Panwapa observations

Overall I didn't love this program. The home page (is that what you would call it? or just the interface?`) offers an array of characters for kids to explore, so it does incite curiosity and involvement from the start as kids would tap on he various figures to see what they say and what happens. (Thinking skill: ability to explore). However, I felt as if there was not enough set up/direction to help kids understand what they were seeing and what they were expected to do.

The "Movies" section contains short videos showing kids in different countries, giving a portrait of their lives and culture. The first thing I noticed was that some of the videos had the child speaking in English, which seemed just weird. Do you want kids to think that English is spoken everywhere in the world? I thought that hearing the kids speak their native languages with a voiceover translation would be better -- and then I saw that at least some of the movies were in fact done this way.

The movies play twice -- the second time the onscreen guide presents a challenge/game to the viewers, such as "Hit on the Panwapa sign (a globe) whenever you see the clock in the clock tower."

The little games seemed a bit too simple/boring, though perhaps not for a four-year-old. They seem designed to develop the ability to listen and look closely, since you have to hear and understand the instructions and then see when to perform the action requested.

In one case the game posed an open-ended question, "What could you do to make guests feel at home in your house?" (Thinking skill: brainstorming.) The feedback at the end of the game was "Good job" and "Try again" (I think - I only elicited 'good job' not that I am bragging.) This is, according to the reading, not engaging or helpful enough as feedback -- though for a game at this level, what else could you do?

Another thinking skill called upon here -- I believe inappropriately -- is "interpreting data." After the game based on the movie was over, there was a choice to answer a question related to the movie and then see how other "Panwapa kids" had answered it, which brought up a bar graph I thought beyond the comprehension of most or all of the target audience. (Though not, perhaps, beyond the skills of the tiny "Speyer Scholars" I read about in today's Times, students at a new private school for gifted kids.)

And the movie section took a long time to load, by which time a lot of kids would have gotten restless and gone off to do something else. Not sure how you get around that.

Week 5 readings

What Every Game Developer Needs to Know About Story -- John Sutherland

PART 2 (I posted on this reading before)

Looks at video games from the lens of story, analyzing them in classical story terms of protagonist/hero, inciting incident, "gap between the hero and an orderly life," risk taken by hero to overcome the gap, reversal in which the hero learns something but then confronts yet another gap, another risk that has to be taken, followed by another reversal, another gap, etc. All the while the hero is moving toward the "object of desire," "usually an orderly life." Sutherland delves into different types of conflict (internal, interpersonal, external), the use of empathy in games, considerations of pacing and use of dialogue, and why the hero must be the cause of the ending not just an observer. The author says that the old rule of "show, don't tell" in games becomes "do, don't show." The player must experience the game/story as the main actor as much as possible. He stresses the collaborative nature of game creation, including the creation of story.

The Designer's Notebook: Educational Games Don't Have to Stink! Ernest Adams

Adams outlines what he recommends for designers of educational games in terms of what he thinks doesn't work: games that are too much fun or not fun enough, games that are too long, games that aren't focused enough, games that do not include opportunity for users to be creative, that do not include an "advisor" to help and prompt the user, games that try to be what they are not. He holds up what he calls the "Socrates Standard" in stating that the best education comes from interaction/dialogue, not speechifying. Although I am not certain how that directly relates to educational games. He raises interesting points to think about when designing/evaluating educational games.

The Effect of Positive Emotions on Multimedia Learning --Um, Song, Plass

A study demonstrating that positive emotion in a learning situation enhances learning, promoting knowledge construction and problem solving. Further, positive emotion can actually be created by good instructional design. The authors state that the creation of positive emotion has not often been considered as a component of instructional design, but has rather been relegated to affective learning domains. They recommend that emotional design be incorporated and considered in the process of instructional design.

The Jenkins White Paper

MacArthur Foundation-funded study of the rapidly changing media environment that looks at many facets of media and society. It presents a series of snapshots that together create a portrait of how the changes in the forms of media and their uses is affecting every part of our lives. The importance of teaching media literacy to kids is underlined. A topic that particularly interests me is the idea of distributed cognition, which looks at knowledge creation and transmission from a social, networked point of view. Each person is just a part of a larger intelligent social organism that collectively possesses greater intellectual power than any one person alone. The creation and use of this power is unprecedented, enabled by advances in technology. All the social networking tools fall under this category -- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube. There is constant immersion in multiple forms of media and full participation in media creation by users/consumers.

Week 4 readings

The Importance of Being Playful-- Elena Bodrova and Deborah J. Leong

A defense of play as an essential part of learning for young children -- probably in response to the ever-increasing pressure for "academic" work at earlier and earlier ages. The authors give suggestions for how teachers can help kids play in the most fruitful way possible -- how to stay out of their way, how to guide just enough and not too much. They recommend "supporting mature play" to facilitate language acquisition, literacy development and enhancement of social skills.

Affective Aspects -- Sharp, Rogers, Preece

A basic introduction to the topic of emotional responses to educational technology and how they vary according to different design choices. Reading the piece was nostalgic because it brought back memories of the old smiling and sad Apple icons and that annoying "Clippy" --which I remember but never knew by name. It's interesting how fast innovations in technology become ridiculously out of date. The article shows how every tiny detail-- including things as simple as the type of error message used-- contributes to the overall experience, making it a positive or negative one, and how eliciting positive emotions enhances learning. The authors describe interesting experiments such as the pairing of stuffed animals with cell phones in an effort to make phone interruptions less annoying.

Designing for Interaction --Saffer -- Chapters 5 &6

A simple and very clear introduction to working with/organizing data and various aspects of interaction design. Saffer recommends ways to gather, group, sort and categorize data. He says there are four major ways to analyze data: analysis, summation, extrapolation, and abstraction. He also shows different types of conceptual models that can help designers think about a project and make their ideas visible. Some of these are linear flow, circular flow, spider diagram, sets, Venn diagrams and maps. He describes another type of conceptual model, a persona, used to bring to life different types of potential users of the software or website, which helps designers explore and understand behavior and motivations of users-- a process that will strengthen the design solutions.

Chapter 6 offers methods of concept development including brainstorming, which Saffer presents in many different formats and flavors. Some of these include brainwriting (words or images used as jumping off points), "break the rules," "force fit," which juxtaposes opposite ideas to spark new thoughts, poetry, questioning, laddering up to more abstract ideas or down to more concrete ones, swiping (borrowing from another field or domain), and "bizarro world," wherein you try to design for the opposite result you really want, just to see where it will take you. These techniques are interesting and take the process of brainstorming further than the usual procedure of simply throwing out ideas, writing them down, and seeing what results from the ensuing creative conflict/conversation. Saffer is full of great advice about how to direct your thinking and analyze your ideas and solutions.

55-word story

“I love your husband.” Impulsively, she blurted the words out as her friend sat down beside her on the subway. Her friend looked sharply towards her, startled. Then she laughed. As the train pulled out, they started talking about the column her friend’s husband had written about a controversial rape case for that morning’s paper.

Week 3 Readings

Designing Gestural Interfaces and Tap is the New Click (video) – Dan Saffer

These are complementary introductions to gestural interfaces, their current uses and the considerations that go into their design. There is a huge amount of information here – lots to think about. I am intrigued by the idea of finding the most natural way to match people’s natural behavior to the technology –enabling gesture. It reminds me a bit of the notion of distributed cognition—how, for example, a calculator functions as an extension of the human brain to offload certain mental tasks and free up mental resources for tasks that cannot be automated. In the same way, gesture might enable technology that would seamlessly enhance and extend physical functioning. The idea of potentially using the entire human body as the tool for enabling technology is so interesting and opens up a huge world of possibility.


What Every Game Developer Needs to Know about Story – John Sutherland

Oy. I hate games. I have never in my life played a computer game except when I had to play around with Second Life for an ECT assignment. My daughter used to love Sims, and she would sometimes ask me to sit and do it with her, and I just went into a coma I found it so boring. I literally could not make myself pay attention to it. These fantasy worlds, especially the ones featuring kill-or-be-killed scenarios are just immensely boring and irritating to me. They’re for the adolescent boy aged 6-96.

Maybe if a game were something set in the world I live in, I would be interested. I have in mind a Dilbert-inspired game in which the story and all it entails – protagonist, inciting incident, risk, reversal, more risk, more reversal, character-revealing choices, triumphant or disastrous ending—was built around the absurdities of the work world. An “Office”-like game – that would be interesting to me, one in which I would get to plot against an irrational, semi-competent, passive-aggressive boss like the one I actually have. This is actually a good idea – to use a game format to teach people how to deal with workplace situations/conflicts and how different choices lead to different results—questions like “Should I go to HR about this or just ignore it or find a way to deal with it head-on? “ Hmmm…..


The Design of Everyday Things – Norman—Chapter 2

An elaboration of the psychology of people who tend to blame themselves when they have trouble operating machines or devices due to poor design. He reiterates the principles of good design:
• Visibility—the user can easily tell what to do, how to effect a result and where to start
• A good conceptual model – one that is logical, consistent and easy to understand
• Good mappings – strong, logical relationships between actions and results, controls and their effects, the system state and what is visible
• Feedback – the user receives feedback so he knows what the system is doing

The story about the airplane was a sobering reminder of just how high the stakes are in product design.

September 29--Interface critique

Interface critique:

Home blood pressure testing apparatus

This is a pretty simple device that is quite easy to use. I have no idea how accurate it is: my experience is that blood pressure readings are all over the map, very different when taken with different equipment at different times of day and by different people. But accuracy aside, here’s my critique of the device itself.

Overall look and feel

It is a fairly small, (about 7 inches by 5 inches) lightweight plastic box with a Velcro-closing cuff attached with a plastic cable. The box is angled down to make the top easier to see. At the back it’s about 4 inches high sloping down to the front where it’s about an inch an a half high. The top features a screen with demarcations to the left that say “sys” (for systolic pressure), “dia” (for diastolic pressure) and “pulse.” Below the screen there is a small, round button and above that is a small clock icon. To the right of that is a larger button that says “memory.” To the right of the screen is a large blue button that says “start” on top and “stop” on the bottom. The cuff has a small label sewn on that has a graphic showing where the cuff goes on the arm. It is labeled “1/2” inch and ~ 2 cm to indicate that is how far above the elbow the cuff is to be placed. There is also an arrow at the edge of the cuff where the cord come out of it, which corresponds to an arrow in the graphic to indicate the cuff should be placed with the arrow facing the user’s elbow.

Function and feedback

To use the cuff you place it on your arm and hit the start button. You feel the cuff tighten on your arm and while it inflates the machine makes a whirring sound that tells you it is in the process of measuring your blood pressure. You also see a series of numbers that start higher and go lower. When the device reaches the point of inflation when it can take the measurement the numbers stop and the remaining air is let out of the cuff. You can see the three measurements (systolic pressure, diastolic pressure and pulse) as well as the time. The time is recorded because the device stores your readings. When you press the button marked “memory” the most recent reading appears with the date and then the date switches to the time. Press “memory” again and the next most recent reading appears with the date, and then time. The feedback is in the form of the sound that tells you the cuff is inflating and then deflating to the necessary point and in the form of the numbers on the screen.

Affordances

The three buttons and the cuff. They are all labeled to make clear what they do and how to use them. The cuff shows you where on your body to put it, and then you push “start” and machine measures your blood pressure. If you want to know how today’s blood pressure compares to yesterday’s reading or the one before that, push “memory.” Pretty simple.


Mapping

The cuff is literally mapped to its use since it has a diagram showing you exactly how to use it. You would have to read English to use the device since “start” and “stop” and “memory” are in words. The clock is an icon that doesn’t depend on language. When you hit the clock button you see numbers that flash first the day and then on the second push the time. There is no indication of how to change the date or time, though there must have been an instruction book that outlined a way to set that up the first time the device was used. The “start” and “stop” and “memory” buttons couldn’t be simpler.

Comment:

This is a simple device that pretty much explains how to use itself. However when the batteries run out I assume you would have to set the date and time again and there is no indication of how to do that. It also might be nice to have a brief explanation of what “sys” and “dia” mean, but I guess there is an assumption that you are using this device on doctor’s orders and have been given a basic explanation. Also it might be nice to have the basic instructions written on the back, i.e. ,whether you should have your arm resting on something or dangling down, whether it matters if you stand or sit – that sort of thing. That could also be conveyed via diagrams such as the one on the cuff.

September 22

Schneiderman – Information Visualization

An exhaustive analysis of different types of data and different ways of visualizing it.
The guiding principle is this “visual-information-seeking mantra:”

Overview, zoom and filter, details on demand.

Categories include linear, map, 3D world, multidimensional, temporal, tree, network, overview task, zoom task, filter task, and on and on…it’s complicated. There are many possibilities and considerations – it’s literally endless. I have no idea what to say on this topic beyond that.


Schnotz and Bannert – Construction and interference in learning from multiple representation

A paper describing a research study on how the addition of graphic representations to text affects learning. The authors discuss how mental models are constructed during learning and how the addition of graphics or pictures affects that process. They find that in some cases pictorial representations actually interfere with learning. Their findings show the importance of choosing a pictorial representation that is well matched to the mental task. The study challenges Paivo’s dual coding theory by examining the question in greater detail and showing that Paivo’s theory is too simplistic. The addition of graphics to text does not always reinforce and enhance learning. Rather, how pictorial representations are used, which ones are used (and for which kinds of learners), as well as when they are used have a profound effect on learning.


Norman—The Design of Everyday Things Chapter 1

This had me saying “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes” to myself as I was reading. As someone who is frequently baffled by the technology I need to use on a daily basis, I was happy to read his complaints about how overcomplicated and badly designed so many things are. Telephones, DVD players, cable remotes – nothing is as simple and intuitive as it is often promised to be. I am allergic to reading manuals so I pretty much just do what I can figure out without having to do so. Not having grown up with technology, I don’t have the native grasp of how these things work that, for example, my daughter does. Has anyone done a study of this issue? Everyone talks about it – the kids can just pick up the remotes and the cell phones and they somehow know what to do without instruction or reading the manual. My daughter is always rolling her eyes in utter frustration with both her parents – that we don’t seem to understand the simplest things. We need for things to be self-explanatory, simple, logical, and easy to use. They rarely are. I don’t have a DVD player in our bedroom simply because I couldn’t get so far as to buy one I was so confused about the different formats. I can’t even understand it well enough to buy it, much less use it! I watch DVDs on my laptop because that’s all I can handle. Actually I just started downloading them to my laptop and bypassing the issue entirely.

As I am part of the huge boomer generation, you would think people would be madly working on making technology more accessible to us, especially as we get older, more forgetful, less able to hit tiny keys and read instructions in tiny type. Much as we like to pretend that we are not now and never will be old – it’s reality. I don’t see a whole lot of attention being paid to that fact.