Brainstorming for My EDCI590 Project

Hi everyone in EDCI 572,

In spite of the above greeting, I have to say that you don't really have to read this unless you are really interested in reading what I observed in today's class.

The purpose of this blog today is to decide what my project for the class will be. I come to your class every time it meets, but I am not officially in EDCI 572. I am in the independent course with Dr. Schaffer and I think attending your classes is part of it. Just like you're instructed to be "self-directed," I think I am, too. So, I think I will use blogs to brainstorm what I want to do by myself. All I know about my project is that this is titled "Service-Learning Design." I will look at the design issues of Art Smart (or ArtSmart in one word) for my course. I am trying to decide a methodology to attain the goal. Here are a few ideas:

(1) Case Study
(2) Ethnographical Study

I am leaning toward (1) because this type of study can emcompass a lot of areas. But since service-learning involves the community, it could be interesting to use (2), which looks at people's behavior within a culture or social group.

Either way, what I have to do is to document whatever I observe. So, I start writing down what I observed today's meeting:

Place: BRG 3288
Date: Sept. 4th, 2007
Time: 6-9 P.M.
Participants: Dr. Schaffer, all classmates, nd stakeholders: Leslie, Kathy, Susan, and Angie (If I make any mistake here, I am sorry. I was not really planning in the class that I was going to make the current writing available to you.)
Main agenda of the class session: Meeting with Stakeholders/Clients
Purpose of the sessoin: To understand what they want us to create by the end of the semester

I describe what the clients' roles or what they have been doing for this project:
Kathy: has been making lesson plans to teach Indiana art and history with ArtSmart materials.
Susan: authored the original ArtSmart book.
Angie: from The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, which is a partner of the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette for this ArtSmart project.
Leslie: (I am sorry I could not write down what I heard. If someone can help me with this part, please help.)

I will summarize the discussions today:
(1) This ArtSmart project is an educational outreach program.
(2) Several things that have been decided by clients' side:
-CD-Rom will not be used. The program will be web-based to meet teachers' needs/preference.
-Indiana 4th grade teachers (and students and possibly other adults) are the target "audience."
-We cannot manipulate art images.
(3) Subjects are interdisciplinary; art, history, language arts, geography, math (, photography).

Problems discussed or identified:
(1) Updating old slide format by digitization.
(2) Meeting teachers' needs: Indiana Standards (We also have to consider teachers are busy.)
(3) Fun and educational program for unmotivated students

Other ideas discussed:
(1) Customization/extensibility of module/lesson plans as a teacher's tool: Clients want to have teachers ability/freedom to be creative (through choosing art images on their own) instead of just providing a complete package of rigid lesson plans.
(2) We can come up with a lot of useful things for this program; but the core functionalities have to be determined. One of them would be to allow teachers "search" for what they want.
(3) Architecture of database
(4) This is going to be on-going project to which things can be added. "Feature of the month" could be a good idea, for instance.
(5) Assessment issues.
(6) Link to the artists' websites.
(7) Will this be "awareness" type of learning, or "analysis," "problem-solving"? (Dr. Schaffer's question) -->Probably it will be "inquiry-based" (per Leslie).
(8) Teacher is the primary audience.
(9) Two different ideas mentioned regarding the types of learning:
-Informal: open-learning, independent learning, at home (when doing homework)
-Formal: directed, in group with partners and teacher-dependent, in the lab.
(10) Appreciation of Art is another core idea of this program.
(11) Authentification (with password)
(12) Web quest (Leslie's idea)
(In the above list, I did not really list ideas from the students although there were some innovative ideas.)

After the clients left, we discussed:
(1) Database
(2) Analysis of the target audience/user of the program ("Learner Analysis" by Smith & Ragan).
Focus group: We will have a chance to hear what teachers want to say maybe next week.
Survey: Should we conduct a survery? (Time and labor?)
(3) EDCI 572 agenda for the next week was discussed.

Pursuing my own interest of design issue, I discuss Wiki next:
(1) Wiki is a communication tool that allows many-to-many (compared to blog's one-to-many) web-based discussions. Wiki (like job aids) have been introduced to the class. I have never used this before; so I will learn a lot about it. This wiki will be migrated to Media Wiki later.
(2) After the clients left, we also discussed how to use Blackboard and Wiki. I hardly came up with ideas then, but now I think I appreciate this Blackboard. Wiki is available to all the clients. I cannot really show my poor ability to listen and write down English. Can someone help me and give me what Leslie's title and role?
(3) I think Wiki is a type of social networking. It will hep communications between the project manager (Dr. Schaffer), instructional designers (students), and clients/stakeholders.

Shigetake