A version of this letter was shared on Iridescent’s blog and with its community of volunteer mentors, all of whom are professional engineers and scientists. As Iridescent’s model has developed we have faced challenges with finding the right role for mentors in online learning and blended learning environments. I wanted to share my gratitude and […]
We are proud to introduce the new Iridescent Awesome Award and our first awardee! This award recognizes the Iridescent team member who has gone above and beyond in their work over the past month, and demonstrated amazing teamwork and dedication. The first Iridescent Awesome Award is presented to Mike Larsson, our Senior Developer! Mike joined […]
To answer these questions, we ran a 100 hour-long summer camp – looking at nature from an engineer’s point of view. We opened the camp to a wide range of ages – all the way from 3-10. Each child was paired with an adult or a high school explainer.
For instance, instead of differentiating birds on the basis of color, students started to notice differences in wing beat frequencies, wing tip shapes, types of beak etc.
Students went through all stages of the engineering design process each day while exploring different questions regarding bird flight, beaks, animal locomotion, tree stability and structures etc.
An engineering design problem
We are a science education nonprofit and work with engineers and scientists to convey complex physics-based concepts to children through open-ended engineering design problems. We dove into the nascent field of science education apps because of the overwhelming evidence that mobile devices are going to become mainstream educational devices (see Horizon Report).
The field is new and exciting, but it is not easy to develop an engaging educational app that teaches the user something new each time. So we have had to repeatedly question why we are in this field and what unique perspective we can provide. After developing five apps we finally have a better understanding of what we can provide.
Our main learning objective therefore is to develop games that focus on conceptual learning through experience rather than factual learning, providing both a better game and a better learning experience. We only illustrate specific concepts and topics that lend themselves to the virtual world. For instance topics such as nanotechnology, planetary movement, bacterial locomotion, fluid dynamics or the engineering constraints of building a submarine naturally lend themselves to the virtual environment, where the user can zoom around molecules, see gravity fields and air and develop an intuition for how invisible forces work.
Lessons from each of our apps
We have developed five apps so far and are in the process of releasing five more this year. Each app has been a huge learning experience.
We created this app in partnership with Gamedesk. Our vision for this app was for it to be able to show air flow around a bird’s wing (to help teach how lift works) and then to enable the user to create their own bird and see why each was successful or unsuccessful because of the amount of lift generated on the wing. Due to time constraints, we cut out the latter part. The result was Aero which provides an insight into the air flow around a wing and the resultant lift forces. But there is no game element that: 1)would make the app fun; 2)encourage the user to transfer her learning. As a result many subtle aspects of lift generation are probably missed by the casual observer.
We then worked with I-site to release a second app that would show the marvelous adaptations of birds to various environments and hopefully have a more engaging game play aspect. But again due to time constraints, we had to cut back on the game play. However the artwork in this app is stunning (created by an extremely talented science illustrator – Ioana Urma) and that goes a long way towards making this app notable. This app was featured by Apple and as a result got about 64000 downloads. Here are some blog posts about the app that give us hope that we are on the right track:
This is our most recent and most exciting app developed in partnership with Night and Day Studios! It is much more complex than the others and targets upper elementary and middle school students. It is based on the work of an amazing illustrator – John Kelly – in the book The Robot Zoo – a mechanical guide to the way animals work. The book is now sadly out of print. We decided to bring some of the animals in this book to life through an app. Our physicist on our team developed the story line: It is the grand opening of the Underwater Biobot Zoo – a collection of mechanical animal robots created by a scientist – when a catastrophe strikes: an earthquake damages the underwater museum and visitors get stuck. You happen to be trapped in the scientist’s lab. The user has to study the database of the scientist records and design an underwater rescue robot to save the visitors. So the app has three parts – the database, builder (where you choose the propulsion system, energy source, respiration, digestion and camouflage type) and the navigator (where you get to rescue the visitors stuck in a yellow submarine).
Due to financial constraints, we had to limit the scope of our vision and so the story really doesn’t get developed too well. In execution the learning pieces stand apart from the gaming experience. This is easy to see while playing the game, but was totally not apparent to us while we were developing the app.
This was developed in partnership with Desktop Aero. The user has to design an underwater glider that can pick up trash and clean the bay. This app is targeted towards nerdy middle and high school students who spend their time tinkering and thinking about design problems. This group is probably very small! It has a lot of physics and engineering design, but the concepts are complex and need some more engaging game play to inspire the required persistence.
Current field of science education apps
According to the iLearn II report toddler apps are the most popular education apps in the Apple marketplace (58%), followed by apps for adults (40%). Elementary school apps are only 19% of the educational apps, followed by 18% of middle school apps. High school is the least popular age category (10%).
As a mother of a two year old I can make some surmises as to why toddler apps are so popular:
Currently science educational apps barely scratch the surface of what is possible with a smart-touch device. They are weak enhancements to the content in a book and are mostly focused on presenting factual information. The only exceptions are apps not specifically designed for educational purposes, but involve manipulating partially realistic models of physics in achieving non-educational goals. For example, Anodia incorporates gravity wells in a traditional block breaker game and Osmos uses the concepts of momentum and gravity in moving bubbles of water around. Even Angry Birds contains some useful simulations of projectile motion. Notice that these games do not present facts, but allows a user to gain an intuitive feel for how a complex system operates through direct experience. This is a guiding principle behind how we design engaging hand-on activities, and is also the component that makes any game, educational or otherwise, enjoyable (Gee, J.P., 2005).
Development challenges, lessons and next steps
Like any engineering design problem, we had to balance our wish list with time, funding and expertise constraints. Developing an engaging game that looks beautiful and supports learning requires a team that has the scientific, app development, teaching, aesthetic and UI design expertise.
The hardest piece for us has been to understand how to have both an engaging game and an educational tool. After five apps, we finally have an understanding of how we should go forward i.e develop games that focus on conceptual learning through experience rather than present factual learning in one module followed by the game play in another module.
We also need to build iteratively in smaller chunks of time and money. It is not wise to spend the entire budget on one version without extensive user feedback. We also need to limit ourselves to having one clear learning objective and an engaging game play aspect that keeps reinforcing it.
What lies ahead
We are currently working on:
Our final frontiers are to:
Regardless of all the learning pains, the science education app field is a very exciting one with much unexplored potential. We are very excited to collaborate with educators, scientists, developers and artists and develop powerful learning tools that unlock the wonders of our world for children. We welcome thoughts, comments and suggestions!
Each of these apps has been made possible by the generous support of the Office of Naval Research.
ReferencesGee. J. P. (2005). “Learning by Design: good video games as learning machines”. E-Learning, Volume 2 (Number 1), p. 5-16
After three years of applying for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Informal Science Education grant, we finally were awarded the grant to work with the same group of Family Science Participants for five years. We are now in year two of the project called, “Be a Scientist”.
There are some really cool aspects of this project, one of which I will share here.
I was inspired by the Seven Up! documentary series and we are going to create something similar with the families who participate in our Family Science Courses. The following videos are from the first year of the project and the students are all first graders. We hope to bring four more each year as these students go through elementary school.
The videos have been created by Prof. Jed Dannenbaum, Prof. Doe Mayer and their amazing students – Alejandro, Jessie and Josie from the USC Cinema School.
Some points to keep in mind and notice:
* we are targeting parents with this video. The technical content has intentionally been downplayed. We emphasize the fact that anyone can help their child learn and do science – regardless of background or prior attributes. These videos will be played at various Back to School night recruiting events to help parents see the value of engaging in learning activities alongside their children.
* Success for Iridescent is when the parent continues the learning that we initiated in the classroom. This is what we see in the Medina Family video. Parents are the biggest influencers in a child’s life. Our strategy is to exponentially increase our program’s impact by bringing the parents along with us on our mission.
* Success for Iridescent is also when the parent supports and encourages the child to persist through failure as Knick’s mother does when he despairs.
We are so excited to start creating the series for year two. We would also love any ideas and suggestions on themes or story lines to explore 🙂
Everyone asks me why did I choose the name Iridescent! So here is the answer 🙂
