Week 15: Report

So, this is the final report on this project, for now. The past few weeks of wrapping up this project have been hectic but have progressed smoothly. I met with our client, Duren, for lunch last Thursday to discuss future plans with this project. Not to much later that afternoon, he met with the entire team. Essentially, they have given both he and I excellent feedback on making this process work better for Extension and the COE team next time. As for now, I'm putting the final touches on our project and making sure everything is ready for final submission tomorrow morning.

Approved Project Documents

• Project Scope - 9/16/07
• Needs Assessment- 9/17/07
• Task Analysis - 10/10 (also in PDF)
• Performance Objectives - 10/10
• Formative Evaluation Plan - 10/10
• User Profile - 10/10
• Hardware and Software Specifications - 10/10
• Project Timeline Summary
• Project Timeline
• Screen Specifications and Treatment Rationale - 10/29
• Learning System: Flowchart and Description - 10/29
• Plant Pathology Module: Unit and Lesson Flowcharts - 10/29

--

• Formative Evaluation Report
• Final Presentation at Studio Showcase (PPT)
• Final Presentation at Studio Showcase (PDF)
• Installation and User Documentation
• Project Extension Proposal
• Logs Analysis
• Team Time Log

Accessibility Statement

The instructional units developed for the Plant Pathology module have been optimized to conform to accessibility requirements.

• Majority of lesson text is static (does not require additional optimization)
• All buttons, movie clips, and non text elements that are necessary for the Plant Pathology experience have been labeled with both a title and descriptive text.
• The Unit files have no tab order specified, simply for the fact that static text (our primary content) can not be included in this index.
• The activities have been made accessible through the selection of "make child objects accessible" in the accessibility panel.

Week 15: Assignments

All

• Update time logs, send to Emily Dec 7
  • Estimate time involved through Dec 10
  • Review Diasy's log for example
  • See meeting dates and further directions from Em
• Send ideas for Project Extension Proposal to Emily
• Module edits completed by Dec 4, send to Emily

Daisy

• Compile all documentation into one file
• Write Executive Summary (leave space for Remi's final eval report)
• Help with final presentation prep (through Weds)

HueiHsien

• Complete edits for Unit 1
• Share "close glossary" button with Ahram
• Edit for accessibility (more info from Em)

Emily

• Finalize presentation for showcase
• Start Project Extension Proposal
• Compile time logs (after showcase)
• Provide missing images for Lesson 1 (to HueiHsien ASAP)
• Send Eval docs to Remi
• Send accessbility info to HueiHsien and Ahram

Remi

• Complete Final Evaluation Report
• Provide eval slide for showcase presentation (Weds)

Kazu

• Preloader for both units
• Verify activities, glossary, etc. work with pre-loader
• Help HueiHsien with Unit 1

Ahram

• Complete edits for Unit 2
• Edit for accessibility (more info from Em)

Upcoming

• Refine for accessibility requirements
• Blue Sock Award Judgin
• Dec 6: Studio Showcase
• Bowling??
• Dec 8: Celebrate! Lunch together?
• Dec 10: All docs and project due 9am

Week 14: Assignments

To do for next week
After our meeting on November 18, the following items are due by Saturday, November 24 (unless otherwise noted). Our goal is to have both units ready for beta-testing Nov 26.

Daisy

• Photos: Directions "click here to see examples of [xyz]"
• Photos: Clear from next frame
• Add caption on plant diagram (U1-L3)
• Photos: Reformat blurry images
• Interface: bookmark for TOC on page
• Interface: bookmark as button tucked under page
• Interface: remove extra tabs on activities, add "Activities" on last tab

HueiHsien

• Interface: move back/next buttons on activity screen
• Interface: add functionality to office button
• Interface: remove "back" from page 1 of each lesson
• Interface: add exit function
• Text formatting: move "Lesson x" to second line on page title
• Text formatting: remove color, button, and underline from page title
• Text formatting: change conclusion text from "review" to "repeat"
• Text formatting: add "Return to the Table of Contents to choose an alternative lesson" to conclusion options
• Content: create Help - overview of interface in HTML w/ screen captures as needed
• Content: site map of each unit
• Activities/actionscript: help create scoring system for U1-L3 (with Kazu)

Emily

• Quizzes: strikethrough non-applicable answers on "incorrect" views
• Graphics: paperclip more realistic
• Graphics: post-it transition to next lesson
• Content: combine pages 1 and 2 on unit overview
• Content: refine feedback on quizzes (send to appropriate author)
• Content: add TOC to activities scene
• Content: add prompt to go to less on each activity in activities scene
• Content: conversation script for U2-L1 activity (send to Kazu)
• Content: case study for U2-L3 activity (send to Kazu)
• Activities/actionscript: Help w/ U2 as needed
• Activities/actionscript: set up printing sample
• Planning: notify Holly and beta-testers of upcoming eval schedule (Nov 26-28)
• Planning: communicate with Duren about final review
• Planning: prepare schedule/assignments for final documentation
• Planning: review and edit PPT for showcase

Remi

• Content: Compile glossary for all lessons (send to Ahram and Emily)
• Content: collect content for notes/conclusion section (send to Ahram and Emily)
  • U2-L1 - 10 questions, IPM form
  • U2-L2 - helpful notes for working "in the field"
  • U2-L3 - info on sample submission, clinics (addresses, sample types per location)
• Content: check consistency between flash file and word doc, edit flash if needed
  • U1-L3 and U1-L4
• Documentation: continue work on Final Eval doc

Kazu

• Activities/actionscript: create functional feedback for U1-L1 drag-and-drop
• Activities/actionscript: create pop-up for glossary
• Activities/actionscript: create scroll function for glossary
• Activities/actionscript: Work with script for U2-L1 activity (from/with Emily)
• Activities/actionscript: Work with case study for U2-L3 activity (from/with Emily)
• Activities/actionscript: create scoring system for U1-L3 (with HueiHsien)

Ahram

• Content: write reflection question for end of each lesson (U1-L1 may not need one)
• Content: prepare conclusion/review docs for Flash display (from Remi)
• Content: prepare conclusion/review docs for PDF download (from Remi)
• Activities/actionscript: Add working dynamic text box for reflection question
• Activities/actionscript: Add docs to conclusion pages
• Activities/actionscript: Add scrolling feature as needed
• Content: compile all parts per lesson conclusion (multiple pages for some)
  • Conclusion text (fr conclusion2.doc)
  • Reflection question & text field
  • Review information + download feature (from Remi)
  • Transition page
    • What do you want to do next? + options
    • Post-it note: "Click on "next" to go to Lesson X: Lesson Title"

Upcoming

• Refine for accessibility requirements
• Nov 26-28: beta-testing and SME review
• Nov 29: Final official meeting
• Dec 6: Studio Showcase
  • refine project presentation
• Dec 10: All docs and project due 9am
• Celebrate!

Week 14: Report

We are getting closer and closer to the final studio showcase and completing our project!! These last few weeks will be busy as we pull everything together.

Last Thursday, the 15th, Remi led a session of alpha-evaluation for our project. The team met Sunday to discuss those findings and determine what work needs to be done to improve our project BEFORE sending this to review with our sample audience. (see Week 14 Assignments).

This week is our Thanksgiving holiday, so we will all be likely working on our own to complete our various parts. We've moved the beta-testing to November 26-28 to accomodate our final changes and be sure to allow time to compile the final report. At the end of this project, I think we will all be pleased with all we have to show for our hard work.

Week 13

This week we've been busy getting ready for the dress rehearsal. Our 6200 consultants have provided work to us, lightening our load for formatting images and importing content. We've had a number of impromptu meetings over the past two weeks, to be sure we've got everything covered for tomorrow night.

Tuesday, most of the group met to discuss our showcase presentation and any other details for Thursday. Tonight, Wednesday, a number of us are meeting to be sure everything is ready to go with Unit 1.

Our evaluators have been contacted and our schedule is being formed for when they can review our product and when we will need to have the material ready. This involves studio students for alpha-testing, our subject matter expert for final review, and sample learners for beta-testing.

It's good to see everything come together, although it is still a bit nerve-wracking as the majority of our work to date has been divvied out in separate parts. I hope it fits together as well as possible for tomorrow. Of course, we will have until Dec 6 to finalize any problem areas, but are hoping to be done with development far before then.

The next few weeks will be busy. We also need to finalize remaining documentation and package our product for delivery to our client. The to-do list is a bit insane at the moment, but should be quickly pared down.

Week 12

Team meetings... weekend work session...

Week 11: Report

Since I haven't written over fall break, I have to say the past two weeks have been busy. Contrary to my post for Week 9, our team really did further work on our storyboards -- formatting text, making placeholders for images, adding basic ideas for interactions, etc. Our prototype will likely be the actual work we present at the dress rehearsal. So, that's the work ahead of us.

I've met outside of the studio with a number of team members over the past two weeks. Daisy and I had a productive graphics session, zeroing in on buttons and screen design for our module, as well as brainstorming a basic template for our Flash files to follow. Daisy, Kazu, HueiHsien, and I met to review the Flash file and talk more in depth about how the interactions would be integrated into it.

We did meet last Thursday for another intense work session. We went through all the storyboards again to iron out any issues with content, images to be used, illustrations needed, and further clarification of ideas. Most of our concepts are pretty solid and ready to be put into action.

Yesterday Kazu, HueiHsien, Ahram and I met to determine our approach to building the interactive items. We continued to iron out problems with the sample Flash file and decided to meet this upcoming Saturday for a work session, to output as much of our interactions as possible -- working together will be more effective for us since we can stop and talk about ideas and problems as needed.

Remi and I have been in contact by email and phone, as she's been testing the use of our sample Flash file. My goal tomorrow night is to assign our consultants to help migrate our static content from the storyboards into the Flash file. Remi has noted items that are unclear and need direction. I've also set up directions for our consultants to follow to help format images that we will import into our Flash file.

We're two weeks out from the dress rehearsal on November 15. I hope our work will fall into place quickly after this weekend's session. Remi and I have talked about starting formative evaluations on November 12.

I feel confident that we will get this work done. I realize that my experience with Flash may make me a bit more assured about this than my teammates, considering the degree of interactions we'll need to produce this weekend. If all goes as planned, we could spend the remaining weeks after the rehearsal doing minor tweaks and finalizing our various documents.

Not to forget, all of our documentation to date has been approved. Our client temporarily passed authorization of documents to the PDCs. This was good since they weren't entirely up to speed on the project's current status.

Documentation and reporting are useful, although awaiting approval for the next steps isn't always how things work here internally. More often it's the case of getting a project done and delivering a final product -- with meetings for Q&A along the way.

Working Project Documentation

Finalized docs (awaiting approval)

Supporting work

• Flash template (in development)
• Screen Design
• Treatment Rationale
• Storyboard: Unit 1, Lessons 1-3
• Storyboard: Unit 1, Lesson 4
• Storyboard: Unit 2
• Learning System Design
• Flowchart: Unit 1, Lessons 1-3
• Flowchart: Unit 1, Lesson 4
• Flowchart: Unit 2

Week 10: Assignments

To do for next week:

• Edits to storyboards (assignments below)
  • changes discussed in 10/18 meeting
  • further development if missing test/activity items
  • review images for your section, specify which ones to use where
  • if lacking images, note what you want and where - including illustrations, graphics
  • if lacking content, note what you need and where (specifically test/activity items)
  • tell Emily what content/images you need

• Lesson 1 - HueiHsien, Emily
• Lesson 2 - Ahram
• Lesson 3 - HueiHsien, Remi
  • HueiHsien add in all content
  • Remi help develop test questions
• Lesson 4 - Emily
• Unit 2 - Kazu
• Prepare flash file for development
  • interface, symbols, design guidelines - Daisy, Emily
  • plan for consistency between files (Flash guidelines - layers, scenes, names, etc.)
• Submit documents for review - Emily
• Contact Holly for content needs - Emily

Team meeting: October 25, 4-6pm, 603 Aderhold
(regular meeting room, Em check availability)

• show group plan for Flash file
• divvy out development work based on storyboards

Prototypes and resources

Storyboards
Coming soon

Edited content for storyboards (10-17)

• Unit 1, Lesson 1
• Unit 1, Lesson 2
• Unit 1, Lesson 3 (in review)
• Unit 1, Lesson 4 (in review)
• Unit 2, Lesson 1-4

Prototype resources

• Prototype_doc (word file - preferred)
• Prototype_ppt (ppt file)
• Working example for IPM
• Graphic resources

Week 9: Report

A good bit has happened since my last posting. Our Task Analysis, Performance Objectives, User Profile, Hardware/software Specs, and Formative Evaluation Plan were all approved by our client.

Daisy has done more work on our screen design and treatment rationale. This document will be coming together very soon with the supporting info for the learning system design. This part of the project will be designed in a pre-set template, so this shouldn't be too much to add.

Kazu, HueiHsien and I have brainstormed ideas for our interactions and test items. We presented these to the team in our last meeting. This past week, while Daisy has done more graphic development, the rest of us have each worked on a prototype for a particular lesson. These should be based on the storyboards presented last week, as well as our team discussion. We're using a basic screen design to determine how much space we have for content and activities in our prototypes. This work will help us line up work for assembling our module. Some of our interactions will require a bit of creative programming and our SME's support through providing and approving test content.

I've also recruited Myra, one of our 6200 consultants, to help look at the page flow of our content, as well as final edits. I really hope we'll be able to divvy out work to our other 6200 consultants soon. I expect we will have graphic work and other parts that we'll need help on.

I've consolidated all of our storyboards into one document that details our project from the top of the learning system to lesson activities. With a little bit of elaboration, this should serve us well for the learning system documentation.

Week 8: Report

Our team meeting tonight was lively, as usual. We went through the project timeline I provided and discussed various deliverables and actions listed. We reviewed Daisy's most recent screen designs and discussed elements to add to it. Ideas of interest from that discussion:

• Captivate suggested as a tool to teach the learner about our module (how to navigate, what to expect, etc.)
• Add navigation to module (help, back/foward buttons, icons for diff activities)
• Use different objects in interface for exercises in particular units.
  • Unit 1: identification, imagery, and case studies (folder with tests, documents)
  • Unit 2: client interactions (phone call)
• Adapt the notebook object to record a synopsis of the lesson, perhaps as closing summary.

The evaluation section of the project timeline was reviewed. Remi, suggest edits as needed. For our beta evaluation, Remi has suggested having 2 tests - one for each unit of our module. I will talk to Duren about who we can ask to do this, as well as timing. The beta eval will probably be near Thanksgiving, which could be difficult if we don't plan ahead.

We've decided to keep up with our time on our blogs, not in a separate spreadsheet. Be sure that you do this!

I suspect our 6200 consultants may be getting antsy from not having had much assigned yet. We are entering our development phase, so we should start distributing tasks very soon.

• Week 8 Assignments

Week 8: Assignments

To do for next week:

• Post recent documents (Emily)
• Determine interactivity for content (Kazu, HueiHsien, Emily)
  • document ideas as needed (sketch, storyboard, description, etc.)
• Screen and graphic design: look-and-feel, navigation, etc. (Daisy, Ahram)
• Flowchart and screen specs of online system (Emily, HueiHsien)
• Review project calendar docs (All)
• Send to Holly, Duren (Emily)
  • Formative Evaluation Plan
  • Hardware/software specs

Team meeting, October 11:
To be outlined later....

• Present/discuss ideas for interactivity
• Distribute interactive work as possible
• Present/discuss updates to screen design
• other items of interest....

Upcoming work:

• Flowchart, storyboards (Nov 1)

Week 7: Report

This week Remi, Ahram, HueiHsien, and Kazu worked on flowcharts for each of our 3 goals. There is some concern about the size of our content, which we will need to discuss as a group. We've decided on a direction for our treatment and Daisy has been developing those screens. Emily has been working on the flowchart of the online learning system and will be putting together our presentation for the studio briefing tomorrow night.
Our weekly assignments are posted here:

• Week 7: Assignments

Most of our documents and content have been uploaded to the documentation section of our blog:

• Documentation

Hopefully we will begin major development work on our module this next week. We are all beginning to feel the crunch at this point in our project and are anxious to see development underway.

Content

• Plant Pathology Module Outline
• Unit 1 - Basic Plant Pathology
• Unit 2 - Plant Science Investigation
• IPM Plant Disease Clinic Form
• Plant Pathology Images (refered to in unit material)

Week 7: Assignments

To do for next week:

• Flowchart of content and activities
  • Goals 1 & 3 (Ahram, Remi)
  • Goal 2 (HueiHsien, Kazu)
• Hardware/software specs edits (HueiHsien)
• Formative eval plan edits (Remi)
• Screen design (Daisy, Emily)
• Flowchart of online system (Emily)
• Group presentation PPT (Emily)
• Send to Holly, Duren (Emily)
  • Task analysis
  • Objectives
  • User profile

Team meeting, October 4:

• Review flowcharts for goals, system
• Review screen design
• Plan for
  • future screen development
  • distribution of graphic work
  • storyboarding
• other items of interest....

Upcoming work:

• Flowchart, storyboards (Nov 1)

Week 6

The ICC team has spent more time with the task analysis, performance objectives, and test items this week. After reviewing the ordered and somewhat revised content, a number of changes were needed to bring our tasks in line to the plant pathology content. The team has split into sub-groups to develop parts of this tasks and objectives. We will still request a review of this documentation before sending it to our client for sign-off.

Drafts of our formative evaluation plan, hardware/software specs, and user profile have been reviewed by our group, designated 6200 volunteer, and have been sent to Dr. Clinton for review.

An assignment list was not posted this week, although the following items were assigned:

• Ahram, Remi, Daisy review and develop tasks and objectives for:
  • 1a. plant disease
  • 1b. plant disease triangle
  • 1c. pathogen groups
  • 2a. communicating with clients
  • 2c. sample collection
• Emily, HueiHsien, Kazu - review and develop tasks and objectives for:
  • 1d. integrated pest management
  • 2d. sample submission
  • 2e. interpreting sample diagnoses and recommendations
• Myra review the following docs:
  • Formative evaluation draft (Remi)
  • User profile (Kazu)
• Notify 6200 consultants of duties, timelines
• Daisy develop screen design based on group direction in meeting
• Emily ask Duren about access to agents for evaluation
• Emily ask Holly about items for pre- and post-testing

Week 5

The team has been working on a number of documents this week, as outlined in our assignment list. Audra and Brent, two 6200 consultants, along with our SME Holly, have been helping Emily make the content more understandable and functional as lesson material.

• Week 5 Assignments

Duren approved the Scope document and Needs Assessment this week with few changes. He is concerned about CAES-OIT's commitment to developing the system we mock up and has contacted the OIT director with a formal request for service.

• Project Scope - 9/16/07
• Needs Assessment- 9/17/07

Our task analysis and performance objectives have been reviewed by Dr. Clinton. These should be ready to send to our client this weekend or early next week. Our plan is to share these with the SME first, as she is the expert on the subject.