Week 3 is the real start for our whole project. We are on a clearer track of the project we are going to build. The conversation centered around the visit to the Wheeling Country Day School and the simulation as one with Dyslexia. After the playtesting in last week, we have been trying to find a balance between the language learning tool and the gamification of the method “Elkonin Boxes”, which is applied in the education for Dyslexia kids.
Dividing research we’ve done in this week into three parts, what comes to the first is the user research, then is the preparation on tech focusing on platform testing and environment setup. At last, it is the material preparation including poster, logo, and description.
The Dyslexia Simulation
The Simulation in the Carlow University helped members in our group get a better understanding of kids with Dyslexia. We are really surprised by the difference between how general people and how kids with Dyslexia think. We also got inspirations from this simulation.
We were really feeling the reading, speaking, thinking barrier just like what those dyslexia students do, including both word-decoding difficulties and auditory ones. It helped us get that not everyone with this disability has the same symptom. On the contrary, it differs from person to person. Low-esteem and stress come seriously even for adults like us with the pushing from teachers in education process.
The Wheeling Country Day School Visit
According to our observation in wheeling country day school, the method “Elkonin Boxes” is using widely for kids with Dyslexia. We had an interview with Theresa, a teacher there helping school in learning with this specific method. We also participated in observing one math class with these students. The learning experience is based on the collaborative creativity with both teachers and classmates. With the explanation from Theresa, our project will lean more on the collaboration part with teachers.
The overall procedure of the method “Elkonin Boxes” starts with teacher saying a word, then students will repeat the word. After that, students need to say each phoneme as they put chips on the box at the right spot in four level challenges including :
- Word with three phonemes
- Word with diagraph
- Word with a word family
- Phoneme changes
When it comes to the technical part, we have finished the golden spike of the android build and the achievement on networking. In the following weeks, we will get our design in details and start developing it.
At last, we have finished our material design on logo, poster and team photo.
