A Visual History

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Prototype

January 2012

The prototype was used to evaluate the technology resources of our design team teachers classrooms. How many computers did they have? What OS and browser? How would teachers use the projector?

The student view was just a simple "digital worksheet," with a list of questions and a textbox for response. Students could not see others responses on their own computer, only the Display View listed all responses.

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Version 1

February 2012 - April 2012

Entirely new system designed for use in the classroom with different spaces for each school.

Students log in with a class password, not individual accounts. They are able to quickly and easily declare members of small groups

There is a seperate "Student View" with a list of questions to answer, and "Display View" which was projected at the front of the room.

The student view is a digital worksheet, with a linear list of questions to answer. The only form of input students could use was text. The display view included a post-it note metaphor of moving objects spatially.

Teachers have the ability to create lesson plans which they can assign to multiple class rosters.

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Version 2

April 2012 - August 2012

Linear question list replaced with flexible, open ended top space that allows teachers to scaffold the lesson plan.

No longer a distinction between Student View and Display View, as they are the same persistent, shared collaboration space.

Users wanted to be able to use rich media, so the ability to upload images and take pictures via a webcam are created.

InterLACE is often used concurrently by users in the same room, so timely notifications of new content was needed. Students and teachers can now directly respond to others ideas.

Classroom specific features requested by teachers: the ability to highlight a single response, or directly compare two ideas.

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Version 3

September 2012 - December 2012

Refined the overall user experience, much smoother and more intuitive for both the students and the teacher. Cleaner collaboration space that is more icon based, focusing more on the student ideas.

New Inputs: the most demanded by schools with iPads, which is the ability to free sketch that works on a tablet. The second input is the ability to paste an image from the clipboard and crop to a selection, which gets screenshots of other applciations quickly imported.

Much more robust teacher interface, highlighed by a WYSIWYG editor for teachers with the ability to upload media to the server. Teachers can also re-order questions in a lesson plan.

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Version 4

December 2012 - August 2013

Enabled tagging to support argumentation and meta-data analysis. Teachers also used the tags to have students reference each other's posts.

Individual posts on InterLACE are draggable. The ability to save individual arrangements was introduced. These individual arrangements were visible to all participants. This feature supported group wide discussions, where students had a tangible representation of their understanding of the artifacts to discuss.

Enabled a background image on the sketching input, allowing for engaging and flexible prompts.