Design Alternatives

Group Alpha Group Members:

Katharine Hochstedt

Jennifer Tsan

Drew Peeples

Maximillian Norwood

Introduction

Teachers of inclusive classrooms are often unprepared to support collaborative activities

for students with special needs. Research has shown that providing teachers with a “communal

learning experience” (Rix, 2009) and employing co-teaching (i.e. having both general and

special education teachers work together in the same classroom) can provide effective support

for special needs students, including within the context of collaborative learning. Implementing

methods such as “floor control” into collaborative experiences has also been shown to benefit

special needs students’ comprehension of tasks (Cress, 2011). Our e-learning platform will

foster collaboration between co-teachers to address lesson plans, teaching strategies, and issues

with individual students. Classroom teachers are our primary users for this design and they will

be taught how to facilitate CSCL with their students, who have identified as our secondary

users.

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 We have identified three “phases” of tasks to be completed by primary and secondary

users. In the first phase, teachers will set up lessons and activities for student which could

include reviewing past student results, discussing strategies with co-teachers, or setting up

“floor control” and related mechanisms to assist special needs students. In the second phase,

students will participate in these collaborative activities in classroom groups. In the third phase,

teachers will review the activities completed by students and discuss the outcomes and future

plans.

We chose to work with VMT as our base system since it has been around for years and

established research has shown that it is effective for promoting CSCL in a math context. There

are many strong points to using VMT. A large user base demonstrates that there are many

people who enjoy the benefits it offers. VMT relies on features which many users will find

familiar, such as text chat and shared whiteboards, which will make it easier for students to

familiarize themselves with the tool. Many items which we would need to include, such as text

chat, shared objects, and deictic referencing, are already supported within VMT. Most

important to our project is the fact that VMT is designed specifically to be a collaborative

learning tool. Since its introduction as an adapted AIM chatroom, VMT has been iteratively

improved and customized to address real problems faced by the collaborative groups using it

(Stahl, 2009). The result is a system which has been continually studied and adapted to best

fulfill the objectives of collaborative learning, as well as the objectives of our project.

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 In order to assist special needs learners in social skill development, a key instructional

objective of our design is to build interpersonal skills for special needs students through the use

of CSCL. Before students engage in CSCL, it is important that teachers facilitate group-building

collaborative activities that can help learners relate to one another. An activity like the

marshmallow challenge is a great example of a group-building collaborative activity that gets

students comfortable with one another while using critical thinking and problem solving

techniques. CSCL for special needs learners can be difficult for educators to facilitate, so the

group needs to collect data and determine what steps need to be taken for successful CSCL.

There are many criteria that will ensure the success of the system. We will provide an

intuitive user interface that can support the needs of many users. Simple summaries of students’

progress is easily accessible to all users (teachers, students, and parent). The effectiveness of the

system will be determined by user studies in between iterations. Users will be able to

communicate and collaborate between users of their own type as well as other types. Finally,

there should be a different perspective for each type of user.

Design Space Items

We broke down the design items by the type of user that will need or benefit from them:

Teachers, Students, and Parents.

● For teachers: Text chat, whiteboard, and other shared objects they can work with.

Deictic referencing of individual students, assignments, and objects. Administrative

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interface where they can manipulate settings on upcoming assignments, down to specific

groups or students. Interface where they can access chat/whiteboard recordings from

past assignments. A dashboard where they can view each students’ progress and add

notes for their co-teachers to see.

○ Text chat​​: with this feature teachers can communicate with each other, students,

and parents. They can discuss the students’ progress both in and out of the

students’ problem solving sessions. This is especially helpful for co-teachers

since they can decide when they think the students need interventions. The text

chat can also allow them to speak with each student individually if the teacher or

student has concerns about the progress. Finally, teachers and parents can

message each other in a simple interface so parents know how their children are

faring in their class.

○ Whiteboard: ​While students are working on solving their math problems, it is

useful for them to be able to write down steps and draw figures. By allowing the

teachers to have access to this feature, they can watch the students solve the

problem and possibly intervene if they stray too far from the correct path. They

can also manipulate the items in the shared space in case they need to

demonstrate any steps to the students.

○ Shared Objects: ​Another useful feature for the teachers to have during the

students’ problem solving session is shared objects. As useful as the whiteboard

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 is, it is quicker for the teachers and students to be able to manipulate objects such

as basic shapes, lines, and tables. Teachers can use these objects to demonstrate

concepts and present examples to the students. The preset objects will reduce the

time and frustration it may take to draw such objects using a mouse and it will

also be easier to read.

○ Deictic Referencing: ​This feature allows instructors to make direct references to

images in the whiteboard from the chat. This can be used to leave deictic

references for students in their assignments, and can be used in the

administrative interface when co-teachers work on assignments. Deictic

referencing is especially important for special needs students since it can easily

direct them to a specific point in an equation or image.

○ Administrative Interface: ​The purpose of this feature is to provide instructors

with an interface where they are able to create new assignments and be able to

view completed assignments. Assignments in the interface can be tailored to

specific groups or students. In a co-teaching setting, the co-teachers can use the

interface to brainstorm ideas for upcoming assignments.

○ History Interface: ​Teachers will use this interface to reference any past

assignments from their students and any previous chat/whiteboard recordings.

Student assignments will be saved in a folder for each individual student, and the

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 chat/whiteboard recordings will be saved in folders according to students’

groups.

○ Dashboard: ​In the dashboard the teachers can view each team’s and student’s

profiles. The profiles will contain information about the students’ progress on

their assignments as well as how well they did on each completed assignment.

The teachers can also write notes to each other about any concerns they see

based on the information provided on the profiles.

● For students: Text chat, whiteboard, shared objects. All items should be recorded and

available for teachers to review.

○ Text Chat: ​Students will use text to communicate within the program, whether

from real-time chat or posted messages/comments. The benefit of text chat is

that it is straightforward to review by both students and teachers. Students can

easily look back at previous parts of the conversation and reference them in

current discussion. The use of text and chat logs will also be helpful for special

needs students, who could benefit from the ability to revisit past details and

manage the pacing of the discussion. The use of student text chat also benefits

teachers, as it gives them an easy way to review conversations and assess how

students are performing. Two of the design options we identified explore

different levels of text chat among students.

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 ○ Whiteboard: ​Whiteboards will help students with expressing ideas, working

through problems, and sharing work with other group members. There is also

precedent for using whiteboards in collaborative learning, including in VMT

which is an inspiration for this project. At a minimum, the whiteboard should

include pen/brush tools for freehand drawing, text entry tools, and shape tools,

although we may find other tools through testing which may be helpful to have

in this space.

○ Shared Objects: In addition to whiteboards, we would also like to implement a

selection of shared objects which are relevant to the math activities being

completed by students. These could include, but are not limited to, tables, 2D

and 3D shapes, and diagrams of problems. Like whiteboards, these objects could

be edited and manipulated by group members to further their discussion of the

task. Additionally, students should be able to reference parts of a shared object,

such as a cell from a table or a side of a shape, and bring those references in to

the ongoing text conversation.

● For parents: Text chat (with teachers), shared objects (with teachers) such as student

artifacts and teacher/student chats.

○ Text chat: Parents will use the text chat feature to communicate with the

teachers. Texts from teachers can give parents updates on how the student is

performing by messaging what the students does in the class and giving possible

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 suggestions for student success. This feature allows the parents to keep up with

their students’ progress and the any other issues they face in school and in the

classroom. The value of the text chat in this design is that it allows an instant

and straightforward contact with the parents on what’s taking place in the

classroom. This format is often seen in apps such as Class Dojo (Williamson,

2017). The parents of special need students will be able to appreciate using text

chat in the classroom through conversations with the teacher relating to the

concerns of their special need students’ growth while participating in the VMT

project

○ Shared objects: Parents would have a way to view their students outcome from

VMT activities, either shared indirectly or directly by a teacher through the

system used by the teacher to communicate with the parents. When the chat log

is used to check on the progress of the students, there should be outlines that are

easy for students, teachers, and parents to recognize. The artifacts can range from

graphs of the students’ progress to paragraphs written by the teacher in support

of reaching out to the parents’ through privately communicating what is being

used to teach the special need students’. In addition, from the conversations with

the teacher, parents should be able to understand what was covered in the

tables/artifacts that the teacher has presented pertaining to the students’ works.

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Difficult Items:

● Creating custom workspaces for individuals and groups within the same classroom for

the same assignment.

● Ensuring that features are accessible to students with a large range of disabilities. We

cannot anticipate what disabilities and challenges each classroom will be facing.

○ Some of the features that are good for students with specific disabilities may be

unnecessary for students without those disabilities so we will have to have the

interface be very adaptive to the user.

● Integrating the key features that every type of user needs.

Potential Tradeoffs:

● Creating collaborative systems for both students and teachers is a big undertaking. Are

we spreading this too thin? Is it worth focusing just on teachers and helping their

collaborative co-teaching efforts, and omitting the student interface altogether (or vice

versa)?

● Should the student-side of this system require that each student use a computer, or

should it be 1 computer per group? Going along with what was mentioned in the

“Difficult Items”, more individual users could mean more time spent by the teacher

customizing materials for them. We should consider options which balance this time

spent.

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 ● Having too many features may lead to the interface being too cluttered and could

overwhelm users. Should we consider eliminating some functionalities for a smoother

user experience?

Design Options

After reviewing the uses and requirements of our design, we have created four options to

consider. These options are divided by the main target audience: two options are heavily

focused on student collaboration, whereas the other two options are heavily focused on teacher

collaboration. When considering the tradeoffs of our design, we quickly realized that our

original vision of creating a system to foster collaboration for both students and teachers could

be overly ambitious. We believe that an important question for this project is how much

involvement each audience should have in the final experience, and these options reflect

differing levels of involvement between the two types of primary users.

For the two student-focused systems, we are creating two different options to support

settings where every group member has their own computer and settings where the group is

working around a single computer. Although our original vision was to create a system where

every student would be working from their own computer, we recognize that some classrooms

may have limited resources which would prevent this type of experience.

Resource limitations were also a main consideration for our two teacher-focused

options. The first teacher-focused option is intended for classrooms where there are multiple

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co-teachers, and is focused on fostering intimate collaboration between those co-teachers. Our

research has shown that co-teaching provides positive results for inclusive classrooms, so we

absolutely want to explore ways to help co-teachers collaborate. Our hypothesis with this

option is that providing co-teachers with an internal computer-supported collaboration resource

will help them improve their teaching approaches with special needs students. However, we

acknowledge that not every inclusive classroom has co-teachers; resource limitations at schools

can certainly prevent classrooms from having more than one teacher available. With this in

mind, our fourth design option is intended for teachers who do not have a co-teacher available.

This design would allow teachers to collaborate with peers outside of their classroom (such as

within their department or school district) to learn and develop strategies for handling special

needs students.

To summarize, our four proposed options are:

1. Student-focused system for 1:1 computer settings

2. Student-focused system for groups working around a single computer

3. Teacher-focused system for co-teachers working in the same classroom

4. Teacher-focused system for classrooms with no co-teachers

In the following sections, we will discuss each option in-depth.

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Option #1: Student-Focused System for 1:1 Computer Settings

Rationale/Advantages/Disadvantages

When our group began considering how to tailor computer-supported

collaborative learning for students with special needs, our original vision was something

which every student would use on their own computer. A 1:1 computer setting provides

a natural opportunity to customize and tailor experiences for individual students, as each

student would interact with their own user interface.

Within the context of an inclusive classroom, the main advantage of this option

is that students with special needs can adapt their individual interfaces to accommodate

their needs without interfering with those of their group mates. Furthermore, this option

offers the potential for teachers to modify activities for individual students if they feel

the student would benefit (see the “Sample Scenario” for an example). This could

include adding more specific instructions and tooltips, changing the pacing of the lesson,

or intervening as a facilitator during group activities. Ideally, this option would support

the individual needs of every student and provide them with a comfortable experience.

A secondary advantage of this 1:1 option is that the process of monitoring and

reviewing conversations would be relatively straightforward. Since all users would be

contributing from their own computers, teachers could easily identify from the logs who

is commenting and how they are contributing to the activity.

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 The main disadvantage of this option is the overwhelming amount of

customization that could be required. Teachers may not simply have the time to manage

the experiences and settings of individual students for every VMT session. Many

inclusive classrooms also serve students with a vast range of disabilities. In order to

create a system which could adapt to the needs of any individual student in the class, our

design team would also need to consider features supporting this vast range of

disabilities. This could add a substantial amount of time to the design and development

process.

A final consideration is that not every student may be comfortable collaborating

online; some may favor in-person collaboration, or some may prefer not having any peer

interaction at all. With this option, there would be no alternatives for that type of

student to complete the activity, and as a result this student may be less motivated and

engaged in the activity.

(Continued on next page with Option #1 Illustrations)

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Illustrations

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Sample Scenario

Joe is a student with a cognitive impairment and often struggles with using

computer programs within the classroom. Throughout the year, his co-teachers have

realized that Joe performs better when he receives reminders of how to use certain

features on top of the normal instructions for the activity. In their next VMT session,

Joe and his group are asked to solve for X and Y in an equation. Knowing that Joe

benefits from more instructions, the teacher also includes a message for Joe suggesting

that the whiteboard feature would be helpful for working out the problem. The teacher

also adds instructions on how to create a new whiteboard within the program so that Joe

can quickly be reminded of how this feature works. When using the VMT program, Joe

and his teacher also adjust his settings so that the text on the screen is easier for him to

read and understand.

After the activity is completed, Joe’s teacher reviews the chat logs and

whiteboards from the group. The teacher looks for key interactions, problems, or

improvements within the group. From these insights, the teacher considers strategies for

upcoming activities, including changes to Joe’s user experience.

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 Assessment

We plan on assessing both students and teachers regarding the design of this

option. For students, we will begin with a survey of all students within the classroom as

a general gauge of design impressions and issues. With the survey, we hope to identify

how students feel about the design and which features they liked/disliked. We would

also like to interview individual students, particularly those with special needs, to gain

further insight on how they are using the program and how we may need to further adapt

the design. For teachers, we will conduct interviews to discuss their feelings on the

program and how they feel the program is impacting their classroom. We believe that

interviews are most valuable for teachers because this audience is comparatively small

and the interview will give teachers more opportunity to talk about the unique

challenges they are facing with their students.

Option #2: Student-Focused System for Groups Working Around a Single Computer

Rationale/Advantages/Disadvantages

In this scenario we decided to design interfaces to support groups of students

working around a single computer. Although the original idea was for every student to

have access to a computer, we realize that there are many schools that do not have

enough computers for every student in a classroom. Therefore, the main advantage of

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this scenario is that most schools should have enough technological resources to be able

to use VMT.

There are also some disadvantages to this scenario. The first is both for us as

designers and for teachers. The disadvantage is that we will not be able to collect metrics

of the students’ individual progress. Any chat messages that are sent or work that is

completed on the whiteboard belongs to the group. Unless they specify, we will not

know which student made which actions. This makes it more difficult to assess the

students’ progress and understanding.

The next disadvantage is that the students may not be able to contribute to the

assignments equally. If there are students that are more passive, they may not be able to

get control of the keyboard and mouse or even contribute their ideas to solve the

problem. To prevent this teachers should remind the groups to switch control of the

keyboard and mouse after a set time period. Additionally, the teachers may need to sit

down and talk to each student individually to assess how the student feels about his/her

understanding and ability to contribute to the group.

Another disadvantage is that depending on the size of the group, it may be

difficult for all students to see the screen. This may be less of a problem if the students

explain their thought process and switch control regularly but if the group isn’t talkative

and has one or two dominating members, teachers may want to consider intervening.

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 Finally, we will not be able to support each student’s individual needs through

the interface. Since it is unlikely that the groups will be homogenous in terms of the

makeup of the students, it may be more difficult for us to design an interface that will fit

every group’s needs.

Illustrations

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Sample Scenario

Group Alpha is a group of high school students working on assignments given

my their teacher in VMT math. The group is made up of four students: Joe, Maria,

Devon, and Ashley. Joe is a student with a cognitive impairment and often struggles

with using computer programs within the classroom. The teachers, Mrs. Smith and Mr.

Taylor were also in the chat room watching the student’s progress and lending support

when necessary. Knowing that Joe was in the group, Mrs. Smith reminded the group to

use the whiteboard and Mr. Taylor encouraged them to take turns being the person in

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control of they keyboard and mouse. The group starts working on the assignment but

seems to have trouble getting past the first step so the teachers talked to each other on

their own chat and decided to send the students a hint. With this hint the students were

able to complete the assignment.

After the completion of each assignment, Mrs. Smith and Mr. Taylor review the

logs of the session, including the chat and whiteboard. Then they discuss Group Alpha’s

performance on the assignment, how many hints they used, and how they seemed to

have progressed since the last assignment. In addition, the teachers take the time to have

a student-teacher conference to assess how each student seems to feel about his/her

progress. They found out that Joe is feeling more comfortable with the concepts and

even feels more confident about using the program since his group members talked him

through it.

Assessment

In order to fully assess whether the system is effective and user-friendly, we will

survey and interview both students and teachers. The surveys will contain questions

about the enjoyment they found from using the interface as well as whether they

believed it was useful for the tasks they needed to complete. The interviews will allow

us to obtain more in depth answers and gain more insights on the users’ expectations and

allow them to express their ideas for improving the design. In addition, we will view

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 usability tests with both groups of people, especially students with disabilities. We will

have many users complete a series of tasks while thinking aloud. We will take detailed

notes on items where the interface fails to give the necessary support to the user. From

there we will continue to improve our design and cycle through an iterative design

process until they meet the necessary design requirements.

Option #3: Teacher-Focused System for Co-Teachers Working in the Same Classroom

Rationale/Advantages/Disadvantages

Advantages

● Users can work at their own pace

● Collaborative environment for co-teachers

● Easily accessible to a wide range of users

● Cost and time efficient for the designers

● Feedback provided to the users

Disadvantages

● Since this is focused primarily on the co-teachers, this could lead to some issues

since there is a wide range of students’ needs.

● Motivation of the teachers has not been taken into consideration.

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Illustrations

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Sample Scenario

Chris is a teacher of an inclusive classroom and Sherry teaches Algebra. The two

of them have teamed up as co-teachers for a math lesson in Chris’ classroom. They both

have little experience in co-teaching, and are unsure which methods would be effective

in teaching Chris’ students. They have decided to use our program to learn how to

facilitate this classroom, and have a space where they can easily keep track of students’

progress and assignments. Chris and Sherry agree that alternative teaching would be

most effective for them because Chris can focus on the majority of students whereas

Sherry will teach the students who have the most difficulty learning Algebra since she is

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a specialist in the subject.

The teachers set the students up on the VMT program and conduct the class.

After the class, the two of them come into the system to analyze the students’ work.

They determine that Jeff, who originally was being taught in Chris’s group, should

instead be moved to Sherry’s group because he seems to be having difficulty with basic

Algebra. The two of them complete another session using alternative teaching, but come

to the conclusion they should try another co-teaching approach. They settle on one

teach, one assist because they come to the conclusion Sherry is better at teaching

Algebra and Chris would be put to better use by providing individual support to students

who are struggling.

Assessment

Surveys and interviews will be administered to both students and teachers.

Surveys for students will gather data on their perspectives on the usefulness of our

system. We want to know what they think about the system especially how it has

impacted their learning. Interviews for students will be a way to have students further

elaborate upon their experiences using the system.

For teachers, our survey is taken from the ​Friday Institute’s School Technology

Needs Assessment​, and the questions that will be used are from Sections III. Teaching

and Learning and IV. Impact of Technology. The survey’s questions are focused on

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 teacher’s incorporation of technology in their curriculums (i.e. “My lessons include

technology-enhanced, learner-centered teaching strategies”), and the needs of her

learners (i.e. “Technology has helped my students become more socially aware,

confident, and positive about their future”). Contextual interviews will be conducted on

the educators by observing their class and commenting on their instruction. These

interviews will last approximately an hour and a half and will be concluded with a brief

wrap-up where the interviewer will share their observations with the teachers.

Option #4: Teacher-Focused System for Classrooms With No Co-Teachers

Rationale

Typically, teachers work alone in the classroom, but there are many challenges

faced in the classroom when there isn’t a co-teacher present. A classroom that has

students with special needs faces additional obstacles. All special needs students have an

individualized education plan (IEP), that focuses on their individual achievement,

progress, and learning. Teachers without co-teachers may need to manage their

classrooms differently. They may need additional training on learning various ways to

educate special needs by using diagrams, graphics and pictures to augment what they are

saying in words; this strategy benefits the visual and auditory learners at the same time.

The challenges of teaching the students with learning disabilities can be mastered by

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modifying the way in which information is presented. ​The VMT project can be an

effective math teaching method in classrooms without co-teachers. The list below shows

advantages and disadvantages that teachers should be aware of as they go into the

classroom. This potential for an open and free interaction encourages individuals to be

agentic, and thereby encourages the group to support the individuals and stimulates

students to act like mathematicians, exploring together the math worlds they project

(Stahl, 2009). VMT chats within sessions create something unique and promising: an

online world where students can take control, define problems, respond to each other

and then explore the problems of their own making. In this way they behave more like

mathematicians-in-training than like students being taught (Stahl, 2009).

Advantages

● Teacher-Centered Teacher is the sole leader

● Teacher takes responsibility for all the paperwork and organization

● Teacher makes the rules and posts them for all students

● Consequences are fixed for all students

● Students are allowed limited responsibilities

Disadvantages

● Discipline comes from the teacher

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 ● Teacher instruction can be boring for students. Their minds may wander, and

they may miss important facts.

● Teacher instruction doesn’t allow students to express themselves, ask questions,

and direct their own learning.

● Teachers may have to attempt to manage all students’ activities at once, which

can be difficult when students are working on different stages of the same

project.

● Some students prefer to work alone, so group work can become problematic.

Illustrations

Option #4 Teacher Dashboard

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Option #4 Student Dashboard

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Option #4 Administrative Dashboard

Sample Scenario

Lance Lot, a high school teacher, just received three Individualized Education

Plan’s (IEP’s) from the school counselor in regards to Steve Alston, Danielle Waite, and

Marvin Gaye. As Lance reviewed the three IEP’s he found that these students have one

thing in common, they like math. The teacher puts these three special needs students into

the same group to work on math problems and evaluates which level these students are

on. As the students work on their assignment, they became distorted due to the fact that

they have not worked in a group before. The teacher does not have a co-teacher, so will

have to address this issue while continuing to keep the rest of the class up to speed.

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Through the use of our program, the teacher will be able to successfully offer group

interactive skills to those special need students. The teachers’ responsibility is to collect

all paperwork and other types of data. These students will participate in the VMT

project. The teacher will evaluate the students VMT project through math quizzes.

Through collaboration, students will create online flashcards and a wiki document on

important math formulas and terms.

Assessment

Evaluation is only one component of a comprehensive teacher growth and

development system. Interviews and surveys will be administered to the students,

parents, and teachers. While the teacher is evaluating the students group activity in

Virtual Math Teams project, interactionally mechanisms for referencing, remembering,

helps bridge the gap between the special need students and other students. Using

evidence of student learning and other student outcomes is a fundamental component of

the teacher learning and development process. Through the lessons developed by Lance,

he can also measure how effectively the three students are collaborating, by their

contribution to the wiki document. The wiki document provided an effective

communication media. Collaboration can be observed through a checklist. The

Checklist for Group Skills sheet can be used for students to evaluate group members at

the end of the lesson. ​Measuring teachers performance is meaningful when they are

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 based on multiple ratings and clear teaching strategies in the formative growth process

when working with those students in need (NEA, 2000). To have a clear and accurate

feedback based on standards for teaching and student learning that are comprehensive

and transparent would have a tremendous impact on the teachers’ practice (NEA, 2000).

This feedback is suppose to be welcoming and useful towards the teachers’ development

as they teach (NEA, 2000). The tools mentioned in the sample scenario may be more

like communication media than like a hand calculator— they do not simply amplify

individual cognitive abilities, they make possible specific forms of group interaction

(NEA, 2000).

A Google Slide deck showcasing Group Alpha’s design options can be found ​here​.

Usability

Below are the original requirements copied from our Design Needs and Requirements

document dated March 25, 2018.

Teachers:

1) Must be able to communicate freely with co-teachers, both through text chat and

object/whiteboard manipulation.

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 2) Must have a high degree of control over the content of student activities (e.g.

including additional instructions, breaking down the lesson into smaller

components, able to act as facilitator as activities are taking place).

3) Must be able to see and review data from student activities, including but not

limited to chat conversations and whiteboards. Additionally, this data should be

stored long-term so that teachers can go back and monitor progress over time

(we believe this would be particularly useful for maintaining IEPs).

4) Must be able to reference individual students or student groups within

conversations. This will be helpful for monitoring the progress, needs, and

accommodations of individual students.

Students:

1) Must be able to see and use the activities customized by their teachers. In other

words, there should be a 1:1 relationship between what the teacher shares with

the student and what the student uses for the activity.

2) User interface should comply with section 508 standards (Section 508 Law, n.d.)

and should include options for changing the usability of the interface for

individual students. These options could include closed captioning, support for

screen reading tools, ability to change text size, and ability to change interface

color schemes.

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 Based on our review of design alternatives, we believe that no changes need to be made

to these design requirements. Every option we considered incorporated these requirements in

some way. Although each option applies these requirements differently (i.e. the amount of

student data a teacher has access to between options #1 and #2 will differ), we still believe the

requirements are represented and addressed by each design.

Next, you will see the original list of usability criteria we created for the Design Needs

and Requirements document dated March 25, 2018:

1) Intuitive user interface - the user interface of the system should be intuitive to use for

all levels of users. This is especially important because there will likely be minimal

training time for teachers and students and probably no training time for the parents.

2) Simple summaries - when the users log in to check on the progress of the students,

there should be summaries that is easy for students, teachers, and parents to understand.

The displays can range from graphs of the students’ progress to paragraphs written by

the teacher.

3) Flexible - based on the contextual analysis, the developers should design the system in

such a way that it supports the needs of as many users as possible while still keeping

everything simple.

4) Effective ​- the development of this system should be completed iteratively, with user

studies between each iteration. In addition to testing the usability of the system, we

should also test how effective it is in helping each type of user.

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 5) Support many types of collaboration - each type of user should be able to

communicate with users of their own type as well as users of other types. The only

exception may be parent to parent communication. It is unlikely that parents will need to

communicate with other parents. The requirements for these interfaces can be found

above in the task analysis section.

6) Perspectives ​- since there are three types of users and each type of user has a specific

need and will perform specific tasks, there should be a different perspective for each

user.

Like the design requirements, we also believe that these criteria should remain

unchanged after reviewing our design options. We found that these criteria are important to

each of the four designs, and that each design incorporates functionality which will achieve

these criteria for success.

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References

Cress, U., Wodzicki, K., Bientzle, M., & Lingnau, A. (2011). CSCL for intellectually disabled
pupils: Stimulating interaction by using a floor control mechanism. ​International
Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning​, ​6​(2), 307-321.

NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education (2000). “Engaging Public Support for
Teachers’ Professional Development.” Washington, D.C.: ​National Education
Association.​ www.nea.org.

Rix, J., Hall, K., Nind, M., Sheehy, K. & Wearmouth, J. (2009) What pedagogical approaches
can effectively include children with special educational needs in mainstream
classrooms? ​A Systematic literature review Support for Learning​. ​24(2),​ 85-93

Stahl, G. (2009). Chapter 16: Designing a mix of synchronous and asynchronous media for
VMT. In Stahl, G. (2009) ​Studying Virtual Math Teams.​ New York, NY: Springer. p.
295-310.

Williamson, B (2017): Decoding ClassDojo: psycho-policy, social-emotional learning and

persuasive educational technologies, ​Learning, Media and Technology​:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2017.1278020.

Archive of Group Discussions

Google Hangout Chat Log 4/6/18

Google Hangout Chat Log 4/8/18

Google Hangout Chat Log 5/2/18

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