Over the next few weeks I have a lot of specific areas I need to focus on to reach my intended designation of StudentConnected’s creation – in my proposal I listed a brief schedule that I would be looking at occasionally to remind myself what work needs to be done. This was a decision to help keep myself on track and to hit very specific goals throughout this process.
The proposal schedule looked like this:
I have since expanded on this timeline to include every single task that needs to be completed within my R&D file and the feedback analysis after the hand in.
I will continue to update this schedule through the process until Week 12.
You can see this new schedule by downloading here:
The concept is one issue that I believe I have not yet made 100% clear what I am aiming to achieve. So far I have talked about the app in a broad range of issues & features, I want to dedicate this focus on that within this blog post.
I wish to create an app to improve the functionality and visual style of Blackboard – ‘studentconnected’ aims to be a companion app that installs new features, improves the graphical design of the app and increases functionality within the app aiming to enhance the average university students experience. Within my proposal I have stated that Blackboard, an educational web portal and learning management system is a definitive inspiration for Student Connected and what it aims to achieve.
To impact productivity & time management positively through the use of creating a simple, fast and effective digital outlet that helps educate, inform and organize university students through faster & smarter learning. The end result of the project is to be left with a digital app that at its core is designed to help university students manage their education easier, helping to save time throughout the day to focus on additional tasks assisting in advancing the individual’s skillset.
It will put the student in a place of power, allowing to customize their workload; letting them see what work needs to be done, when it’s due in and the tasks required to reach that end goal. Alongside offering additional optional articles, videos and audio bytes by tutors to be educated by in a streamlined, easy-to-use & aesthetically pleasing design that entices the student to come back & work harder.
Why create this app?
Education is subjective, everyone learns at their own speeds in different ways and the best way to accommodate that is to create an environment that sets itself up to be customizable, supporting different styles. Being able to take ownership of your own education and deciding when you complete a task and how you will digest the information presented to you will allow you to thrive. Everyone knows their own learning styles and this app is designed to help hone in on what specifically allows you to have that learning style and adjust the workload to it.
Teachers teach in different manners but the same end goal is there no matter what the delivery. However we can’t pick and choose our tutors and most online information is already created for the masses. StudentConnected aims to help teachers teach you what you need to know without ineffective interfaces and unpromising learning styles that may not fit you. A metaphor to describe it – this app assists in giving you the finest boots, best stamina and leg power to score without ever having to move the goalposts. The app uses powerpoints from lectures and seminars for the conventional method in a shiny new way while also tutoring students individually by pulling from a pool of extra resources, a program that tests students on what they know and more importantly adapts to the way that they learn over time by comparing the effectiveness of different videos, articles and tests to discover, scientifically what works best. Statistical information like this can be used by teachers to fine tune their presentations and methods of teaching.
This app is an improvement of current apps in the market such as ‘Blackboard’ which visually and structurally is undesirable, with ruthless design, no personality or flair and a lack of options to interact with the work presented. StudentConnected aims to bridge the conventional educational apps with the feel and positive progression as seen in other educational apps like Duolingo and Code Academy. Both of which have been proven to engage younger individuals and adults [1]. Apps like these are slowly increasing and StudentConnected fits into this category of being an alternative to the mundane and boring, helping to encourage students to feel rewarded. With the likes of Adobe Generation & Khan Academy having millions invested into them it is a very real possibility that tools such as StudentConnected are helping strive towards a digital classroom or a hybrid between the two to fully engage with everything that there is to offer.
The app will look at the following types of learners and allow tutors as well as students to customize their work and how they consume information:
Sensing learners
Visual learners
Active learners
Sequential learners
This idea came from a video created by CGPGrey who delved into what the future of education may look like. A digital Aristotle as he calls it is a platform that all students will use to be educated in a specific way to them that will allow them to grow at 10x the pace than they would being sat in a class of 30 learning from one teacher. Bringing these different learning styles into this app I feel is a way of moving us closer to that destination. You can watch his video here:
This is an important part of the app which will be discussed in detail in a future blog post regarding the apps visual interfaces.
Critical Analysis on Blackboard’s Visual & Functionality & Survey Results
Within my proposal I have stated that Blackboard, an educational web portal and learning management system is a definitive inspiration for Student Connected and what it aims to achieve. Student Connected is built to work alongside Blackboard as an addon service that will enhance the average university students experience – this next section will delve into the service and why it has prompted Student Connected’s creation.
Used by tutors and students, Blackboard is one of the UK’s largest services for hosting educational material and is used daily by millions up and down the country, however Blackboard’s functionality is one of the main issues found with both tutors and students alike. This knowledge was gained through a survey recently taken at the university of Lincoln and by students attending other college’s of arts such as Cardiff University. The site’s visual and functionality problems tend to be one and the same, with layouts and organisation systems in place across that site that jeopardize the entire learning management system for their students.
Modules are spread so thin within multiple folders, sections and files which makes it incredibly easy to get lost and miss crucial information. Throughout multiple responses that I received it was clearly noted that most of the issues stemmed from the structure of the website and how Blackboard visually gets this information across to the user. This is something that I’ve had to deal with countless times and have found myself opening 6 or 7 different folders within a single tab when the document I am looking for is in a completely different tab within another 4 or 5 folders. I aim to work around this issue within Student Connected as its a concept that if solved would immediately solve a lot of issues found within Blackboard.
As each year passes more modules get added onto Blackboard, these modules appear frequently with similar names making it difficult to distinguish between a first year Digital Media module & a second year Digital Media module.
Submitting essay’s and files to Blackboard can be incredibly difficult for students at times, primarily due to the layout of the webpage and the many links that need to be clicked before reaching the submission page. Having a system that can act in this way is reckless and doesn’t offer the best service for students – especially on deadline day where any submission even if a mistake is registered and counted. This will be taken into consideration when designing interface that students and tutors will be interacting with.
I personally find that Blackboard is a service that has the possibility to be incredibly useful and informative to both students and a platform for tutors to distribute content – it is minor errors like these that cause major discomfort within the platform for users. Student Connected will once again take all of these issues into consideration & will build upon them to help create a system that will support Blackboard and hopefully increase the usability of both platforms. Blackboard tends to be too rigid, corporate and uninteresting, it doesn’t give any incentive to sit down and do work or be creative. These are the issues faced daily on a desktop system which allows more control and screen space, blackboard’s app amplifies these problems and is usually disregarded by students soon after installing.
I have found that there are too many problems that I have studied within the survey monkey report & what I’ve personally noticed – all future improvements will be created for the Student Connected app and then justified in the R&D & presentation file.
Two clear examples showcasing the multiple tabs issue which was mentioned in the SurveyMonkey responses.
This blog post is going to focus on the composition practise that we were tasked with in our recent Digital Media lecture. I will also showcase the new and improved proposal based off of myself and James’s meeting as discussed in the previous blog post.
In the lecture taught by Jon Holmes, we were shown the fundamentals of good composition and how to show contrast within our designs to engage individual’s eyes. The following are some of the key concepts put forth:
Design it about the relationship between components.
CONTRAST in Light CONTRAST in Colour CONTRAST in Character CONTRAST in Sound
Dimensions and Scale
Balance can be asymmetrical to promote Contrast & Focus.
Rule of Thirds
Landscape colours change to show Distance.
I had designed something very similar to what Jon had demonstrated in a live tutorial within the lecture months before hand and it was quite remarkable how many of these key concepts I had already taken into account without ever having assistance from Jon. I had created the following design:
I find that my design breaks some of the rules Jon had put forward within his lecture, such as placing the hero in the centre of the composition rather than on a rule of thirds or along its lines. I used the mountains to create a valley where the hero would pass through but also to draw the eyes in towards there hero to see his scale in comparison to the massive mountain in the background. I had also designed a whale to be in the centre of the composition to help create a more interesting and abstract image that would make you ponder as to why there is a flying whale.
These key concepts will help when it comes to designing my app & final concept poster through contrast, colour, size etc. This could be used to help keep students engaged within the app and to showcase certain buttons, images and composition within the smartphone’s display to showcase certain areas of importance.
Proposal:
Since last week I have updated the proposal with the changes that were discussed with James in our meeting, I feel that the proposal is more concise and professional for it and that the project as a whole is now more defined moving forward.
Over the last week I created a proposal based on the issues and discussions that I mentioned in the previous blog post. I spoke with James over the direction of where I would like to take the app, its working name & the target audience I shall be marketing to.
Here is the 1st proposal which will be improved upon:
We discussed a lot of things which I will change and improve on in my final proposal which will be handed in but here are the main issues:
‘StudentConnected’ is a very good working title however more should looked at and given to my target audience to receive feedback on the best option.
A few words that may be taken as slander if the proposal was to be released to the public, such as blackboard being classed as appalling with bad its design. However much I believe this to be true it is not professional to deem a service unworthy of use. This is why words will be changed to still show the distasteful, sluggish design but in a more convoluted manner. Myself and James also discussed the notion that it would be very beneficial to have created an education app in my current position as a student, giving me access to feedback whenever I needed it. It was also mentioned that it would be best to receive feedback constantly throughout the production of the app/website – I initially had my feedback stage towards the end of production however James felt this was counter-intuitive.
There was also talk by James on the issue that this service may come across as a portal rather than its own individual application – this problem had already crossed my mind and I was quite wary of staying away from that territory. James suggested that it was probably best if I was to eliminate some of the utilities within the app and to focus on creating specific features to allow the project to stand on its own two feet away from competitors. He went on to mention how Design is Key in a service like this and that I should spent a long time using wire frame to design the initial early stages of the concept before moving on variations of the apps final design.
I gained a lot of knowledge from this meeting with James, he has helped me understand what I need to create and what I need to do to create an exciting, attractive app. He left me with two questions to ponder on which I will talk indepth on in my next blog post alongside the other topics mentioned. These questions were:
This product/service/app should be what Blackboard isn’t – how could I make this more friendly and engaging for university students?
