Ideate

What potential solutions can be leveraged to solve this problem? 

We started by looking at the data and exploring other curricular resources from Girls Who Code to Hour of Code to established tutorials on learning sites like Unity’s Learn platforms. Each had a part of the process, but most had pretty limited expectations of what kids would do with very discrete skills. In addition to basic coding skills we needed to find a set of tutorials, training resources, and assets that could be used to empower kids to work with holographic headsets. The Mixed Reality Toolkit is one of the most powerful solutions that will be included in the project because it solves many of the issues that would take high school students too long to create themselves.

What solutions did the community and/or stakeholders provide? 

When I brought these challenges to the kids and to the partners they started to form ideas about how they could make both interactive and static experiences for the headsets we have in the classroom that would help our partner visualize space themed content in virtual spaces. Some students proposed a game and other students proposed a more scientific approach. Throughout the design and development process their ideas were checked off and informed by the partner on the project. The ideas were really broken into two parts though; the first and most tangible part was the actual design of the software experience itself, but the deeper and more impactful part was the development of an infrastructure for the development of that software that addressed the needs of the students, school, and industry pipeline in ways that stayed authentic and true to the stated goals of all groups. Multiple communication tools, programming tools, and product designs were considered and many were selected for prototyping over the course of the project. This eventually led to the selection of Microsoft Teams as our main platform for communication because it was the tool the Space Foundation used for their professional workflow.

What does success look like? How will you measure it? 

Success will look like students getting the opportunity to present their work to the end user client, getting feedback, and both themselves and other students being invited to continue working with partners to make additional experiences. It will also look like students considering the impact of the project on the ways they think about their future and how the impact of the experience affects their motivation to continue studying computer science or game development. Students will be given surveys and interviews at various points in the project and both formal and informal observations will be used to determine success. In addition, student completion of prototypes and assigned benchmarks will also be used. From the partner/client side, student presentations will be evaluated and feedback will be communicated to the instructor.

How might you overcome any barriers to success? 

I will provide individualized support for students who need it. I will also try to build a community of learners to support one another, will create partners and teams internally in the project, and will create targeted tutorials when appropriate. I will also coordinate and communicate with our partners/clients and help to smooth out any necessary issues that arise. When necessary I will adjust the scope and scale of the project and its components to ensure that expectations are leveled for the students and partners.