On Monday, October 11, I met with one eighth grade student at The Boys and Girls Club. He was quick to inform us that he was really good at math and really enjoyed learning. He asked many questions in regards to what this session would entail and what the skateboarding software would be like.
We began the session by opening the skateboarding software and closing both side bars where acceleration can be adjusted. We began the session with very little instruction; I believe this is the best way to find usability flaws- to simply let them explore and observe what is ambiguous to them. We demonstrated how to create new objects (arcs, line segments, polynomials, rational, exponentials, sinusoidal).
The other researcher created a challenge for the student: he claimed to have been able to keep the skateboarder on the screen for 1 minute. The students objective for the day would be to beat that time. At the thought of a challenge, the student became excited and began to verbalize his plan of action. The first thing he wanted to do was to delete the default lines that appear with the start of the program. He found that by right clicking a line he could select “delete” but by pressing “delete” on the keyboard was found to be inactive. For usability purposed it would also be beneficial to have an “Undo” option under the Edit Tab.
Upon construction of his first line segment, he realized that he could adjust the slope of the line by plugging in different values of x1/x2, y1/y2. We had a discussion in regards to the appearance of x1/x2, y1/y2.
The student was confused with the way in which x1, y1 and x2, y2 was displayed. He was unable to recognize the form in which it has been written. Students typically learn through their schooling that coordinates are written in the form: (x1, y1) and (x2, y2). While trying to determine if he wanted a positive or negative slope he turned to me and asked me “which is the x-axis and which is the y-axis?”. Perhaps an optional review of coordinates before beginning the skateboarding software would be beneficial to students. Another idea would be to label the x and y axis’s with “X” and “Y”, respectively.
The student then decided that he wanted to create an arc but had no idea how to go about doing it. The student was able to easily access the “create new object” button. The student’s issues were due to the fact that he was unfamiliar with the circle equation and degrees measured in radians. Perhaps there should also be a tutorial linked with these options to allow students to learn how to measure in radians or how to get their circles to look like arcs. He seemed very interested in learning; with this easy to learn option students interests will be spiked even more using the skateboarding software.
With a quick test of the obstacles the student had created thus far, his skateboarder flew off the screen in about 10 seconds. He turned and immediately asked two questions: 1) “where did my skateboarder go?” and 2) “How did you know my skateboarder was on the screen for 10 seconds?”. When the skateboarder flies off the screen it does not automatically return and the clock does not stop upon exit. A few suggestions for usability of the skateboarding software would be to automatically have the timer stop when the skateboarder flies off the screen this way students can accurately measure how long their obstacles kept the skateboarder in play. The timer is very small at the top right hand corner and isn’t noticeable; the student suggested putting the timer in a red block or something to make it stand out. To address the students first question it would be beneficial to have the skateboarder automatically return to the starting point and not go missing for too long after exiting the screen.
