Feedback from Speed Dating Activity

03/22/2018

In Learner Experience Design class today we did an idea speed dating activity. Stacie had prepared a schedule for us so that we were exposed to the ideas of the various groups. Before the class, we prepared three storyboards of our different ideas, explanations of each one, and specific questions we had. All our ideas are extensions of the Wetlands and Waterways camp at the Carnegie Musuem of Natural History. Each of us presented our ideas three times in different pairs and listened to at least two other groups. Below is some of the feedback we received from our partners on our three concepts:

Idea speed dating in class

Takeaways

• Oblivion, the physical game, and Community Connections had the most positive reviews during speed dating
• We need to consider the motivations of the campers because we are taking the perspective of educators but not the users
• Make the activities relevant to the campers and try to extend it out to the community
• Students could extend their learning by teaching, not only continuing to learn new things

Feedback for Oblivion, the physical game:

PHOTOGRAPH

Idea

Oblivion is a non-digital game that can be played collaboratively or individually. It is given to students after they complete the Wetlands and Waterways camp. The learning objective of the game is for the campers to apply skills from camp to a different context, thus building on their knowledge. This game connects to the “see themselves as part of nature” aspect of our Mission Statement because it puts students in a world where they control characters who plant and harvest crops to survive, by dealing with the uncertainty of weather and testing the soil and water quality.

The goal is to survive, grow, and gather enough food before winter. Players accomplish their goal by choosing where to grow their crops and avoiding survival issues like contaminated water. The game comes with topographic maps and real water and soil samples, as well as pH and nitrogen/phosphate test strips. This gives students a chance to continue to use the skills they learned in camp. Weather is a variable players can’t control and adds an element of chance into the gameplay.

Positives

• This game extends the learning in the camp beyond the campers.
• Campers could teach others what they had learned through the game.

Problems

• We need to gain a deeper understanding of the motivation for playing this game.

Possibility

• Consider introducing the game during camp.
• Explore how you can create a change in habit by incorporating the real world into the game (e.g. ask children to explore nature while playing the game)
• Map is specific to Pittsburgh and the areas that are close to them, so that it is connected to the real world
• They could play the game at the camp as a review of what they did and as a way to get them ready to play the game at home and with their friends.
• Consider how easy it is for people that did not attend the camp to learn the game

Feedback for Community Connections tool kits:

Storyboard of the Community Connections Toolkits

Idea

The Community Connections Toolkits aim to connect campers with community groups through their naturalist interests by creating missions for campers to understand and solve problems in the real world using tools provided in the kit. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History acts as a hub for this network. The campers and their parents are introduced to the different toolkits during the last day of camp. Each campers selects the toolkit that he/she is most interested in. The kits have a mission created by a community group, the example in the storyboard is for trees, that are related to problems the community is facing. The campers use the tools in the kit to run different tests to try to understand what is causing the problem. At the end, the campers come back together at CMNH or another community space to share their findings with the group, see what other campers came up with, and connect with the community groups that created the missions. The hope is that campers will work with the community groups in the future.

Positives

• This idea is directly related to the nature in front of them. Direct interaction

Problems

• Consider reducing the number of steps in the participants journey
• Consider how you will extend the child’s interest in the toolkit in order to ensure its usage
• The soil sample isn’t connected to the problem. Possible alternative: citizen scientists that use the skills and thinking they were exposed to at camp to then work on problems affecting the ecosystems in the campers’ vicinity.
• It may be difficult to get the campers and their families to come back after the camp.
• How can we keep people accountable?

Possibilities

• Consider the end point of the journey and how learning’s from the new challenge can be shared with others
• This can be collaborative by working with other campers who have the same problems
• Feedback of how other groups are doing. Leveraging gamification and competition.
• Missions that have goals that aren’t conflict driven. Think about the narrative of the mission.

Feedback for digital journal:

Storyboard of the Digital Journal

Idea

The Digital Journal is an app that is downloaded after the camp, and it prompts campers to take pictures of nature in urban settings. Through the Digital Journal, campers and others will observe their environment in a new way and document what they find. These findings are then shared with the community, building a repository of examples of nature in urban areas.

Positives

• This is a way to get campers to notice nature in their surroundings

Problems

• Explore the entry point of this experience and how it will be supported (parent’s cellphone, child cellphone, child tablet)
• Beware of making this accessible to everyone vs just children that have tablets — explore the idea of a physical journal
• Ensure that challenges have the appropriate difficult level based on audience age
• It is hard to have a large thriving digital community. What can we do to get people to come back and contribute?

Possibilities

• There is an opportunity to share the digital journal with the community vs just with campers
• This could be a piece of a larger project. It is a little simple as it is right now.
• What if campers made their own prompts for future users to take pictures of?
• This could be used to track animals or plants in the area through time.
• Community sharing via mapping and geotagging. It could also be reflect the current season and be time based, similar to cherry blossoms on Google maps which show where cherry blossoms are blooming (see below).

Google maps with cherry blossom locations | Google

• Question: Do kids have their own phones?