The user-testing planned for Friday will be a series of vertical prototypes provided to different groups of students.

Horizontal

• Foam-core Interface
• Up at the front of the room there would be the holding zone for all of the activities and information
• Some of the functionality will simply be for show.  Many of the interaction steps will be worked around.  For instance, students will not be required to click on certain buttons to enter information, but rather could just put it in the right area.  I need to make certain that I don’t give too many prompts, but rather provide the prompts in the directions, as well.

Vertical

• Paper activities that require students to gather information, analyze, and create.
• Each table would be given a different task to move through.

• Fun & also speak to media education
• Activities should use simple and understandable language.
  • Explain using as little language as possible
  • Directions should be clear enough to require as few questions as possible
  • Simplicity is key
  • Once explained, students should be able to easily take the project and run
• Tasks should be organized for completion in groups
• Aesthetic should be young and playful
• Activities should easily translate into Media Literacy questions
  • students should be able to describe what they’ve done clearly and hopefully answer “why” (or some other question… need to test what they are capable of )
• Students should feel empowered to make things/ change things and contribute their own thoughts to activity.
• Testing scenario should feel like art project / collage.
• Testing should be quick and fit within allotted portion of the class.

It feels as if my project is beginning to come together in a more solid form.  My latest idea to build the application in the form of a student-informed social network of media sources feels stronger to me conceptually and — although difficult — more understandable technically.  Here are some notes from my brainstorming session as well as a meeting with Katherine:

1. Students construct who THEY think these message-makers are based on their writing/images.
2. This project represents the moment where Wikipedia/Facebook/TheyRule meet.
3. This project is a TOOL & an ENVIRONMENT.
4. Goal:  Media Education through Non-Linear Application.  Reflection of current media atmosphere.
5. Opportunity:  Add-on applications.  Could incorporate different modules from previously prototyped tests.
6. Interviews with teachers have informed me that at this age the discussion about SOURCES is very important and relevant.  I wanted to make sure that this was a main part of the project, but somehow still keep the experience modern and new.
7. Students are asked to question:
   1. Who are these sources?
   2. Who is a part of the decision-making process?
   3. What is on-line identity?  What does it mean for the students to be responsible for creating this identity?  How is this similar to the media world as a whole?
   4. What responsibility goes along with the power to control these identities?
8. MEDIA PRODUCTION:  It is imperative that there is an element of media production involved in the project.
   1. Identity Creation
   2. Photo gallery
   3. Video gallery
   4. App Extensions — perhaps these additions to the space could be where the previously prototyped modules go.
9. Familiarity with message-makers takes the “all-knowing” out of their voice and reminds students that these are people, too.
10. Social network of media makers (both individuals and organizations — journalists, bloggers, photographers, magazines, newspapers) where the information is added by teachers and students.  Through this process of developing an on-line identity, it is hoped that the students will more clearly see the voice behind the message.  Also, the platform allows for interesting linkages between the individuals and publications that highlight the interconnectedness of the media world.
11. Questions to answer:
    1. How do students access the information/research?
    2. What should this DO?  What should this NOT DO?
    3. What are the FRIENDSHIPS based on?
12. Classroom will have a profile, too, since they are now media-makers
13. Other classes allowed to add/edit the profiles and create connections with other classrooms.
14. Network will place the authors/journalists within an understandable and familiar sphere — one that many of the students already belong to.  The space encourages the same sort of navigation through identities as found in MySpace or Facebook.
15. Inspired by Barack Obama:  Using social networks, blogs, other technology to take the mystery out of his identity, beliefs, policies.
16. Project speaks to my own love of the accumulation of data/media.
17. Moves class discussion out of the private and into a mediated “public” sphere
18. Homework assignments could include researching who to add.
19. Project deals with:
    1. Public vs. Private space –> through space of Social Network
    2. Sharing Perspectives –> through wiki method & space of Social Network
    3. Identity –> through profile development
    4. Education –>  learning modules working within the Social Network framework
    5. Technology –>  through Social Network framework
    6. Group Work –>  class building identity together & deciding what to populate
20. Assumption
    1. Students are familiar with “lurking” through profiles on social network sites.

So, there has been a struggle in my thesis project since the midterm.  The struggle is between the established and the new.  It would seem that the previous direction of the project was more towards a linear application that provides teachers with a cirriculum for media education.  Although this was interesting in its reinterpretation of the existing models (mostly analog into digital) it felt “done” and not truly investigating something new.  After reading more about social networks by Danah Boyd, another idea came to mind:  a social network where the students create the identities of media makers themselves.  If Wikipedia, Facebook, and TheyRule were able to procreate this would be the love child of the union.  The project would take the voice behind the messages and give it an identity — an identity in a format familiar to students who already keep their own on-line identities on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

This framework would use this established model of social networks:

• to investigate the message makers through research and identity development
• to bring into the classroom the idea of on-line identity and really look at what this is
• to bring to light the interconnectedness of media individuals and media outlets
• to provide a forum for source analysis

Why change from the application module?

• I was fighting with the lack of newness found in this linear application format.  The nature of media today is non-linear, and this new idea harnesses the non-linear.

My mid-term critique was very helpful.  There were a number of good ideas and comments handed out. Firstly, it felt good to feel the interest and support from Anezka and Marko.  It is motivating to know that the subject is perceived as useful and a solid beginning.  Secondly, it was good to know that my concept and reasoning were communicated successfully.  Marko, for instance, became excited about the project for its ultimate goal of creating an informed electorate as this is the first election he is able to vote in.  Two of the greatest points made during my critique, however, were relating to user-testing and refining my concept.  Anezka said that I should be in a school talking with 7th/ 8th graders and teachers on a weekly basis.  Luckily, my entry into the Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School was solidified just a week following the critique, so progress is being made on that front.  The challenge of refining my concept arose not only in my critique but also in my meeting with Katie Salen.  One realization made clear through my mid-term critique and my meeting with Katie is that my focus is much too expansive at the moment.  My nugget or hook has yet to be incorporated into the project.  It was around mid-term time that the inclusion of participatory culture (social networks, etc) was officially added to my concept and so it would seem that this is what remains to be refined.  Marko mentioned that my idea needed to be a third of what it is currently.  So, on one hand it feels like my project is back on the drawing board and in other ways it feels as if it is just around the corner from being solidified.  In an effort to answer these questions, my methodology has expanded to include an analysis of social networks, on-line communities, and participatory culture.  One would hope that through this breakdown one element will rise to the top as a focus for this project.

“The Digital Youth Network (DYN) is a hybrid digital literacy program that creates opportunities for youth to engage in learning environments that span both school and out-of-school context.”

Found at iRemix.org, the Digital Youth Network focuses on educating students within a specific community about media education through the production of media and critical analysis.  Through the non-specific geography of the web, students are able to participate in the DYN during and outside of school time.  The students participate in this network through both in-school media arts courses and after-school “pods”.

Another element of the program rewards the participants through virtual money rewards.  Participants earn these dollars and as they work on projects which are then featured on the leaderboard on the website.  Although I am aware of the rewards dollars, I’m not quite certain of how they cash in — I will have to look into this.

It would seem that the Digital Youth Network is employing the fullest example of what I had envisioned originally for DeepFried Media.  It is far more expansive than what I am capable of doing in my limited amount of time this year, however it is heartening to know that there is a module out there that is already taking media education to the next level.

The Digital Youth Network model is one that explicitly combines the affordances of the different contexts where youth spend their time into one learning environment that not only develops youth’s new media literacies but also creates meaningful opportunities for youth to use their new media literacies. It is a model for the construction of a new youth-serving institution that is not bounded by walls nor time of day.

The core of the model spans the worlds of school, home, and after-school activities, and provides youth with:

• access and training in the use of new media literacy tools;
• meaningful activities where the development of new medial literacies is essential for accomplishing goals; and
• a continuum of established new media mentors (high school through professionals) who develop students’ technical skills, serve as role models, and provide students access to the communities of practice surrounding technology-based careers.

from iRemix.org

The Passively Multiplayer Online Game, called PMOG, creates a game out of browsing the web.  As a user navigates through the different sites of the internet, they gain datapoints and encounter objects left by others on the site.  PMOG is unique as it turns the act of moving through media into a game.  It draws attention to an act that we now take for granted, the moving from one source of information to another.  The game reinforces that each of the pages come from a different source, a different location, a changed geography since different gifts can be left for you at each of these pages.

The game has redefined the environment of the social network.  The game creates a social network out of surfing the internet rather than belonging to a single site.  It creates a scavenger hunt throughout this new sphere.

So, I have installed the game in Firefox and have been playing the game for the past few weeks.  I don’t know that I am allowing myself to be drawn into the full user experience due to time constraints.  It can act as a bit of a distraction in my life.  I can understand how it might be more of an adventure for students who don’t exactly know what to look for on-line.  This really speaks to a conversation I had with teacher, Audrey Harris, at Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School.  She mentioned that students know how to access different sites and different forms of media, but don’t necessarily know how to search effectively for information nor are they able to know if a site is a valid source of information.  This game simultaneously acts as a tourquide for students through the web and also gives validity to what they are looking out since it was “recommended” by the game or by other users.  The web really is a series of recommendations and references — as is all searching, I guess.

Influential Elements

• Learning through Active Use.  This game speaks to media navigation through active use.

After talking out the project last week I feel a great deal more confident about the direction of the project.  In the face of a great deal of writing, research, and interviewing, however, I do feel as if making time for building has fallen by the wayside.  I am confident that my energies will be rejeuvenated after the mid-term presentations.  Stemming from that I’d say my greatest worry is actually building the project.  I think I should spend some serious time in the next week searching for good tutorials, technical references, and possibly opportunities for funding.  On the other hand, rather than jumping straight in to fully digital explorations of interaction and interface, I do think that it would behoove me to do some paper prototypes.

I think that my other greatest worry is keeping on the path of the “New”.  I need to keep at the forefront of my mind that the new and the emerging must be the focus of the project.  There are a number of different media education modules out there, however none of them has this sort of framework nor do they investigate emerging media.  Perhaps now I really need to answer some of these other questions:

• What are all of the different forms of communication?
• What qualifies as new and emerging?
• Is this a new form of communication or one used in a new way?

The development of my project is both strong and weak at the same time.  The greatest strength is that domain housing my project is strong and well researched.  The greatest challenge is feeling that the ball is rolling very slowly.  This can be attributed to a characteristic of “process” and also to my own “slow motor”.  Prototype development has been in the form of small experiments.  Each have informed what the whole will look like, however it still seems that the final form is blurred.  This blurriness makes for great unease.  DeepFried Media’s elevator pitch is developing and becoming more streamlined, but now that the language is there I feel that I need the prototype development to match it.

The prototypes are taking the form of flash experiments.  Although rather simple, glitches arise and waste time.  A number of new ideas are floating around in my head, but it is difficult to know where to put one’s focus.  Should effort be put towards the creation of a list of the future prototypes and ideas about what they will look like?  Should effort be given to the prototype at hand?  The challenge is simply feeling the current direction is the priority over all of the other possible directions available.

The greatest dilemma that could be facing the final project is the form of game that the project will take.  The term “game” has been tossed around quite frequently in my writing, but through further contemplation and development the question has arisen about how much of a game model this will take.  Is it a game if it is simply a challenge?  What is the connection between media education and a game?  Would it be more to the point to have an on-line vote to decide “winners” as this sort of viral popularity contest is seen throughout media itself?  What is “enough” in terms of activities?  How many activities are necessary to make this module useful?  My research in this area of gaming has been rather light as focus has been directed on media education.  Once the different activities are more clear, it can be assumed that the game/voting/winning structure will become evident.  It is certainly something that requires further thought.

The greatest challenge with my thesis writing this week was simply getting started.  A number of the ideas and a great deal of the research has been rolling around in my mind for a long while, but sitting down and crafting the structure was simply unappealing.  Once started the language begins to flow so holding out for this moment is crucial.