Proposal Process

Hi readers,

This past week our project team has met several times to write the proposal. Although the proposal is still a work in progress, we have begun to elaborate on the things we may want to include in our instruction with greater detail. I plan to briefly talk about our process in creating the proposal.

The first thing our group did was populate a list of some of the general instructional elements we hoped to include in the online instruction. These categories are “video,” “text lessons,” “images,” and “interactive activities.” These groups are not completely inclusive but they gave us a sufficient enough way to begin organizing our design decisions.

In terms of video, we plan to make cut-out animated videos with narration and occasional text. The style of these videos connects with the informal, light-hearted mood of play-based teaching. We also may have live action videos in which we act out activities or simply lecture directly to the camera. We hope that if we use multiple styles of videos that each style will be consistent with a specific theme or topic. For example, all animated videos may be only used to illustrate concrete activities, whereas conceptual lessons may only be shown with live action video.

In terms of images, we plan to use some pictures with the text-based instruction slides. The images will be consistent in style. Consistency adds to the professionalism of the site. Also, the images should be closely related to the content. Finally, we will likely employ color pictures because color is often more aesthetically pleasing.

Finally, we plan to include several interactive activities so the user stays engaged with the lesson. One idea is to have users answer questions after reading a text or watching a video. In some cases, we may only be able to provide “suggested  responses” to user’s answers. However, quizzes on conceptual information could include direct feedback in which the user is told exactly whether they got an answer correct or not. Also, we are considering asking users to create their own play-based activity given specific constraints. One final idea we have is to have animated “choose your own path” videos in which user’s choices determine how an activity is set up and run. Some of these paths could be better for creating play-based learning environments and we would alert the learner to those considerations once the video has completed.

We will be sure to post our proposal so everyone can view it once it is finished by Monday!

-Scott