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Digital Learning Day Live! 2015

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reblogged from OHO Interactive

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UX Expert-a-thon Help education startups at LearnLaunch Accelerator refine their UI and UX strategy, and make connections in the Boston tech community during this fast-paced and fun event. What's LearnLaunch Accelerator? The LearnLaunch Accelerator program is designed to help early stage edtech entrepreneurs successfully grow their startups. Founders participate in a three month residential program in Boston, Massachusetts, where they are immersed in a community of like-minded professionals committed to helping them grow their businesses. We believe our companies will create enormous value in the education sector, which is 9% of the U.S. economy and growing rapidly around the world. Our entrepreneurs are passionate about student engagement and learning, as well as empowering educators with great tools and solutions. How can I help? The startups are in the process of refining their products, and they need your help. They'll bring their elevator pitch demos, you'll bring advice on UX strategy, user research, and taking their designs to the next level. You’ll be able to give feedback to 1-2 companies in need of your expert advice!

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I was very happy to find this article among the resources in my Usability Testing class. I just wish it were a lot more current!

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As the app world encourages students to turn inward, schools can serve the critical role of reconnecting them to the world where they actually live.

in the cloud: Schools and the "instaself" Lives of Teens  

Apropos, I was just having this discussion with my partner in crime yesterday.

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A company called Elemental Path is developing a new line of smart toys for children which will be powered by the super computing system IBM Watson, enabling the toys to engage in real and personalized conversations with kids, and evolve with the child as he or she grows. CogniToys, as the toy line is being called, is today introducing its first entry into this space, with a smart dinosaur toy that supports full speech recognition and can chat with kids, tell them jokes and answer a wide variety of “who,” “when,” “where” and “why” questions. 

 The startup is now live on Kickstarter with the goal of raising $50,000 to take the toys into production.

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“It starts from a young age. It starts by encouraging girls when they’re very young that it’s okay to be explorers, it’s okay to get your hands dirty, asking questions doesn’t make you weird… I think that’s a pressure that’s put on girls a lot more than it is boys.”

—

Emily Graslie of thebrainscoop, on how to get girls interested in the sciences from a young age. (via sciencefriday)

I don’t think there’s anything I’m asked to talk about more than women in science. Which, honestly, I go back and forth on feeling good and feeling weird about. I’ve created 100 videos for YouTube: 99 of them are about natural history, and 1 of them is about women in science issues. 

Here’s the big misconception: girls don’t need help getting interested in science, the scientific fields need help retaining girls in science. We are all born inquisitive and curious about our world, but girls are actively told that this is not okay through a variety of ways as they grow up. Sometimes that comes in the form of a perceived societal prioritization of appearance over intellect, a lack of resources to explore their interests, or just general cultural bias favoring boys for these subjects. Sometimes it’s obvious stuff, like your math teacher saying “girls aren’t good at math” when you’re in 9th grade [true story for many]. 

To sum up the ways in which we can encourage a more diverse array of voices in STE(A)M fields, I’ve found these to be the most logical and effective methods:

Mentorship and encouragement are key. Mentorship has been proven to play a vital role in the participation and retention of young people in these fields. I am where I am today because of Dave Dyer, who was curator at the University of Montana Zoological Museum, oversaw my internship, wrote letters of recommendation for jobs and graduate programs, and tirelessly advocated for that collection with me. More than that, he was a great listener with an open mind and entertained a number of my ideas and projects, including starting this blog. He’s now at the Ohio Historical Society, where he started a blog of his own. :) 

If you want women in these fields, make your workplace a place women want to work. Without offering any kind of flexibility in regards to family planning and parental leave, of course women aren’t going to look at your business or institution with starry eyes. This should not be surprising to anyone. Do not fault a woman because she wants to have a family. 

With that ^^^ in mind, you know, equal pay goes a long way. 

Your excuse “We Just Want The Best Candidate So We Hire The Best And That Sometimes Means Picking A Man Over A Woman” doesn’t fly. Hiring committees: diversify. If you want the same sort of results then go ahead and homogenize your staff, but don’t claim to be aspiring towards Being The Best - you’re just aspiring to maintain status quo.

More positive role models in the media and in history books. There are a few - there can always be more. Put some heroes out there that young girls can see themselves becoming some day. 

Highlight the great work of women scientists but wait hold up don’t highlight the great work of women scientists with the caveat Woman Scientist Did Great Work. The headline should read: Scientist Did Great Work.

Create inclusive work environments, which means having a no-tolerance policy for sexism and discrimination. 

wait let me just say that again:

NO

TOLERANCE

FOR

SEXISM

AND

DISCRIMINATION

IN THE WORK/SCHOOL PLACE.

PERIOD. 

Further reading:

Correll, S.J., 2004, “Constraints into preferences: Gender, status, and emerging career aspirations,” <— Reference the articles that cite this source below for more great reading. 

Moss-Racusin et al. 2012. “Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students.” PNAS

(via thebrainscoop)

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On the heels of the Barbie Computer Engineer debacle, this Learn to Code game for kids featuring Frozen has been a big hit with my friends' group. Kids as young as kindergarten are able to program with this tool. http://studio.code.org/s/frozen/stage/1/puzzle/1

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This is not OK. This is not how it should be done. Assessment design & administration FAIL.

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Dutch designer Christian Boer created a dyslexic-friendly font to make reading easier for dyslexics like himself. ... Designed to make reading clearer and more enjoyable for dyslexics, Dyslexie uses heavy base lines, alternating stick and tail lengths, larger openings, and semicursive slants to ensure that each character has a unique and more easily recognizable form.

A Typeface for Dyslexics from Slate

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"The Artists' job is to tell the truth about the Human Experience."

User Experience Design is not just about digital media. It is a way of re-framing our world, through Empathy for others.

Is that at odds with capitalism? Not at all! Designing products with empathy and understanding of the consumer can lead to commercial success. (Or at the very least, notoriety & publicity.) Goldiblox employs cognitive developmental research in their design process, and has empathy for parents, feminists, tomboys, and children (aka, their consumer base).

Goldiblox once again has a spot-on promo video for a new product launch! (free of copyright controversies this time too!)

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UX Tools: instant online color/contrast/accessibility tools

Please note: Etre Color Accessibility tools are AWESOME. Fast, simple, free, WYSIWYG. 

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Are we ready? Simply put, we aren’t, with major change needed at multiple levels; Education & Learning Systems; the way we’re taught is based on an Industrial Age education system – a ‘learn by rote’, qualification, and classification track that’s about knowledge storing and re-call. This is at odds with what’s needed in the Digital Age where the focus is on locating, assessing, and representing new information quickly (see Sir Ken Robinson’s video and Shifting Thinking for more). Business Investment; whilst 90% of companies recognise they lack the necessary digital skills, only 46% are investing in developing them. And even where businesses are investing, they’re struggling to keep up as developing classroom-based training takes so much time it’s often outdated before it’s taught. Individual Re-Thinking; we are products of an Industrial Age education system (see point 1) and often have had the divergent thinking needed for the Digital Age ‘educated’ out of us. Even those generations which are supposed to have this way of thinking hard-coded into them, Millennials, don’t have the necessary digital skills.

Ben Gilchriest believe that our education system is at odds with the needs of the digital age. What do you think?

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A Pig, a Bird, and a Mailbox - Process

This grad student 3D interactive project was created with older users in mind, but is so whimsical and physical that it has huge potential for crossover to other users. It would be a great physical metaphor to teach young users the various tools of the web as well.

The speed and simplicity of logging on to each site through the physical icons, combined with the tactile joy of learning through play, makes for a very inspiring interactive experience.

I would absolutely buy this (and the expansion set) if it were a real product.

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from IDC2013 Conference Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12 Street

11:00AM – 12:30PM PAPER SESSION: PHYSICAL MOVEMENT AND PLAY Chair: Alissa Antle 2:00PM – 3:30PM PAPER SESSION: FAMILY-BASED INTERACTION 4:00PM – 5:30PM PAPER SESSION: INTERFACE AND USER EXPERIENCE Chair: Mikael Skov Learn more: idc2013.org

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The focus on people’s experiences with products is gaining increased attention in the design research community. Currently, research and discussions on user experience revolve mainly around everyday consumer products. However, there is a need...