Beta testing TimeZoned, a critical thinking game for 4th-5th grade: opportunity this week
Maria Droujkova
Triad Interactive Media, a partner of my company Natural Math, is starting to beta test its online game called TimeZoned. It is a good opportunity for a few parents and teachers to experience the game, for free. You can play either with your 4th-5th graders, or if you don't have a kid this age, yourself, and give us feedback. Just email me, or the technical advisor for the project, Scott Brewste: dr.br...@gmail.com We will appreciate any comments, however small. Please contribute to better educational computer game development.
Access the game here: http://ctproject.heroku.com/
More details below.
What is TimeZoned?
The primary goal of TimeZoned is to improve fifth-grade students’ critical thinking skills using topics in social studies. To achieve this goal, we are creating a Web-based learning system featuring powerful interactive tools that (a) engage students in critical thinking about social studies topics, (b) assess students’ comprehension of topics covered, and (c) allow teachers to view student data that has been captured by the system. Eventually, we will incorporate additional tools that allow teachers and students to customize their experience and communicate about system-related activities with students all over the country who are using the tool.
TimeZoned is designed to step students through important concepts related to critical thinking and logical thought. As students progress using the tool, they encounter more complex problems—ones that encourage them to think critically about social studies related topics and make decisions that will help them succeed in using the intervention.
TimeZoned is immersive and narrative-based—that is, students using the tool become new recruits for The National League of Science and History, an organization designed to investigate strange occurrences related to Science and History, and complete all TimeZoned tasks within this role. Students begin their journey by creating their user account, choosing an avatar for their character, and watching initiation videos related to the mission they’ve been assigned.
Testing TimeZoned
We would like to get teacher feedback before testing with students. Therefore, we are setting up this field test to get teacher feedback related to the TimeZoned’s student tools. The module you will be testing is the 1st one—a module designed to teach very rudimentary concepts related to critical thinking—that is, true vs. false, fact vs. opinion, and basic concepts related to decision making and consistency.
Getting Started
Recommended Hardware & Software. Timezoned should work with any current browser—that is, Firefox, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer 7 and above. Flash 9 or above should also be installed. Our intervention is one of the first of its kind to experiment with HTML 5 video, which will allow our product to eventually work with mobile platforms. If you note any oddities related to technology, please note them for us. That way, we can attend to them during our next development phase.
Account Creation and Logging In. To begin, visit http://ctproject.heroku.com/ and look for New Recruits. Select “Get Started.”
Create a Student Account for Yourself. Since we want to get your feedback on the student tools, your first task is to create a student account. As soon as you click “Get Started,” you will have access to a series of screens that helps you get started and create your account.
Read your initiation letter and watch the provided intro video
Select an avatar (these are placeholder images for now, but you must select one of them; a red box will appear around an avatar once it’s chosen)
Input your first and last name
Input your teacher name: Teacher 1 (if you start filling this field in, it may auto-fill for you; there will be others that show up in the dropdown, but Teacher 1 must be selected)
Input your class name: Teacher Test Class (if you start filling this field in, it may auto-fill for you; there will be others that show up in the dropdown, but Teacher Test Class must be selected)
Press “Begin Your Journey”
Experience TimeZoned. Once you press “Begin Your Journey,” you will be following along the same journey a student would follow as he or she works with the intervention. You continue in the role of the Assistant whereby you are asked to watch videos and view other media, complete tasks (e.g., answer questions and play mini games situated within the module). Directions are given for various tasks along the way, so everything should be self explanatory.
Getting Help. If you run across anything that doesn’t seem right, make a note of it so that you can share it with us later. If you have technical trouble during your testing, please consult the list below.
For images/videos not loading as fast as you suspect they should, one solution is to wait a minute or so to see if it eventually loads. Load speeds will vary depending on your network connection
If images or videos fail to load after a reasonable amount of time, click “Log Out” in the upper right corner and log back into the system. Your username will be your full name, lower case, with a space (example: john doe) and your password is letmein (that’s “let me in” with no spaces).
Feel free to email the technical advisor for the project. His name is Scott Brewster, and he can be reached at dr.br...@gmail.com .
Cheers,
Maria Droujkova
http://naturalmath.com
Make math your own, to make your own math.