Erica DeSimone | Art Educator
Partnering with students from Edinburgh Napier University, we participated in a month long workshop to collect data globally about the impact of covid on the college student. Out of the data collected, two projects were made. This project was formed as a second solution to the problems shown in data collected. The idea to look further into the specific data points about multitasking during class came about when a student in my own class was on camera, at a Starbucks drive-through.
Virtual learning has enabled students to do other activities during class. For the many students who do these tasks while learning, there is no easy way for them to get the most out of both. For these studnets, a niche way to attend class while doing other activities became a necessity due to new roles created by being at home.
The LearnPod is a device and mobile service that would allow students to listen to lecture and communicate hands free with the class or the pre-recorded video. Using gestures, this product would pick up on specific hand signs and create a blended space for the student. The LearnPod would partner with a parent program, such as Blackboard and be an essential tool.
Four research teams that were student lead sent out multiple surveys on a global scale. The research plan became a game, which group could get the most responses. In friendly competition, we exceeded the expectations of our mentors.
With 5,000 responses total to the surveys, many issues were found with the new way college students learn. The survey responses above are from one of the 8 sent out. These data points lead to our problem statement, we learned that when in an online classroom students do other activities while in class. Students find themselves to be less productive and that they do not need to see their peers to learn. This lead us to believe that introducing an audio only device to listen to lectures would benefit the students production levels and allow them to multitask.
Student
"I always keep my camera off, my professor doesn't require it to be on. Usually I find myself getting up to walk around the house, or even making my lunch during class now."
Faculty
"More and more students are being asked by family members to do things during class now that they're home with them."
For the student, now that they don't have to show their participation by anything other than their digital profile they do other things during class. Students find themselves making food in especially long lectures, getting taken away from class by family members, and even showering during class.
For the Faculty member, it is a struggle to get students to participate in class. Many times, their university does not allow them to enforce the camera being on. The faculty member interviewed expressed their want for a way that students could better show participation and comprehension of material from home.
We created personas for two different types of users, one for the student that multitasks at home and wants to learn, and the other who works and does their schoolwork outside of their living space.
Defining the feelings that each user has through their experiences while attending virtual school made it apparent to us where there was areas of great struggle, however areas where students now excelled in certain situations.
Creating a journey map for these users made it evident that students can multitask while attending school, and that constraining the learning environment to the study space can lead to a disengaged student.
The first physical product designed was a cup, through trial and error this tangible solution changed into a speaker. Every step of the way we changed the design of the product to best suit our users needs.
Cup design did not best support user needs.
A gesture recognizing speaker would be a better solution.
Syncing phone to speaker with ease was important. This design proved to be unstable due to the height of product.
The final product was stable, easy to comprehend and larger in scale.
Looking into how the student interacts with technology, especially extensions to the programs they use in universities we created the LearnPod to be minimal in design as well as have a simple way to log in for use. Using a university email would link to student schedule and courses, and for further log in situations Face ID jumped out as the most used for college students. From there, the home screen would be easy to navigate and only have a few key features as the LearnPod would be used as a secondary tool to programs like Blackboard.
By benchmarking the applications used by college students, we created wireframes that had a similar structure. We wanted our product to be easy to use and familiar to the user.
Using the persona of Jenny for inspiration, I drew a design fiction for how she would use this product. We chose a very obscure situation where one would use the product - a student showering during class. According to the data we collected this is something that students do during their lectures.
Jenny heads into the bathroom, watching Professor Smith's lecture for her sociology course.
Before hopping into the shower, Jenny places her phone into the Learn Pod.This switches her device to audio only without having to tap a button.
.jpg)
The Learn Pod emits a loud chime, indicating to Jenny that her phone and pod have been successfully connected and synced with one another.
Once out of the shower, Jenny reaches for her phone, ready to switch back to the video lecture that she was in before her shower.
Once out of the shower,Jenny reaches for herphone, ready to switch backto the video lecture that shewas in before her shower.
The Learn Pod is a service that provides the student with a simple way to learn online. Users sign up with their university email and are able to attend their virtual classes. They use this application to watch their class or place their mobile device in the Learn Pod and easily switch to an audio only lecture.
This prototype was tested on student users, as well a judged with the design fiction in areas like comprehension and necessity. In our peers review of our work it was easy to use, unobtrusive and fun. The only controversial opinions of our classmates was that they found it weird that our user took a shower while during class. However, our team did have data to prove our choice.
The future of The LearnPod is gamification. Adding prizes and rewards for logging in and use with further the need for this type of product.