Hello WISE Community!
We hope that all is well with you. The days are getting shorter and the leaves are starting to turn color in the Bay Area. The fall semester at UC Berkeley is well under way and the WISE research team is busy conducting research in our partner schools. We’re moving into our fall/winter mode here, as we approach the holiday season.
'Tis the season for persimmons!
Authoring tool user studies
We’ve completed our initial set of user studies that focused on the unit authoring tool. Using a method called contextual inquiry, we asked our participants to perform several common tasks in the authoring tool as we watched, asked questions, and noted areas for improvement. We also conducted a survey to try to understand how people were using the tool. Using findings from these studies, we’ve started making improvements to the user experience by simplifying workflows for editing steps and making the lessons and activities more prominent in the edit unit and edit step views. We will continue to make improvements to the tool and will keep you updated as we roll out the changes.
Draw tool improvements
We’ve heard from several teachers that students have difficulty using our Draw tool. Before, it required clicking and holding to open tool menus, which was not intuitive. Now the tool menus open the second time you click on them (do not require click and hold), and the stamp menu opens the first time you click on it. You can see the improved draw tool here!
Multiple language support for units (in progress)
We started working on a feature that will let you view a unit in multiple languages. Right now, if you want to use a unit in your classroom in 2 languages, you would need to set up two classroom units (one for each language), and remember to assign students to the correct one to match their language preferences. With this new feature, you will be able to create one classroom unit and WISE will automatically show the correct language based on each student’s preference.
Technology update for WISE researchers
The WISE technology team presents periodic updates to the wider community of WISE researchers and curriculum developers here at Berkeley. We wanted to provide a link to slides from our most recent update yesterday. Check it out for a quick overview of some of the additional features and improvements we’ve been working on!
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a reply below. We always love hearing from the community!
-The WISE Technology Team