A school student companion for improved productivity and communication? ✓ Check!
{The solution discussed below was submitted by yours truly to Unleash Lab 2017 and was selected to be shown as a reference for members of the lab working on Education & ICT}
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What is a classroom?
In a digital age where communication extends beyond physical space and where technology and online social networks are allowing us to instantly reach one another, should students’ learning experience be limited to the classroom?
The short answer is no. The long, more articulate answer is no, but.
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Working on and off with educational projects for about 2 years, I came to understand that using technology to teach school students has its cons as well as pros.
On the one hand, smart screens make teaching in class much easier for many teachers as they allow them to easily showcase material they’ve prepared and even provide students with more engaging and interactive learning methods like educational games and videos.
On the other hand, allowing students to use their phones/mobile devices in the classroom gives room for distraction and may also foster feelings of superiority for some students as not all students can afford to have a phone at a young age.
As I spoke to over 20 teachers, talked to parents, students and visited classrooms at the start of my project with the aim of coming up with a digital solution to improving communication between teachers, students and parents, I found that the best way to use a digital networking platform to benefit the classroom was to have students use it outside the classroom. This way, you’d guarantee that it wouldn’t act as a hindrance to the learning process, at least within the confines of the formally allocated space for it.
Simultaneous to carrying out interviews with teachers, parents and students, I was also analysing references of digital platforms that helped teachers manage their classes better and/or stay in touch with students and parents beyond the walls of the classroom. My main references were Google Classroom and Edmodo.
In looking at these references which are provided both in the form of websites as well as mobile applications (for especially easier accessibility for teachers on the go), I found that these platforms focused on improving communication between teachers and students — allowing teachers to post announcements, assign homework and even grade it online — but didn’t ensure that students actually completed the tasks and assessments being posted about online.
They were a means to better connectivity but not a means to better productivity from students side (students being my focal point, as the main stakeholders and beneficiaries in the educational process).
And so, I reached out to and conducted more interviews with students and teachers, requesting that teachers ask their students to honestly say if they procrastinate while doing their homework and studying, and asking students themselves one-to-one if they did. (At this point of my process, I’d befriended a number of students after discussing so much for the project and so, I believe the trust between us at that point meant at least the ones I knew would’ve given me honest answers)
Unsurprisingly, I found that most students did procrastinate.
In Egypt, my main case study for the platform, that made sense, because having graduated from a school here in 2013, I knew that time management (as an important skill that students would need in any job after graduation) was not formally taught in most, if not all, schools in the country.
And that was a turning point in the project.
So I knew that I wanted to improve after-school communication between teachers, students and parents through the use of a digital platform but now I knew, that I could offer an extra feature as well, a bot companion within the app that would act as a guide for students as they work on their homework or study, by recording the time they take actually working as well as the time they spend pausing, and then asking at the end of each task they work on what they were doing in the time gaps in the middle.
This record can only be seen by the student and so, it allows for honest reflection as well as self-tracking of progress, as the app allows the student to see how his/her time management and productivity increases over time, by allowing him/her to have a record of how many tasks are completed in time and how much the procrastination gaps decrease over time.
So this is how Check was born.
And so, with this approach in mind, the features of Check were built: to enable teachers to manage their classrooms beyond the school’s walls through announcing things (as little as class cancellation or teacher-switching when a teacher calls in sick, and as big as final exam dates), assigning homework and having students submit it online, and then grading it through the platform as well.
Parents’ lives are also made easier by their having access to important announcements, being able to reach teachers (within certain ‘busy hours’ only) and checking their kids’ major grades.
Students are of course the biggest beneficiaries here where shy ones can ask questions online and communicate with their teachers (also within ‘busy hours’ to avoid exhausting teachers beyond work hours) and peers, easily submit their homework online if they missed a class, as well as catch up with their peers by easily checking class material the teacher uploads. In addition to communication, as aforementioned, the app will also allow students to beat their procrastination habits and improve their time management skills before they have to go into the real world and struggle with this.
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My name is Yasmine Yusuf, I’m a 22 year old graphic and UI/UX designer based in Cairo, Egypt. In joining Unleash, I hope to complete Check and bring it to students, parents and teachers around the world.
I look forward to working with young professionals and fellow students from around the world towards giving learners a better learning experience.
See a demo of Check here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0BwDZergOiMTVNVI4ejBCbXFJRjg
