Week 1 Principles and practices,Project Management

This is our first week fab academy, we learned what is fab academy, how fab academy can possible change the world by using digital fabrication. We also learned project management and how to make a personal website to ducument the learning process.

Weekly Assignment

  1. Plan and sketch a potential final project

1 Plan and sketch a potential final project

  • First, I checked other fabcademy students projets, looking forward some inspirations.
  • Second, I define a challenge in my career. I am a STEAM teacher, one chanllenge in my classroom is how to make a fun and supportive classroom culture. Then I have an idea about my potential final project: make a board game machine that is fun to play with and also helpful for teaching .
  • Third, I did some research about board game machine and brainstorm about it.

1 What does it do?

Smart Paw -------A device for VOICE and CHOICE in the classroom.

A classroom device for equity, engagement, & self-directed Learning. It sends data from students to teacher's laptop. For example , you can use it for those situations above:

  • Vote
  • Answer multiple choices
  • Rundom selector
  • Bingo bell

    • Teachers can design board games/games using this device.When teachers can collect data from students during class, it will improve teaching efficiency.

    2 Why it is important?

    For teachers, improve teaching efficency. Get feedbacks in short time from everyong. In Chinese public schools, there are about 40~48 students in one class, teaching efficiency is quite low cause the diversity of students. Because there are too many students so most students have few chance to talk or interact with teachers. Teaching is more about showing knowleges to students,of course some smart students will understand and some will not. A better way of teaching is "teach--get feedbacks--teach based on feedbacks". This device is very helpful for teachers to improve teaching efficiency.

    For students, This device can help them show their voice and choice during class. Nowadays, students are get bored of just sitting in the classroom and listening to teachers, they need voice and choice so they can actully have motivations to learn rather than learn for teachers/parents demands .

    For school management team, they can use data of this device to make better decision of school management for knowing what's happening in the classsroom.

    3 Who's done what beforehand?

    I haven’t seen any hardwear devices have these functions, but I have seen some softwares.

  • Poll Everywhere – This is the polling software that can be use for classroom and also to present at conferences and events. You can easily set up polls and deploy them from a desktop computer or your smartphone. Participants can use their desktops, smartphones to text in their answers, or even tweet their responses on Twitter! Results display in real-time in a beautiful interface for all to see.
  • CrowdSignal – Probably the best known polling software on the Web, PollDaddy offers the ability to create beautiful polls, view results in eye-catching pie and bar charts, export results, and more. There is also a Polldaddy Polls and Ratings plugin for WordPress if you'd like to incorporate them into your blog. I've been using these polls for years and have not been disappointed yet. Here are the results of just one of the many polls I've taken of iLibrarian readers:

    • However, in most classes in China, students are not allowed to bring the smart phone to school.So they can not use these softwares.Smart phones have too many functions that might attract students attention out of the class.So I think it’s a good idea that students can have a small device that they can use in the classroom for better learning outcome.

    4 What did you design?

  • For students. I will design a device with multiple keys.And this device can send messages to teacher's laptop. Students can sending data to teachers without stop the class.
  • For teachers: First. I will Design a GUI on teacher’s Laptop. They can collect many students response in short time. Second I will design some games template for teachers to use. So they can combine different subjects to games or board game rules. For the first draft.I will design only one device and let this device connect to teachers laptop by a GUI. And for the second draft, I will design three devices.And test in the classroom. If they work well, I will design more devices.

    • However, in most classes in China, students are not allowed to bring the smart phone to school.So they can not use these softwares.Smart phones have too many functions that might attract students attention out of the class.So I think it’s a good idea that students can have a small device that they can use in the classroom for better learning outcome.

    * Board Game Machine Reseach

      I search on youtube to find some interesting board game machine that might can use for classroom teaching . For this classroom board game machine, at least it should support 5 players(five groups students) . So they can do group learning to gain credits.

      Here are some games I like, I am going to redesign rules of game, board, cards and so on.

      The Game of Life - Electronic Banking

      Here are some game design tips.

      Top 10 Tips for Game Designers

      When I want to check does the idea innovative or not I can check on these website

      Board Game Design Forum