Design a future scenario for the use of digital technologies in schools that tracks and evaluates learning and social behavior
USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN
CHALLENGE
BACKGROUND
Students get most of the feedback only about their professional competence and very rarely on their emotional and social ones. For a holistic personality development there is a lack of a differentiated and individual feedback on all competencies.
LINK
TIME
Oct 2017 – Jan 2018 (4 months)
AGENCY
Self-Initiated
CLIENT
Student Project at University of Applied Science
CONCEPT
»Dora« is an automatic diagnostic tool for students to measure and visualize their behavior during learning phases. The tablet as a work tool and a wearable track the stress level, motivation, endurance, participation and communication. The data evaluation provides regular feedback, which should encourage the student to reflect his/her personal and social behavior while learning. At the same time, it is a tool for mentor discussions and early intervention.
The whole project is to be regarded as design fiction, which should stimulate critical discourse about this future scenario.
DESIGN PROCESS
The project started with an extensive literature research for the written part of the work. In it I first dealt with the emergence of the educational system, with the change in the future competencies and the feedback processes of different school types to support the students’ personality development.
Subsequently, I conducted explorative interviews with students and teachers on the status quo of the feedback culture in schools regarding personal and social competences. Afterwards the question arose to what extent algorithms can support in this feedback process and a further literature research on learning and emotion analytics followed.
Based on this knowledge I developed a first prototype of a diagnostic tool to measure the social and learning behavior of students. I discussed the concept with a class of student teachers, which started as an exchange of experiences and ended in a debate on algorithms ethics.
The more I read and discussed the curse and blessing of algorithms, the more I didn’t want to just design a »pretty« tool. As I believe that designers create cultural change by influencing people’s behavior through the design of new objects and services, I decided to design the practical part of my thesis as Design Fiction. With it I wanted to stimulate a critical discourse on automated behavioral measurement of students. The result is a short film that shows a school lesson of a student using »Dora«, the diagnostic tool for social, emotional and learning behavior. The film should be seen as a provocative future scenario.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Concept Development | Content Development | Interviews | Interfacedesign | Data Visualization | Film Storyboard | Booklayout
SETTING
The project was developed as my bachelor thesis within the interface design studies at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam in cooperation with the Education Innovation Lab.
LEARNINGS
During the research phase I touched on too many topics that are barrels without bottoms: Our educational system, competency models, personality development, and the in-depth study of data tracking and behavioral analysis. In addition, with my more radical opinion on the school system at that time, I found the ambiguity in the topics difficult to bear and formulated the thesis too emotional and black and white.
With your thesis you want to show all the skills you have learned. But I was not able to realistically estimate what’s in scope and out of scope in terms of the project expectation level. In combination with a high self-claim this led to an exaggerated extent. In retrospect still acceptable in study times I think, in the working context it would have gone beyond any project budget.
