The school and teacher with whom we'll be working with

We will be working with Mrs. Ellen Lynch, a teacher at Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School. Mrs. Lynch is currently teaching an all-day kindergarten class with 12 students in it. The first language for the majority of students in the class is Spanish. They are a highly energetic and eclectic bunch of kids. Needless to say, because we are designing our program for kindergarteners, especially kindergarteners whose first language is not English, the software will have to be predominantly visual-based.

The audience for our program

We are creating software primarily for the 12 students aforementioned. The program will be installed in the school's computer lab, however, and thus will be available to students ranging in age from 4 to 11. We will always have to keep this fact in the back of our minds so that we can construct a program that is interesting for all the students who use it

 

The computers for which we'll be designing the program

The computers we will be installing our program on are fairly up to date, and more than adequate for our purposes. They have Pentium II processors and are running Windows 98. They have 6 gigabytes of hard disk space and 32 Megs of Ram. Additionally, all of the computers are networked throughout the school via Ethernet and two server computers running Windows NT. In Mrs. Lynch classrooms, one of the computers can output to a television, allowing for possibly group activities.

The software which we will use to create the program

Because Mrs. Lynch and we have a strong desire for the majority of the program to be fully interactive, we have decided to use Macromedia Director as our development software of choice. There are a few reasons for this. Primarily, Director's interface and design lend itself to creating interactive presentations/programs with a minimal amount of coding. Secondly, should complex levels of interaction be necessary, Director projects have a modifiable back-end written in Director's proprietary language Lingo. This is an object-oriented language that will allow us to increase the complexity of the program. Finally, Director can output to Shockwave, which can easily be place on a web page for public viewing and use.

 

Use of Program

The program will primarily be used during the students' math time and, as mentioned above, will also be available during their computer time. Mrs. Lynch has expressed an interest in having the program address both the concepts of fractions as well as, possibly, teaching notation. While the state requirements for kindergarten only require the understanding of 'one-half', we are hoping to cover up to 'one-fifth' or 'one-sixth'.

Schedule of Team Meetings and Classroom Observation

Our team has decided to meet every Tuesday @ 5:30 to touch base and plan. Of course as the project proceeds, meetings will be added to our schedule to accommodate its needs. Mrs. Lynch has informed us that we can come in at any time during the day to observe her students. We are initially planning to go in at our own convenient times, and post our notes to the rest of the team. Special times to note: Math time is from 12:00-12:30PM, and on Thursday and Friday the children can be observed in Computer time as well as Art and Science.

 

Thoughts and Notes

 

• As mentioned above, It is Mrs. Lynch's and our desire to ensure that the program is interactive, and engaging for the students.
• We hope that the concept of fractions will be intrinsically involved in the activity of the program, and not lost in the glitz of the program or game.
• Because of the various backgrounds and needs of the students, we are hoping to add features to tailor the program to requirements of this specific classroom, which should hopefully enhance the experience for other students as well.

 

 

 

Timeline

Deadline	Task
February 15	Rough draft of the revised project description
February 15	Rough draft of an initial web site
Week of Feb 19	Compile the group's ideas of what the program will do
Week of Feb 26	Speak to Mrs. Lynch again and propose our ideas
Week of Feb 26	Revise the specifications of the program
Week of Mar 5	Spend some time with the students
Week of Mar 5	Begin working on the Storyboard
March 15	Storyboard is due
Week of Mar 19	Begin actual coding of the project
Week of Mar 26	Make initial tests with the students
Week of April 2	Revise and continuing working on the program
Week of April 9	Make follow-up tests with the students
Week of April 16	Revise and continuing working on the program
Week of April 23	Begin testing the completed version of the program
Week of April 30	Finish testing and make the final program alterations
May 8	Project is due