MX: Class Crossover Needs and Solutions

Here is a list of Kelsey and I's needs and solutions based on students in a class crossover online community application. We were asked to think of possible future technologic applications to aid the community and it's students better absorb the content from their curriculums.

Need: Shy student doesn’t like to answer questions in packed classroom.

Solution: Using the online community from home, the student can contribute to their heart’s content, sharing crossover facts, videos, and other media that could relate and assist other students of the community. The student could also option to contribute “anonymously”, where only the teacher could view the students name.

Need: Student would like more group collaboration.

Solution: Students in the community can join a collaborative space. These spaces are online chat rooms with media sharing capabilities. In this case, the students are writing a group paper and can all share and upload information to their “space” to share with each other and view videos and information in real time together. The space would act much like a piece of paper, in that any student could use their tablet to draw and write in the same content space.

Need: Student would like to participate in a study group, but she lives too far to commute to one.

Solution: Using video feeds, a computer could sit in her place with the group, feeding audio and video to the student. The computer could also record the conversations, and assist in any information searching options that could help support the study group.

Need: A certain equation in math class has a student confused.

Solution: Using tablet software, students can write and solve equations together in a collaborative workspace. This process would be recorded so the student could hear their dialogue and watch the process in solving that equation for help in future assignments.

Need: A teacher’s class has been having trouble understanding a recent lesson.

Solution: The class could get on at the same time, and consult an archive of recorded class sections to discuss any confusion. The teacher could also donate her time after school to further the discussion, or listen to recordings of the student discussion to better future lessons. Students digital pens could also record their notes during class, and can upload to the collaborative spaces for other students to read through.

Need: The president of the school board has noticed a drop in the school’s science scores.

Solution: Using the online community, he can visually view the discussion and contribution hot spots in the curriculum, and consult major issues in the students’ learning process.

Need: A parent would like to know which classes their student is taking interest in above the rest.

Solution: The parent can sign in using a parental viewing account, with visual mappings of their son or daughter’s contributions over time.

Need: Student needs help writing a report relating Amelia Earhart and the history of air travel.

Solution: The online community would automatically search video content from sources like national geographic, the history channel, and the science channel, placing related videos as school contributions between class “nodes”. The student could view these videos, and spend less time searching and more time creating those relationships between subject matters. Students could also tag these videos and school contributions to better place them for student viewing.

Need: Student would like to learn facts relatable to classroom subjects as they are out in the world.

Solution: The student could use the online community application on their mobile device, and be notified if any passing landmark or building relates in some way to the classroom content.

Need: School wishes to know which students are having issues with certain subjects.

Solution: A timing device embedded within with online community could measure each student’s time spent in certain subjects online. The students ipad could also track time spent in certain classrooms, during and after class times.

 Need: Schoolbooks are out of date, and there is a budget for new ones.

Solution: With each new version of e-text books, each student’s ipad would update to that new text. The community would receive a notification of this as well.

Need: Student considers homework to be “busy work”.

Solution: The community could send out location based on-site learning opportunities that relate assignments. The could be lectures, historical sites, museums etc. and propose visits to the students when related assignments pop up. These could also be locations found by other students mobile devices.

Need: Student wishes to discuss a class topic further.

Solution: A database of higher academic experts could volunteer to interact as users in the community and discuss topics with willing students.

Need: Teacher wants to extend lesson based on input of students.

Solution: Intuitive collection program analyzes students’ discussions and determines the best new resources to pull from an online database to aid teacher with new lessons.

Need: Parents are concerned for children’s grades.

Solution: Notifications can be sent to Parent’s mobile devices or computers to notify drops in their child’s grade. They can customize the notifications based on the letter grade or standard they expect their child to live up to.