Same Course, New Heading

About a week ago I had several meetings with heads of department in the university along with Rob Kurta my module tutor and a handful of other professionals in education and while speaking with them I decided id gather some feedback on my progress with this project. Rather than just bullet point back my responses (which I am proud to say were all positive) I am going to point out course corrections to my project and back them up with the feedback given.

Firstly and most importantly is the shift in what I am going to be producing at the end of my project. After speaking with Dr Erica Joslin (Head of department for children, young people and education) I have decided to make the move from producing singular gamified worksheets to instead producing a gamification tool kit. This tool kit will be a pipeline which will enable educators (specifically in primary education) to take their own existing worksheets and gamify them. I will still be producing the worksheets, however this will not be my end product, simply a form of example and testing.

This also leads on to another point from the same meeting, field feedback. Dr Joslin has kindly offered that in February she will put me in contact with teacher trainees whose focus is teaching science at upper key stage 2 and allow me to pass on my preliminary kit for field testing. This will allow me to gather detailed feedback on how user friendly the kit will be as well as give in depth pointers in regards to educators and learners needs which I may have missed. This also means that I will be amending my projected time table. The new timetable can be seen below.

All other aspects of my project shall remain the same, focusing on KS2 students as they have a curriculum which open to far greater gamification avenues. When looking at secondary education, gamification can still be applied however the work needs to be structured to a far greater extent, however most of the elements from my proposed tool kit will not be exclusive to KS2 and so can still be used to an extent in other aspects. I however will only be focusing on KS2 for this project and any cross applicable elements will be purely coincidental.

Many existing tool kits are very word heavy and provide plenty of guidance however these can be a chore to read in themselves and I want this to be as painless for the educators using it as the worksheets produced are for the learners. I will use my knowledge of pipelines in game design and form an end product based around this style of direction. I am looking to produce documents for analysing worksheets, for choosing which game elements to use, examples of elements in games and in gamification and examples of class delivery. I am also looking at providing information on resources that can be accessed by educators to aid in increasing interaction and engagement within the class room. Lastly I want to include some example structures for homework and assessment of learners.  

PROJECT MILESTONES

21 - 25 Dec	Xmas Break	Consolidation of findings so far and creation of gamification pipeline outline along with gamification design document.
28 Dec - 1 Jan
4 - 8 Jan
11 - 15 Jan		Produce a preliminary draft of the pipeline along with sections that require attention
18 - 22 Jan		Flesh out and iterate pipeline, ensure that all wordings are clear and concise.
25 - 29 Jan	Week 13	Sprint week five. Consolidate elements, readings and findings and prepare for presentation week while further iterations continue.
1 - 5 Feb	Week 14	Seminar Presentation Week Annalise feedback and create a feedback path for when I field test my kit.
8 - 12 Feb	Week 15	I will produce a full pipeline document/tool kit ready for first distribution. I will contact Dr Joslin to arrange a meeting with the teacher trainees. At this point I will be looking into any digital elements if deemed required.
15 - 19 Feb	Week 16	Further iterations, further assessment based on feedback from the field. Focus this week will be on ensuring all elements still tie together.
22 - 26 Feb	Week 17	I will assess further needs, further improvements and write a final plan to incorporate  and implement them
29 Feb - 4 Mar	Week 18	Further iteration, The project will be approaching   its final form by this point and is just being polished.
7 - 11 Mar	Week 19	As previous week.
14 - 18 Mar	Week 20	Final assessment week before elements are finalized and materials are brought together for the final time.
21 - 25 Mar	Easter Break	Focus on polishing up any digital elements that may have been produced.
28 Mar - 1 Apr	Easter Break	Further polish to digital elements as required.
4 - 8 Apr		Final design phase. Tweak any elements which remain unnecessary or are not achieving the required outcome from final feedback.
11 - 15 Apr	Week 21	Continue to tweak elements. Use core design readings to maximize this final development step.
18 - 22 Apr	Week 22	Package all materials together into the final, deliverable product.
25 Apr - 29 Apr	Week 23	Contingency week to allow for unforeseen setbacks in development
2 - 6 May	Week 24	Contingency week to allow for unforeseen setbacks in development