could have gone with this, and I think my biggest growth in this ambiguous space was to try something new and surrender some control around having my ideas chosen. I leaned into the ambiguity of a new topic (Lauren’s idea) around supporting adults as they work with young children. But even when we had settled on that, we still needed to find an area to have an impact and agree that there was indeed a problem in that space.

I was able to bring my technology idea into the project at this point, and I suggested doing a project around helping adults support young children as they use technology. Even though we all agreed to think about this problem, it was really difficult to prove that there actually was a problem in this domain… We looked through a lot of developmental research, but it was surprisingly difficult to find reliable data about early childhood technology use. The primary things we found were around screen time concerns, which tended to have a lot of unwarranted claims about childhood obesity, ADHD issues, antisocial behaviors, etc. But we wanted to make a project about how EC tech use could be positive, and it was really hard to find research to support that! In some ways, this form of ambiguity helped us realize that this is important work since there isn’t a huge amount of research/literature available on the subject. We also had to continuously reshape our problem statement and theory of change as we did user interviews and field expert interviews. Each interview would illuminate another dimension of concern around EC tech use, and it was sometimes a challenge to resist the urge to create a project around a deficit model of early childhood technology use. Overall, I learned a ton from this project/course. It was extremely time-consuming and intellectually challenging, but I think I made huge improvements in my collaborative abilities. I think our project turned out great, but I am most proud of how I grew to be a better teammate out of the challenges presented by ambiguity.

So based on those experiences, here is my metaphor… Ambiguity is like a giant corn maze because you are never sure exactly where you are when you are inside of it.  Some things look familiar when you pass them again (some broken corn stalks or popcorn on the ground that a child left behind), but most of the time, it is pretty difficult to figure out if you have been in that part of the corn maze or not. You do not see how all of the avenues connect until you finish the maze and are able to look at the overhead map on the billboard. But even after you have done that, you could still re-enter the maze (or ambiguity) and get lost again!

Also, I am from Illinois, so I am super familiar with corn mazes - they are everywhere! I included a picture of a corn maze for those of you who are not from the Midwest...

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Metaverse Design Challenge: Madeline Meets the Metaverse

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Metaverse Design Challenge: Madeline Meets the Metaverse

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** The link to the full project in Miro is in the comments section of this post, and there are additional photos in posts below**

Madeline Meets the Metaverse is a single or multiplayer game designed to help children build digital citizenship (DC) skills in the Metaverse. Children will play as Madeline, an adventurous dog from Planet Earth who loves to explore new areas of the galaxy. Madeline will meet several other characters along her journey, including artificial intelligent alien "guides"who model positive DC skills in an increasingly connected intergalactic world. Madeline will engage in fun missions to build skills in online safety and digital responsibility.

As immersive digital environments become more commonplace in the lives of children, it is essential to create fun developmentally appropriate learning experiences to build digital citizenship skills. Unfortunately, technological advancements tend to outpace social emotional curriculum regarding those developments. Madeline Meets the Metaverse takes a proactive approach to online safety and responsibility by introducing positive digital citizenship skills to children at a young age. This program will help prepare children for the responsibility of living in a globally connected digital world by teaching them positive digital habits early on. We hope this program will contribute to a more safe and positive digital future for children.

I am still not sure if this program would actually occur in the Metaverse, or if it would happen in preparation before children are allowed to be on/in the Metaverse. I think both could be possible, and I wonder if the levels could become increasingly challenging or advanced as children grow older. This feature could target specific social-emotional stages in development to provide helpful and engaging lessons in digital citizenship. An inevitable challenge with this design is to balance the fun/rewarding/motivating aspects of gameplay with the important digital citizenship learning elements.

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Opening scene and Galaxy Map

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Planet 1: Navius

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Planet 2: Natrium

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Reflection

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Reflection

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** The link to the full project in Miro is in the comments section of this post, and there are additional photos in posts below**

The primary goal of this design is to allow students to collaborate on hands-on activities, even when they cannot be physically present in school. Although this idea was inspired by the rapid shift to remote learning during the pandemic, it could be beneficial in other scenarios. Students could partner with other children in other schools or around the world to learn more about other cultures and the challenges they face. This might spark more ideas about how robotic technology can be leveraged to solve global issues.

Students will collaborate on a video conferencing software to program and build a robot based on a design prompt. Students will be paired and placed in a virtual environment that is experiencing some sort of problem that could be solved by robots. Students work together to negotiate how to address the problem, how to assemble their robot, and how to program their robot to reach a solution to the problem in the prompt. Examples could include creating robots to clean hazardous waste spills, explore deep-sea territory, or plant seeds to repopulate deforested areas.

My choice to create a virtual robotics program was inspired by the very challenging experience of teaching elementary and middle school computer science remotely during Covid. In a normal school year, students work in pairs to program and build robots to solve various challenges. But because of the quarantine, students picked up their robotics kits from the school and worked in isolation at home. I believe collaboration is an essential skill to build in any subject, and this experience made me wonder how to design collaborative STEM activities for remote learning.

Students could engage virtually on a video-conferencing software such as Zoom. Students would be presented with a design challenge that includes some visuals (as pictured below), and they would work on a live collaborative programming file, which might be a combination of something like Scratch and Google Docs. Each student would have their own robotics kit at home so they could still tinker with a physical robot, but they would need to construct a robot that is similar to their partner's. Students could download the code from their collaborative project and upload it to the robot (similar to LEGO robotics kits or Arduino).

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Visual

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Visual

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Scenario Example 1

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Scenario Example 1

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Scenario Example 2

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Remote Collaboration Design Challenge Scenario Example 2

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**The project link is in the comments of this post, and
there are additional photos in posts below**

When I was reviewing examples of existing simulations, I noticed that there were a lot of science and math examples but not many simulations related to reading/ELA. This made me wonder how I could create an immersive story-telling simulation for young children to improve literacy and language skills. decided to create a “choose your own adventure” storytelling simulation, and I used Dr. Suess's, “Horton Hears a Who” as an example story. This idea was inspired by the original "Choose Your Own Adventure Series," which I used to read when I was younger. I enjoyed the feeling of autonomy these books generated, and I would reread and replay through each book until I had read it from every perspective. This made me wonder if I could create a digital version with animation and character voice-overs included.

In this simulation, children are situated in a digital story from a second-person perspective that allows them to experience the story from the view point of multiple characters. Children will move through the story from the perspective of each character and make decisions that affect the outcomes in the story. Children can play through the story multiple times from the perspectives of different characters, and make  different choices to control the direction of the story. This is beneficial because young children learn many important skills through dramatic play and story retelling. By “acting out” or reimagining the stories they read, they build literacy skills and social-emotional skills like perspective-taking and conflict-resolution.

I used Miro to create a storyboard of my simulation. I think this medium helped me demonstrate the flow of the story, and the multiple potential outcomes in each story. I think this storyboard also helped me imagine the steps that would be necessary to build this interactive experience, which could be helpful if I were to actually design this. I wish I had spent more time creating the images of each potential outcome, but I didn’t want to sink too much time into the drawing for a low-fi prototype. But I do think that having more images would enhance the storyboard.

During the class critique, I noticed that I might not have been thinking about simulation in the same ways as my classmates. My project isn’t a model of a realistic situation, but it is a model of an imaginary literary situation. I got helpful feedback to consider how my project uses the affordances of simulations, such as allowing the user to tinker/experiment with different outcomes in a low-stakes environment. Some peers also wondered if the project could be improved by adding more customizable features, or allowing the child to write their own story. This made me wonder if this story-telling model could be used to create more realistic simulations for children to practice solving problems they face regularly. I think this could be beneficial for social emotional learning and executive function skill building.

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Design Journal Reflection for Peer Feedback

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Design Journal Reflection for Peer Feedback

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For my play project, I created an interactive game called “My Magical Studio,” which allows young children to playfully express their creativity (I will paste the link in the comments because I cannot embed it here). Because we were designing for 5-7 year-old children, I thought back to when I was that age and the computer programs I enjoyed playing with. My favorite program was Microsoft Paint - I remember playing it on the first computer my parents bought for us to use. I wanted to recreate that game, and combine it with other types of creative activities. I chose a unicorn for my main sprite/guide, and I placed her in a castle where she would explore with the child playing. The main background for the castle is a color pencil drawing I made a few years ago. It was fun to include that in this project, and inspired me to think more about how I can include my existing artwork in new projects.

My original plan was to create three rooms: one for painting, one for dancing/music, and one for photography (using the video/picture blocks). I ended up with only two rooms, as those rooms were a lot harder to design than I anticipated! I wanted to incorporate both text and audio recordings because I know that most children in this age-range cannot read fluently, but they are starting to learn through visual and auditory stories. Coordinating the audio and text broadcasts took a lot of time and focus, but I am excited that I finally understand how to use the broadcasting blocks. I have some existing experience with Scratch, but this project took a lot of time to work through and debug. I used an existing Scratch project as a model for my painting room (I will paste the link in the comments because I cannot embed it here). I looked at their program and incorporated a lot of the same sequences to make my drawing portion of the game work. Thank you to the person who created that program!

I play-tested this project with two first-grader girls, who were my former students from when I was a teacher in Concord, MA. Through this experience, I found out  that typing was too hard for this age group. The "yes" and "no" was a good level for them, but in one of the possible scenarios they needed to type "Yes I am sure" or "I changed my mind." The typing took them a long time and they weren't prepared to type that much. They might have also gotten confused by how the question was asked. I changed the answer choices to "yes" or "no" for simplicity.

This did give me some ideas for how typing skills could be incorporated and strengthened by a creative free-draw/music game. Maybe I will use that idea in the future.

Something I noticed when they were playing was that I needed to fix the dancing room. When the instruments appeared on the screen, the student started clicking them right away and they missed the rest of the auditory directions because they were distracted by the music. I fixed this by making the visual and auditory instructions appear before the instruments came out, as to not distract the player. When I showed this to a peer in class, they gave me very helpful feedback about the “goal” of the game. He said that he was expecting some sort of signal to stop playing or switch rooms, based on whether or not he had accomplished what he was supposed to in that area of the game. When I was designing the game, I thought children would enjoy the open-ended nature of the game. But now I think it would be helpful to include some suggested goals, as children might not understand what they are supposed to do and they might not feel a sense of accomplishment when playing a game without clear goals.

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After many hours of creating, debugging, and laughing, I have finally finished my project! I had a lot of fun creating this project. The storytelling element reminded me of how much I love reading books out loud to young children. When I was a classroom teacher, I would make up very intricate personas and voices for the characters in the book. I am glad that carried over to this project! I will post the playable link in the comments.

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This is the first scene of my Scratch Play Project. I am imagining three rooms, each one focusing on a different interactive art activity. Once room will be painting/drawing, one for music, and the other one is still undecided. All of the backdrops will be images of my own drawings/paintings, which will be an exciting way for me to incorporate my existing work into a new project.

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1. Continue to develop my collaboration skills to work effectively on a project team.
2. Take a risk and finally learn to program! I have wanted to do this for many years, but I haven't put forth the necessary amount of work to accomplish this goal (yet).
3. Practice ALL of the steps of the design thinking process. I need to be better about conducting user interviews/user testing to develop better designs, rather than creating them in isolation.
4. Establish connections and build relationships with professors/classmates who are on a similar professional path.