[IAEP] GPA Report - Feedback on using the Journal

[Caroline Meeks]

Today we worked with two groups on multiplication. They made squares with
each side being a different multiplication problem that had the same answer.
http://screencast.com/t/sUbiof2H

<http://screencast.com/t/sUbiof2H>We also had them reflect in their Journals
about what they did.

All of this went well.

What was horrible was trying to get the right point in the project saved to
the Journal and then navigating to the correct place to write.

The solution I suggest is when you click the Keep button (Journal Icon) from
an activity that the Journal reflection dialog box appears.

Here are the problems we had.


   - Hard to get to the Journal, no easy F# short cut.
   - Hard to find the little arrow that gets you to where you can write.
   Especially since if the Frame is active, which it has to be to get to the
   Journal, the little bitty arrow you need to click is covered.
   - When students did their assigned task they were eager to go back to
   exploring with Sugar and wrote over their work without it being saved, or
   using the same name as the assigned activity.  This was probably the worst
   outcome because then it was like they hadn't done the assignment, they had
   nothing to show for their work and we'll want to use it later for a
   portfolio.
   - clicking the Activity Tab to write down the name is a PITA (this one is
   fixed in .88 I think).
   - After they reflected they wanted to immediately go back to exploring in
   TA and we had to stop them, make them change the name again. They were very
   perplexed by this because they didn't know what to name their new file
   because they hadn't done anything yet.
   - The word "Description" is not very friendly. I like "What did you do?"
   Walter wants to expand it even further, I'm not sure about that, its pretty
   challenging for the students to type so I'm not sure we want more boxes.
   - Confusion between the Keep button and the samples and the snapshot
   icons.
   - No feedback when you click Keep so there is a tendency to click it
   repeatedly.

I usually try to stick with reporting my observations and not giving
specific usability advice but this time I really have an opinion. I think it
would be much much more useful to have the Keep button popup the Journal
Dialog box. That would let me reflect and also rename if I want to.

What are the downsides of this?

Thanks,
Caroline

-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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