M1: Early Ideas

I generated a bunch of ideas around this topic. The main idea is based on my previous course project My Future Baby, but I want to expand and redesign it. I also collect random ideas coming up to my mind in my everyday life, while learning, reading books, scrolling through websites, watching TEDs, playing games, or even dreaming. I put them around the key aspects of what I want to have in my project as a sticker-note whiteboard, and try to integrate them into my main idea. They are open to twist or abandon too. It's just a sparkle box.

I designed this short survey and plan to send it to my friends first, to get some broad ideas about my topic. They are open questions, so I expect that only my personal relationship can help me get some feedback. It also functions as a selection to show me who might be interested in participating in my design process as potential users, depending on their inputs. Further discussion questions will be tailored individually based on their feedback. I’m hoping this survey can help me refine my initial proposal.

• English version:

1. Do you have children? ☐ yes -> Q3 ☐ no -> Q2

2. Do you plan to have children? ☐ yes -> Q5 ☐ no -> End survey. Thanks!

3. How many kids do you have? (if applicable) ___

4. What are your kids’ ages? (if applicable) ___

5. What are your expectations about your kids’ future? ___

6. What are your expectations about your kids’ learning? ___

7. What are the biggest challenges you worry the most regarding your kids’ learning? ___

8. What are your solutions to those challenges? ___

9. What are the difficulties of supporting your kids’ learning you’re currently facing or anticipating to meet? ___

10. Thank you very much for participating in my thesis project. If you allow me to reach out to you to discuss anything further, please leave your name and preferred contact ___

• Chinese version:

1. 你有孩子吗? ☐ 有 -> 3 ☐ 没有 -> 2

2. 你打算要孩子吗? ☐ 打算 -> 5 ☐ 不打算 -> 谢谢参与

3. 你有几个孩子? （如有）___

4. 你的孩子几岁了? （如有）___

5. 你对孩子的未来有什么期望? ___

6. 你对孩子的学习有什么期望? ___

7. 对于孩子的学习，有什么挑战是你最担心的? ___

8. 你采用什么办法应对这些挑战?___

9. 在支持孩子学习方面你正面临或预计会遇到哪些困难？___

10. 非常感谢你参与我的毕业设计。如果你愿意参与进一步讨论，请留下你的姓名和首选联系方式 ___

If you're interested in taking my survey, please click the button below

Takeaways:

1. Primary target audience should narrow down to parents of certain children’s age range (how to define the proper age range, or differentiate content for supporting different ages). The closer the kids are to school age, the more specific the parents interests in support learning are.

2. This product may only attract the families who value and attach importance to child development and education, may not aim to change parents attitudes toward education.

3. Some of parents’ interests regarding parenting issue are out of the scope of this project. It can only hit some but not all the concerns.

4. Time and effort commitment is the key limitation of adopting this product. Concerns about games addiction and reliance on electronic device may become an attitude obstacle.

5. Some parents may not know that certain learning techniques exist, can be used or need to be learned, so that they don’t express the needs of knowing/learning these knowledge.

6. Some parents may think that teaching/learning how to learn is school’s responsibility or children’s spontaneous process. School-children-family engagement triangle is incomplete.

7. Self-guided learning, motivation, growth mindset, soft skills, personalized learning, metacognition, emotion management, adaptability, transferability, supplement to formal education, information literacy, these topics are the most popular topics to address.

• What is the problem?

• Why is it important?

• Why is a game?

• What it is & what it isn’t?