Global collaboration is an increasingly important skill for students and adults. As our world becomes more interconnected, many jobs will require this kind of collaboration. Solving problems that affect our daily lives increasingly calls for global collaboration efforts.
How globally connected are you? You might have relatives that live in another country. Perhaps one of your parents travels to other countries for their job or has video conferences with someone in another part of the world. Maybe you came from a different country than where you live now.
If you are passionate about making a difference in the world, you will certainly need to tap into some global collaboration skills! There is a huge need for global thinkers and collaborators of all ages to work together, now more than ever, to help solve problems and work together on solutions.
When you have completed this activity you will:
To kick off the app design project, the class organizes into teams and starts exploring app topics. Several example socially impactful apps serve as inspiration for the project.
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Dive into app development by exploring existing apps that may serve similar users. Each group identifies a handful of apps that address the same topic they are working on, using those apps to help refine the app idea they will pursue.
Paper prototypes allow developers to quickly test ideas before investing a lot of time writing code. In this lesson, teams explore some example apps created in App Lab, using those apps to help inform the first paper prototypes of their apps.
In this lesson, teams test out their paper prototypes with other members of the class. With one student role playing the computer, one narrating, and the rest observing, teams will get immediate feedback on their app designs which will inform the next version of their app prototypes.
Having developed, tested, and gathered feedback on a paper prototype, teams now move to App Lab to build the next iteration of their apps. Using the drag-and-drop Design Mode, each team member builds out at least one page of their team's app, responding to feedback that was received in the previous round of testing.
Building on the screens that the class designed in the previous lesson, teams combine screens into a single app. Simple code can then be added to make button clicks change to the appropriate screen.
Teams run another round of user testing, this time with their interactive prototype. Feedback gathered from this round of testing will inform the final iteration of the app prototypes.
The class explores a variety of different teapot designs to consider how design choices are made and why. Using the teapots as an example, the class will explore the relationship between users, their needs, and the design of the objects they use.
Using user profiles, the class explores how different users might react to a variety of products. Role-playing as a different person, each member of the class will get to experience designs through someone else's eyes.
See how a paper prototype can be used to test and get feedback on software before writing any code. To help out a developer with their idea, the class tests and provides an app prototype made of paper.
