BATTLING EXTINCTION: FALL 2016

Overview

The Battling Extinction Educational App was created by KCAD faculty and students in collaboration with Kenowa Hills Public Middle School teachers and students as part of the EPIC Project.

App content

A 22 second animated introduction that is designed to attract the student's attention, set the expectation that they are about to have an entertaining experience and set up a sense of urgency around the topic of animal extinction.
A world map that acts as a navigation system. Student choose locations to visit and learn about specific animals. Four of the animals are commonly known and two are not.
Animal locations within the app include:
- Extinction Status
- An animated, interactive story about the cause of extinction. Each story page has a small amount of additional reading that provides information not in the animation.
- Discussion Questions based on the 5 habits of mind.
- Research resources
- Review quiz
An overall assessment test that can be taken by students on-line.

Bill's User Testing Notes from Artprize 9/16

Teachers with groups of about 10 middle school students stopped at my station for a 5 minute lesson. The station utilized a 60" television with speakers in the ArtPrize hub. The students and teachers all stood in close proximity to me. The lesson went like this:

Show intro

Play one or two stories

Go through one or two quizzes

Functional Issues

Quizes..text often appears crowded in their containers

There are many grammatical errors throughout the app

The second Saola story animation has issues.

The Audio is not synced to the trap motions correctly

Part of the trap reappears at the end (it's not supposed to be there).

Effectiveness

The intro really attracted the attention of the students. It emotionally prepared them to take the content that follows seriously.

The quizzes acted as a way to maintain flow and connection between the teacher and the students.

The fact that the quizzes were pretty easy enabled every student to feel confident in raising their hands.
The funny answers could be used by the teacher to re-engage the students periodically (I would read them aloud and the students all said Nooo! and had a little laugh)

The "Read More's integrated in the stories stalled the flow of the teacher-student interaction. Stopping to read the text was not a multi-media experience. This is probably less of a factor when the teacher is not rushing through.

Some stories kept either the animation or sound active during the read-mores. This helped keep the multimedia experience flowing.
Another user test by Susan in a large classroom environment found that students really enjoyed reading them and it even became a little competitive, in a fun way, to see who could read best. Those that struggled were offered encouragement.

Summary on the feelings from the user testing:

The groups of students I met with really felt the app was engaging and fun and made them want to help the animals.
They thought you helped them learn it so much that they have a lot of ideas for another project.
They really liked seeing the animals populate in the quizzes and felt they were changing the world.
You inspired them!
One student even read the read mores with an "epic" voice as he put it - He made it sound like a movie trailer
- it was awesome!
The younger students (MS) all were fighting for a chance to get to read it- they had a ton of fun with the quizzes. There was a lot of laughter and fun. It was actually hard to get them refocused but then they would sit very intently listening to the animations when they were on.
It is good stuff! They really felt like the quizzes were a game and not a boring fill in the blank "boredom drool fest" they are used to.

Overall Assessment:

from H.S. at Innocademy - intro looks, sounds and feels like a first person shooter game.

They thought it was a game and wanted “the ad” (for the game) to show more of the game.

How does it make you feel? It sounds like "I can change the world."

Start Screen Assessment:

(Main map) HS students felt like it was a pick a mission screen from a game.

This felt very natural to them and like the games they were used to.

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