Students Help Pearson Design Learning Technologies
Once
a
week, eight children arrive at the Pearson
IDEA Innovation Center in
Chandler, AZ, ready to work with designers and developers on the latest
learning tools the company is designing.
The
second-
through seventh-graders are part of the Kids Team at Pearson project
that started this past summer as a one-week summer camp. During the
camp, the
students worked on the Pearson Realize project in which they helped their
older
counterparts design a next-generation learning management system for
K-12
classrooms.
After
that
initial successful collaboration, some of those students and a few more
continued the project into the current school year and already have
worked with
Pearson designers on a mobile application for early literacy, the design
of a
geometry game and enhancements to a library of reusable, interactive
instructional components.
Pearson's
goal
with its Kids Team at Pearson project is to have learners become
co-designers
of digital tools that they and their classmates might use in the future.
Another goal is to better understand what students want from learning
technologies in terms of features and functionality.
"Who
better
to help design learning tools than learners?" asked Lisa Maurer, manager
of product design research at the Pearson Research & Innovation
Network
Center for Product Design Research & Efficacy. "We are encouraging
collaboration, creativity and a passion for knowledge among the
participating
students, while we gather greater first-hand insights into the next
generation
of our solutions."
Each
week,
the students have a new and different design challenge to work on,
everything
from building a new interface to a learning management system to helping
designers figure out what makes a digital curriculum engaging to them.
"Before
I
didn't know about the process for making apps," said Briana Jamerson a
fifth grader
at Riggs Elementary School in Chandler. "Now I know you have to go
through
trials over and over again until you get it perfect."
The
Kids
Team at Pearson initiative started out in 1998 when it was launched at
the
University of Maryland's Human Computer Interaction Lab.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.