Design Proposal

As part of the coursework Katina requested our design proposals in for yesterday so she could read them and give us feedback today. Here’s our proposal:

Description of application:
Design and implement and game for children aged 4-5 (reception age) to aid them in their learning of shapes, both 2D and 3D.

Learning by doing – active participation.
Watch a video of someone drawing a shape, on part of the screen, then the child sees an outline of the same shape, which they are to draw over to gain an idea of how the shape should look, then finally the child is expected to draw the shape by themselves without a video or outline.

The closer the trace and their own attempt is to the original shape at the end, an audio cue and visual will appear to congratulate the child, if not close to the original shape an audio cue and visual will display to inform them. To feel as if the children are aiming for something and feel as though they are achieving, the more shapes they draw well, these will then combine to create a small entertaining 2D/3D animation.

There are elements of behaviourism such as observing demonstrations and receiving audio and visual feedback, for either drawing the shapes well or not. As well as elements of cognitivism – visual examples and comparisons.

                           

Learning Objectives:
• Hand and eye coordination.
• The drawing can be through either use of mouse, or graphics tablet and pen. The latter may prove to be more effective as it feels more natural. It will also give the children the opportunity gain confidence in using the computer, drawing and shape learning.
• Following aural and visual instructions.
• Learning variety of 2D and 3D shapes, based on the curriculum requirements.
• Gaining independence in drawing shapes, through use of video and trying themselves.

Plan for research and development:
• Visit Primary School (Boringdon) and talk to teachers to determine how complex the game should be for the children’s’ level of learning.
• Find out what resources are used now to teach the children their shapes and the game could be integrated into their learning process, simply for fun to reinforce the learning, or as more of an aid in teaching the actual learning of shapes.
• By making a series of prototypes, which can be taken into school to be used by the children and tested by them. Gain feedback from them; ask them simple questions, see if they are actually learning their shapes.
• Get feedback from the teachers and teaching assistants to see how effective they deem the game in the learning process, and any improvements and developments that they feel could be made.

Technology and platform:
• Flash, this will allow best for interactivity, buttons and user drawings. We can include movies into the game, to aid visual cognition. Flash makes it easier to make the game aesthetically appealing.
• Allows us to use ActionScript, which will be completely hidden from the user.
• We also have the option of updating, relatively easily, in the future should it be necessary.
• Able to run on Mac and PC, to make sure the game is compatible with the majority of systems available in schools.

Well….. Katina was really impressed, which is excellent! She had a few concerns, one being the state of the computer system in the primary school we wanted to use to test our software out on, but Suzanne assured her that Boringdon’s computer set up is really good and that it shouldn’t be a hindrance to us. The other suggestion was while prototyping, get the kids to peer assess each other, that way we’d get a balanced review of the game, from them and the teaching staff. Which we will of course be taking on board and doing.

We’re really keen to get on with this project, the whole design process is really exciting and being able to test it on real kids and see how they rate it is incentive to do a really decent job of it!