Yesterday, I had a meeting with Owen Otto and Andrea Moed in the city, at a small nondescript cafe called Sugarlump (2862 24th St). Owen and Andrea are now graduating from the School of Information at UCB, moving on to jobs on UI design in Google and Yahoo respectively.
Their Master's project involved using the split mouse framework provided by MSRI (Joyojeet's project at TIER) and developing it into a split-screen UI to allow for an enhanced interaction between the users, the target audience in this case being children attending schools supported by the Azim Premji Foundation (APF).
Owen and Andrea implemented different prototypes, and tested these on the children when they visited Bangalore earlier this year. It was most interesting to learn about their experiences with the children at APF, and what they learned from them.
The primary prototype was as follows:
There were 4 mice connected to a single laptop, each mouse to be controlled by a single child. There were two teams, say Team A and Team B. The screen was split in half, with Team A controlling the left half and Team B controlling the right. The kids in each team would take turns answering questions that showed up on their side of the screen. Questions were multiple-choice, with pictures of animals that the kids had to identify. There was a points system based on the number of attempts required to answer a question correctly.
Interesting aspects of the game were:
- Teaming up, as well as competition, as opposed to a game with only teaming up (not enough incentive to perform well) or only competition (no collaboration).
- The points system indicated obviously which team did better, but it was not trivial to see that a correct answer on first attempt got more points than a correct answer on third attempt.
- Kids understood well that when their mouse indicated an X, it was not their turn.
- Matt's idea: for the benefit of kids between turns, it would make sense to add information such as the picture of the animal their team-mate clicked on incorrectly. Basically, to add more to the game for spectators.
- Starting with a screen with a color to indicate whose turn it is first is a good idea.
These were the highlights of our meeting. I had added a link to their project page below.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
mindfields
Mindfields: a journal about ideas and learning
Mindfields will approach ideas and concepts from the World of Education (seen as boring, or complex and esoteric by most), break down the jargon, and present matter in a way that is irreverent, approachable, and informed.
Mindfields aims to bridge the gap between educators and people who are invested in education for its true purpose: educating children as opposed to building empires. It will introduce compelling, innovative learning ideas that are inextricable from everyday life - with a human interest angle to them.
The idea is to make ideas available to people, so that they know their options in a world where slick marketing can sell almost anything.
Mindfields is available online as well as in print.
redefinition
as life begins to redefine itself, it seems like a good idea to document changes along the way. especially with a fading memory, it would be helpful to have one place where ideas can come together - ideas that are wildly creative, richly diverse, and (dare i say yet?) inherently realizable. let this be it.
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