15/5 - Final Edition!

I can't believe it - the Showcase is tomorrow.

I can proudly say that our team finished all major design work and programming on our project this past Sunday. We've been working some pretty long hours on Sundays, so we all agreed that we'd stay until we were done. And we did it!  The major last minute changes we made to the project were the addition of a static navigation bar at the bottom of the screen, and 'back' and 'continue' buttons that allow the user to have better control over the slides, and rewatch one if they'd like to go back.  We experienced a minor glitch with the audio on Sunday that caused some reworking in Flash, but we figured it out and got everything working fine. 

I will be bringing a CD for both Dr. Schell and Alissa to the Showcase that has the complete website/module on it. We made sure that all links in the module are relative links, so they should be able to upload the materials to a web server and be ready to go.

Cheryl and I will meet a little early tomorrow to go over the presentation, and we have two small pieces of paperwork to complete, but otherwise, we are good to go. It's been a long, long semester, and my most stressful semester since starting this crazy working full-time and Master's degree program.  I know in the past couple of weeks, our whole team has been concerned about our project, but I can say with confidence that we've accomplished our goals and our client's goals. I am truly proud of our work, and I can't wait to show it off tomorrow at the Showcase.

15/5 Week Fifteen

I can't believe the end of the semester is almost here. It has been an extremely busy week once again for our team. The team met at 2pm on Sunday, and most of us stayed on campus until about midnight working on our modules. I am really proud of the work we've been doing - it has been truly a formative evaluation process for us. We've received feedback from Alissa and some feedback at the dress rehearsal that's caused us to rework some small details in the modules, mostly to do with how the videos are integrated. We added cue points to the dock talk FLV so an outline will appear on the instruction screen as Vicky (the whale guide) talks to the learners. We also tried to include more text in the instruction that relates to the video.

The major purpose of the video is to "situate" the learner on a whale-watching trip. Obviously, a video on a computer is not the most ideal way to situate the learners on a whale-watching trip, but we tried to work with the platform to the best of our abilities. We were also constrained by the video that was available to us.

A secondary purpose of the video is to provide some examples of the information we're teaching. For example, when the instruction is discussing blowholes, we show actual video of a whale blow from Dr. Schell's Whale Class. At this point in the instruction, the video is both reinforcing the material and situating the learner. We only had a few opportunities to use the video in this fashion because the video wasn't clear enough or detailed enough to show things like a whale's baleen in action or the ventral pleats on a whale's belly. This material had to be reinforced with images or illustration instead of video.

I'm a little frustrated at this point because we have worked so hard on this project and I still think there are things that could be improved or changed. However, I do think that we've succeeded in creating really great instruction for seventh graders, which was our ultimate goal. We've already gotten some useful feedback from our alpha testers and hopefully we'll get more good feedback at tomorrow's beta test.

Here's a link to the beta version of our modules: Learning Whale Morphology

15/5 Week Fourteen

It's Dress Rehearsal week!

We have been extremely busy in the past week, and put in some marathon sessions this past weekend. Our beta test is scheduled for a week from today (April 17) at Clarke Middle School. Audra and Cheryl will be conducting the evaluation, and Alissa will be present (and continue to use the module with the students after Audra and Cheryl have completed the "official" evaluation). We are looking forward to some learner feedback and seeing how our module acts in a "real" school setting.

The storyboards and flowchart were delivered to the client this week, and we already received email approval from Dr. Schell. Alissa emailed us back with extensive and helpful feedback, and we've already worked on incorporating some of her changes into the version of the module we'll be showing at the Dress Rehearsal. Both Dr. Schell and Alissa seemed impressed and happy with the structure and flow of the content. My goal is to have all three modules posted online by Dress Rehearsal, although only the first module will be in a finalized format.

It's been a whirlwind of flash programming, video and audio editing and meetings - I think we are in a good place with the project. These last two weeks will give us time to work out the technical glitches and add a few finishing touches that will really tie the whole module together.

Things to do:

• Finish posting modules to web site
• Create glossary page
• Add glossary link to all modules
• Finish importing video to all modules
• Finish recording new audio (after Alissa's text changes)
• Create introduction/direction page for modules
• Obtain resource links from Alissa
• Send alpha test link to consultants
  

15/5 Week Thirteen

This 15/5 will be short and sweet as I am fighting the stomach flu.

On Thursday, we worked on putting together all the interactions we've been programming. It was slow at first, but I think we've got a good system down now. We met on Sunday for several hours and continued putting everything together. Lindsay and I worked on the interactions, Audra worked on storyboards, and Cheryl and Amy worked on video and evaluation.

It was a productive meeting and we all left with more to accomplish:

• Amy is finishing edits on the evaluation report and working on illustrations
• Audra is completing the storyboards and flowcharts and revising her drag and drop interactions to fit the new templates we created
• Lindsay and I are trying to complete programming of all modules
• Cheryl is working on lowering the audio for all video clips and recording voiceovers for the modules

We received approval from Dr. Schell on the hardware/software specs, the learner profile, and the screen specs/treatment rationale (I'm still waiting on the attachment with his signature page, but he and Alissa both reviewed and approved the document).

I think we are feeling better about things at this point. We are starting to have a solid product, now it's all troubleshooting to make sure all the bits and pieces work! I'm afraid we haven't had much work for our consultants yet, and we're running out of time, but we're just having to work efficiently at this point and it's easier to do some things ourselves than to write out an explanation for someone else. We will have some proofreading and editing tasks very soon so maybe we can squeeze it in before the deadline.

Okay, off to nurse my flu. I will hopefully be in class tomorrow!

15/5 Week Twelve

Ack! I almost forgot to post this again! (I am up to my ears in Flash programming, so I got a little sidetracked.)

This week has been another productive one for Imaginative Designs. We set some very specific goals for tomorrow's class, and settled on a division of labor that worked for everyone. Here's what we worked out:

carriencoker send carriencoker a message Member since Jul 9, 2007 7:16 am 111 page edits, 14 message posts view member profile

Audra: * Storyboards for the scripts * Programming the drag and drop interactions Cheryl: * Goal 3 scripting (already complete!) Lindsay * Goal 1 scripting (already complete!) * finish up 2 and 4 Amy: * Pull all video for each script and create linear video timelines for each script * Make a list of the images we need for each script * Draw a blubber cross-section (can be completed later than Thursday) * Draw a whale diagram (can be completed later than Thursday) Carrie: * Programming size comparison and dichotomous key interactions * Send latest round of docs to Dr. Schell and Alissa for sign-off

We're hoping to get a rough working version of the modules together this week. It's very important to me that we get the Flash interactions and video portions meshed together ASAP, and we can tweak the graphic design elements later. I'm still concerned about time, but I think that our whole team and our clients are aware of our deadlines and we're all working together to make this happen. Alissa has posted the remainder of the necessary content on the wiki, and we will be contacting her if anything is missing or confusing. Jea created some graphic design for us that we will be reviewing tomorrow, and we should have some additional work for our consultants next week. We are focusing very intently on the Dress Rehearsal and having our product ready for a beta test in April. We will have two team members out on Thursday, but they both provided us with the materials on Sunday, so we've got plenty to work on.

Back to Flash!

15/5 Week Eleven

We are moving right along. We met with Alissa on Friday March 7 and had a very productive meeting. Alissa has been working hard to get us the remaining content we need to develop the modules. We got a lot of questions answered at the meeting. We've narrowed our audience down to just 7th grade, and clarified some content issues that we had.

Last week was Spring Break, but we decided to take advantage of the time and meet on Thursday anyways. We scripted the entire module for Goal 1 and worked some on the other goals as well. We met again on Sunday night and got lots accomplished. We've worked through all the video that Dr. Schell gave us, and Sunny (one of our 6200 consultants) and Amy worked on moving all the usable clips to a hard drive. Cheryl and Lindsay worked on scripting Goal 2 and Audra and I worked on programming some of the Flash interactions. The division of labor worked nicely, and I felt like it was an extremely productive use of our time.

We've got a test site up here: http://www.identitywebandphoto.com/6210/ We'll be using this space to host the project for testing, etc, until we can get it moved to the COE website. It's still a work in progress but it gives us a framework and an idea of space.

Now, we just need to continue to work on making our great ideas a working module!

Things to do:
-6200 consultants - continue to give assignments
-Storyboards / flowcharts
-Test interactions on test site
-Continue with scripting and programming

15/5 Week Nine

(Yikes, this is late! I'm sorry, Greg - it slipped my mind last night.)

This week was a pretty stressful one for our team. We worked very hard on planning out some interactions for our online modules, and then some communication from our client made us rethink the work we had done. One of our goals for this project is to create instruction that is based in situated cognition, and we realized this week just how difficult that can be in an online environment.
We had a productive meeting with Greg on Thursday and developed a plan of attack for our client meeting on Friday. Then, we worked on a new idea for the module. Our scenario is that the learners are whale tour guides in training, and we're going to take them on a "whale watching trip" using video. During the trip, they will experience Flash interactions that freeze the video and ask them questions, or give them information about the content. After each lesson, there will be a check-in/stopping point where the students will be given an activity that takes them away from the computer to either work in a group or blog about their experience. (We hope to give them an open-ended question to reflect on that incorporates some of the content they've been learning.)

We presented this idea to Dr. Schell on Friday and he really loved it. He gave us 32 mini-dv tapes of footage, and we've divided up the tapes so we can start going through it and finding appropriate clips for our project. We're meeting with Alissa tomorrow and we'll talk with her about this new idea, the content, and other things we'll need her help with (like developing some rubrics and open-ended questions).

So, it started out as a stressful week, but I think it resulted in a very dynamic and exciting framework for our project. We have a lot of development in our future, but I know we can do it.

To Do:

• Meet with Alissa Friday 3/7
• Review tapes and make notes of content/pull clips out
• 6200 consultant assignments
• Flash research (cue points, controlling video with Flash)
  

15/5 Week Eight

This week, we had one of our busiest weeks yet. We had an extremely productive design discussion last Thursday. We've solidified the basic interactions we want to use for Goals 1 and 2, and we're still working on 3, 4 and 5. We all have also been working on our documentation that is due tomorrow.

At our online meeting on Sunday, we discussed design questions, documentation questions, and questions about our next steps. We clarified that our next step will be to storyboard each module. To do that well, we've decided to schedule another meeting with our client to discuss our currently completed work and obtain more content resources (including videos). It's proven to be a challenge to get all seven of us together, especially since Spring Break is around the corner, but we're going to make it work.

At our Sunday meeting, we set specific deadlines for handing in drafts and posting feedback on the draft docs. The team has been really great about meeting these deadlines and posting detailed, helpful feedback. I think our documents will be in good shape by Thursday. We also submitted our Task Analysis, Timeline and Objectives to the client for sign-off. We got some excellent feedback from Alissa about our Task Analysis, and Lindsay is working on implementing those changes.

Another task we accomplished this week is creating a powerpoint for Thursday's studio presentation. We originally had planned to highlight each goal and its interaction, but we've realized after Greg's email that it might be too much info, so we're scaling back a bit. The work we put into each goal is great, though, because it leads us into our storyboarding work.

I think we've really hit a good groove this week. I'm proud of my team's quality of work and attention to detail, and I hope we continue to keep up this standard as we move forward.

To Do:

• Continue to complete documentation
• Present at studio
• Finalize meeting times with Alissa and Dr. Schell
• 6200 Consultants: deliver CD of images; obtain videos from Dr. S for editing
  

15/5 Week Seven

Is it really already Week Seven? This semester is flying by!

We had an extremely productive meeting on Thursday. We had a lot of things to cover, so I created an agenda and tried very hard to stick to it. It helped us to cover all necessary information (and also gave us a sense of accomplishment when we could check things off!).

Greg gave us feedback on our Task Analysis and Objectives document. He had some questions about the subject matter and wanted to get more information about the resources we would be using, particularly for Goal 5. I've emailed Alissa and Dr. Schell for examples of the articles we will be using for that goal, so hopefully we'll have that info soon. After our discussion with Greg, we made some changes to both documents. The team realized that we didn't have any prerequisite knowledge on our Task Analysis, so we added that information. We also added several subtasks (for example, defining a feature analysis grid or dichotomous key) to make sure that our learners have all the knowledge they need to complete their objectives.

We also started talking about the design aspect of the module. We discussed what kinds of interactive activities are appropriate for our lessons, and we brainstormed for creative idea. We continued this discussion on Sunday (our first Horizon Wimba meeting) and decided to dedicate this Thursday's meeting to solidifying a template for each lesson. Cheryl and I met last night to discuss the design in more depth, and I think we've got something really nice started. Our client really wants to include his logo for the Whale Class and colors that are reminiscent of marine life (blues and greens), so we have a few constraints to work with, which I think is a good thing when it comes to design!

Everyone will bring a draft version of their assigned document to this Thursday's meeting so we can review and discuss. We are trying really hard to stay on schedule since we got so behind with our docs in the beginning. We also came up with some assignments for our 6200 consultants, so we should be getting with them sometime this week or next week.

It was difficult to meet in Horizon Wimba - I think those meetings will be more about touching base and asking specific questions. There was bad weather Sunday night, so perhaps the technology will be better next time we try.

Here's where we stand with our documentation:

• Needs Analysis / Scope Document
  

• Client approved (Feb 4)
• Turned in Version 1 (Feb 4)
• Feedback from Greg (Feb 7)
• Turned in revised version (Feb 17)

• Task Analysis / Objectives

• Still need client approval
• Turned in Version 1 (Feb 11)
• Feedback from Greg (Feb 14)
• Turned in revised version (Feb 20)

• Timeline

• Still need client approval
  
• Turned in Version 1 (Feb 17)

To Do:

• Prepare for brief presentation to Studio class?
• Continue to complete documentation
• Communicate with Alissa and Dr. Schell about lesson details
• Solidify module template and screen design
• 6200 consulting: Alissa's Whale images; video footage
  

Document Update

I'm posting this document update so I can keep track of where we stand with our documentation.

• Needs Analysis / Scope Document
  

• Client approved (Feb 4)
• Turned in Version 1 (Feb 4)
• Feedback from Greg (Feb 7)
• Turned in revised version (Feb 17)

• Task Analysis / Objectives

• Still need client approval
• Turned in Version 1 (Feb 11)
• Feedback from Greg (Feb 14)
• Turned in revised version (Feb 17)

• Timeline

• Still need client approval
  
• Turned in Version 1 (Feb 17)
  

15/5 Week Six

Our team meeting this week was extremely productive. We met with Greg and got some good feedback on our Needs Assessment and Scope documents. Amy is taking the lead on making those changes and we hope to have the documents turned into Greg sometime this week. We agreed to wait for Greg's feedback before getting feedback from our clients. This will reduce the number of drafts we have to show the clients before presenting a "final" document.

We then turned to our Task Analysis and Objectives documents. These documents are very important to the next phases of the project, and we spent a lot of time going over their details. Our client has provided us with LOTS of information about our lessons, which is great, but it's also already very structured. We had to remind ourselves this week that we are the instructional designers for the lesson module, and that we must use our own judgment when making decisions about how the lessons should flow and where information should be placed.

This week, we finished up the Task Analysis and Objectives docs, and started finalizing the Timeline. We should be able to finish the Timeline at Thursday's meeting and turn towards another big deadline: February 28. We divided up the drafts of the documents based on our roles (evaluator, designer, etc.) and hopefully everyone has started to work on their drafts.

We still haven't had any assignments for our 6200 consultants. We will definitely need to discuss assignments this week.

To Do:

• Finalize Timeline
• Get feedback from Greg on Objectives / Task Analysis
• Get client approval on Objectives / Task Analysis
• Discuss and give 6200 assignments
  
• Work on draft versions of User Analysis, Screen Design, Treatment Rationale, Hardware/Software and Eval Plan
  

15/5 Week Five

We had a hard start to this week.  Our meeting on Thursday was frustrating - we still had doubts about our Needs Assessment, and spent a long time discussing the points that we thought needed revision.  Our project and its focus is unique and we really had to think hard about what the project goals are.

After a long and tiring meeting on Thursday, we handed the document to Cheryl, and she wrote some excellent text that clearly expressed what we wanted to say. Cheryl and I worked together to put the finishing touches on the document. Audra created an excellent draft Scope document that needed very little revision. We finally, finally completed our Needs Assessment and Scope Documents! Our client was very happy and impressed with our work, and I think we did a very thorough job on both. We already received signoff on these two documents. We are looking forward to Greg's feedback as well.  Dr. Schell's chapter and two recommended articles were a great addition to our resources, and I think we all have a better understanding of our project goals now.  It was a very long process to get the Needs Assessment completed, but it was worth all of the stress to create a solid foundation for this project.

Dr. Schell and Alissa continue to be great to work with - they are quick to respond to our requests and always providing us with additional information.

Lindsay and Cheryl have been working on the draft versions of the Objectives and Task Analysis, and Amy is working on the draft of the Timeline. We will be finalizing each of these documents on Thursday during our meeting.  Once the objectives and task analysis are complete, we will start discussing the structure/design of our modules and hopefully have some work for our 6200 consultants. We learned at last week's meeting that it's very important for us all to be on the same page about what kind of documents we are trying to produce, and I think we are moving in a great direction now.

To Do:

• Finalize Objectives, Task Analysis and Timeline
  
• Drafts of: User Profile, Hardware/Software, Screen Design, Evaluation Plan
• Discuss assignments for consultants

15/5 Week Four

We are still hard at work on our Needs Assessment. At our team meeting last week, we began to edit and review our draft Needs Assessment. As it was written, the problem statement described a gap in the type of instruction occurring (a lack of situated cognition/contextual learning). After much discussion with the team and Greg, we decided that we needed to rework our problem statement to reflect a gap in knowledge, since that's what our module is addressing. We realized at our meeting that our project had the potential to be very challenging due to the dual nature of our client's goals (educate about whales AND provide instruction based in situated cognition).

After the meeting, we emailed Dr. Schell and Alissa and communicated with them about the change in the problem statement. They both offered feedback and Dr. Schell also sent us links to two articles that could help in writing our the verification section of the Needs Assessment. The team feels confident that they are okay with the change. We are currently working through the articles and hope to have the Needs Assessment completed by Monday. The team also decided to go ahead and create a separate Scope Document since the clarification of scope has come up several times already in our meetings.

We also divided several other tasks that are upcoming: Objectives List, Task Analysis, and Timeline. Our plan of attack is for one team member to create a draft version of the document (posting questions to the wiki as needed), and then we'll come together as a team to edit and finalize each piece.

We also divided up the projects that we need to review for the Blue Sock Award. It's been a busy week for Imaginative Designs - and there's more work on the way!

To Do:

• Blue Sock Judging (tomorrow)
• Complete Needs Assessment and Scope Doc (Monday)
• Complete drafts of Objectives/Task Analysis/Timeline
  

15/5 Week Three

It was a busy week for Imaginative Designs!

Wiki
We've established a wiki for our team, located here:
[ http://imaginativedesigns.wikispaces.com].

We decided to use a wiki because we wanted a space to have discussions, post multiple versions of documents, and edit documents together. Additionally, our clients have already had documents that they wanted to give to us, but couldn't deliver via email since they were very large. We've invited Alissa to join the wiki as well, so she can have a central place to upload large documents. Alissa and all team members are up and running on the wiki, and I've asked everyone to start reviewing the information that's being posted so we can all have some familiarity with our subject matter.

In addition, our activity log is located on our wiki. Every team member will be responsible for posting her own activity logs to the Activity Log page (and I will be responsible, as the project manager, for reminding everyone to do this.)

Needs Assessment
At our meeting on Thursday, we discussed our upcoming Needs Assessment. As our instructional designer, Lindsay has been working with the client to solidify the problem we are trying to solve with our project, and to obtain the data we need to verify the problem. Lindsay will be posting a preliminary version of the Needs Assessment on the wiki sometime this week so the rest of the team can assist in editing and finishing the document.

Logo
Cheryl designed a logo for our team to use on documents and on our webspaces (it's up now in our banner). I'd like to add a team picture to the banner as well.

6200 Consultants
We have a team of five 6200 students who will be working with us on our project:

• Jason Naile - Content Entry (also possibly Flash)
• Ali Burrous - Evaluator
• HeuiSeon(Sunny) Lim - Video Editing
• Mark Caponigro - Proofreader
• Jea Choi - Flash Programmer/Animator
  

To Do:

• Complete Needs Assessment / Scope
  
• Begin Objectives List and Task Analysis
• Review project content on wiki
  

EDIT 6200 Consultants

We have five 6200 consultants working with us:

Jason Naile - Content Entry (also possibly Flash)
Ali Burrous - Evaluator
HeuiSeon(Sunny) Lim - Video Editing
Mark Caponigro - Proofreader
Jea Choi - Flash Programmer/Animator

Our consultant team is full - thanks for your interest!

15/5 - Week Two

We met with our clients, Dr. John Schell and Alissa Huelsman-Bell on Monday, January 14. We met for about two hours and discussed the project in depth. Dr. Schell and Alissa have many great ideas and lots of material to work with, so we focused on narrowing the project down to one essential deliverable.

Their desired product is one web-based learning unit on Whale Morphology, divided into 3 - 5 lessons. Teachers should be able to take the unit and use it with little to no development or changing, and our audience will be students in Grades 6 - 12. It is their goal also to have a template for the learning unit that can be used again in the future. Dr. Schell stressed also the importance of using situated cognition and contextual learning as a framework for this learning unit, and he will be providing our team with a chapter from his book for more information on these theories.

Tentatively, the unit will have the following sections:

• Focusing / Essential Question(s)
• Objectives
• Lesson / Activity
• Lesson 1 + Activity + Assessment
• Lesson 2 + Activity + Assessment
• Lesson 3 + Activity + Assessment
• Assessment
• Additional Resources / Enrichment

Our team also decided on our roles as team members. We are currently deciding on a team name.

To Do:

• Finalize team name
• Finalize 6200 needed roles and consultants
  
• Read chapter from Dr. Schell's book (provided by Dr. Schell)
• Begin Needs Assessment Report
• Begin Objectives List and Task Analysis
• Obtain Whale Morphology content from Alissa
• Begin activity logs
  

Welcome

Welcome to our project management site! This will be our home base for the project - we can post meeting times, documentation, discussion, and other important info here for our team. All Team 15/5s will be posted here as well. Once you all get your individual project sites going, please send me a link so I can post them on the sidebar.

Wow!

I've never blogged before, this is pretty cool! Carrie you will have to teach me a few things about this. I think I have found my new toy for the month?, year?