Sunday, May 27, 2012

PART A - Description of Need or Opportunity

Sloan*Longway is a historical museum and Science Center located off of I-475 in Flint, Michigan. Its mission is to "create engaging experiences for everyone that inspire a lifelong curiosity in history, science and technology." To fulfill this mission Sloan*Longway provides a variety of educational programming for students and adults throughout the year. In order to meet demand from local school districts, the organization offers 26 hands-on and materials rich core programs aligned to Michigan's Science and Social Studies GLCEs. These programs are taught by 3 full-time educators and 4 part-time educators. For various reasons, staff training and remediation is an ongoing problem which results in an undesirable level of program specialization within the staff.  

 In order to help allieviate this issue, I plan to create an easily assessable mulit-platform mobile solution for iOS, Android, and Windows phones. My initial concept is a series of websites that contain key program background, content, set-up, and other information that will be accessed through the phone's camera with QR Codes. Here is a brief description of QR codes from Common Craft:



I plan to create 12 websites for the top 6 science programs and the top 6 social studies programs  using free sources like Weebly, YoutTube, and other non-flash based resources.  QR code creators and readers are free so the only cost for this project will be paper and laminate.  Furthermore, using a QR reader is relatively straightforward so only minimal staff training is required. I plan to track the use of  the websites with a counter, and will provide a brief survey using Google Forms.

Here are some sites that provide information for using QR codes in training:
How to Use QR Codes in Corporate Training
5 Real Ways To Use QR Codes In Education
You and QR Codes




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2 comments:

  1. Ashley WitherowJune 12, 2012 at 10:45 AM

    This sounds like a great project! Staff should definitely be highly specialized in their subject areas. But will these websites address simply subject matter or technology use or both? And is their specialization lacking in subject area knowledge or technology aspect?

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  2. UnknownJune 28, 2012 at 7:17 PM

    Non-flash-yes, that is a strong consideration in mobile technology use. Have you ever been to the MSU children's gardens? Dr. Norm Lownds has created a QR scavenger hunt for kids to do while touring the gardens. He keeps a few iPod touches on hand and hands them out if they don't have a smartphone. This really reminds me of his program-you should check it out.

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