Assignment:

“The New Coviewing: Designing for Learning through Joint Media Engagement” by Lori Takeuchi and Reed Stevens – December 8, 2011

Response: 

The main research findings can be summarized by the phrase “What goes on between people around media can be as important as what is designed into the media”

What strikes me the most about the article is how little attention has been given to this interaction the design process and creation of media. “Interactive TV” has been a promise for a long time, maybe because it fostered to the interaction between an individual and the content such as voting interactions, choose the ending, choose what film will play and so on. I would even go further a TV show that prompts for social media interactions is still not fully aware of JME potentials. Not only the educational potentials are missed but I believe that this construct could well be applied to marketing and sales where a piece of advertising or merchandising is more effective the more it engages the viewers in JME.

Circling back to education, I think that this is a breakthrough. What if traditional courses on TV were designed with this framework in mind? What if their declared purpose was to be watched with someone else? Would remote learning be more effective? I truly think so.

It seems like this framework has been explored minimally up to now. Maybe some app developers and websites are already thinking about this or catering to this phenomena yet I have seen little evidence that it was part of the original design process of the product.

I see great potential for TV Apps that are coming with the release of the new AppleTV OS. I can imagine educational products designed from ground up using the JME design principles and implemented in a medium that is more naturally social than mobile phones, the TV, and provide direct and individualized interaction in a group setting where each member has a full input device with them – their iPhones or iPads.

Ok – so maybe if you compare the new AppleTV with game consoles, there is not much innovation in terms of the in-room dynamics yet the huge app development community and the lower barrier to entry on AppleTV in comparison to game consoles, will probably create in-medium factors that will enhance JME and create much richer and engaging learning environments.

Notes:

Worked some more on generating ideas today.

Project with OMS taking the following shape:

Needs Statement

“A” is a shy pleaser who needs to practice creating his own words in order to facilitate him communicating with others.

Prototypes

Stimulate “A” to generate words by watching engaging videos he can relate to.

1. Teacher explains that they are going to play a game of making the video even better by adding new  words to it.
2. Teacher selects a video of interest from YouTube
3. Teacher puts headphones on herself and starts a narrating session to model the behavior.
4. Teacher puts headphone on A so that he can listen to the video with the narration.
5. Teacher prompts A to do his own recording and starts a narration session.
6. A listens to narrated video.
7. Option to save session or go again.
8. A is prompted to choose another video to narrate

Questions to ask:

• Does he follow any sport on TV?
• What does he like to watch on YouTube?
• Does he verbalize while watching videos?
• Is he comfortable wearing headphones?
• How well does he type?
• How well does he use an iPad on his own?
• What Apps does he use if any?
• Does he listen to music?
• Does he sing?
• Can he describe objects when prompted?
• What are ‘easy’ things for him to do?
• What are the things that seem ‘hard’ for him to do?
• Does he say no when he does not want or like something?

Some initial videos:

Harlem Globetrotters

Hot Wheels

Back up plan: 

Cartoons where he will fill in the blanks typing in the missing text then repeating what he wrote.