Journal #3 Technology Frustrations

As I mentioned in my last journal entry, my brain is full of ideas and walking through these lessons as well as reading Krause is really allowing them to expand.  I am a visual learner, so typography and color have always stood out to me.   Unfortunately, my technology hasn't allowed those ideas to grow.  I am a Mac guy, but I own a PC that I use occasionally.  That PC for some reason will not play any sound, making my audio creating and testing impossible.  On top of that, I travel a good bit so have not been able to pick up a new laptop.  I plan to purchase tomorrow when I get home from Boston so I can get caught up with Audacity and now the layouts.

I did have a great meeting this week with Dr. Bill Daggett (Rigor/Relevance Model, ICLE) and Ray McNulty (ICLE) and was able to discuss my project and get some suggestions from them.  They like the idea of keeping ideas simple because you need to grab people's attention quickly.  If you aren't familiar with the Rigor/Relevance Framework, please click the link to learn more.  I love the design on their model because I think it follows Krause's guidelines pretty well of effective design.  With that in mind, I am debating creating a few charts similar to the ABCD graph because I think that will stand out in the mind of the principal/teacher/student going through the design.

Where I am now -

- Intro page to determine Principal/Teacher/Student
- Bridge pages allowing each to select area of focus: Math/ELA/Science/Reading
- Bridge pages allowing each to determine what is most important: Growth/Engagement/Assessments
- Product Demo broken up for each target

Should I create a survey at the end to determine what the participant felt about various aspects?  This could be a way to determine if the demonstration was effective as well as find ways to enhance or change the design to make it better.  Would love your thoughts.

Journal #2 - Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

The more I sit down and look into the creation of this design, more ideas seem to come to my mind.  What I have narrowed my project down to is this:  I will create a presentation that will essentially walk three different potential customers through my company's product (Stride Academy).  The three customers will be: A) Principal of a school, B) Teacher in a school, and C) Student in a school.  My thought is to have an initial page with three characters: A, B, and C with a the heading "If you are a Principal, Click Here, etc.  Following the design pattern of Broken Co-Worker, or choose your own adventure, the following screens will be different depending on each selection.

For the Principal selection, the idea is to share the benefit of using the technology program from a school perspective.  Showing school wide progress, emphasizing engagement through technology, will be important.  For the Teacher selection, the emphasis will be on engaging through standards that are currently being taught.  Focus will be on Student Grouping report, Quiz Builder, resources that will benefit the teacher during the school day.  For the Student selection, the emphasis will be on the games and the motivation of the program.  Highlighting badges, coins, games, and ease of use will be key.

I went back and watched a few of the example Storyline projects again for inspiration and really liked the Sales Orientation layout.  I can see a mix between that design and Broken Co-Worker working really well for this project.  I also watched the Lynda tutorials of Storyline and believe it should be fairly straight forward to manipulate through.  I haven't used Storyline before so I am looking forward to diving in and putting the ideas to practice.

Journal #1 - Where to begin?

I am looking forward to this journal and class because I am excited about the opportunity to design something that will hopefully make an impact on others.  Unfortunately, I am still tossing around whether or not that something is possible.  I live in the world of sales and I would like to create a process that makes the sales introduction easier for my team.  Is it possible to simplify the cold call and let potential users of our program see what we do before we show them?

My initial idea is to design a project, similar in style to "Broken Co-Worker", that will explain what our program does to potential implementers.  I like the idea of engaging the potential partner with a "choose your adventure" process so the school can determine whether they are interested in meeting or not.  The hardest part of the education technology industry is getting a foot in the door to potential partners.  There are literally over 7,000 products that schools utilize across the country.  It has been proven that once our company gets in front of schools, our program is engaging and unique and the schools want to implement.  But it is difficult to get in front of schools without word of mouth through schools referring us (which is great, but would be better if we could find more ways to open doors).

I enjoyed reading Krause because of the intricate detail that goes into design that I often overlook.  If I am going to grab a principal or a curriculum director's attention, I need to make sure I look at the spacing, the grouping, basically every aspect of the design to make sure it is captivating.

I wanted to add a link to a video that we currently send out to schools.  It is a great summary of who we are as a company, but it isn't interactive.  Perhaps something interactive will be more engaging.  I would love to hear your thoughts and any suggestions you may have.

STRIDE video here

Brooks