Prototype of M-learning program (Multi-language version)
S.O.S Sexuality
S.O.S Sexcualité
S.O.S性教育
This is a team work of class TEN-7015 (Développement de systèmes d'enseignement et de formation)
Thanks to my brilliant teammates: Marie-Josée Leplage et Lisa-Marie Gauthier!
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Introduction:
The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 has forced teaching in many areas to move online. This is true of Canada, the United States, and China. The sudden change left the school insufficient time to prepare. We found that there are not enough reliable online education resources for students and teachers to choose from for courses such as sex education. However, students' bodies will not stop growing because of the epidemic. Especially for 6th grade children who are about to enter puberty, the ongoing and upcoming physiological and psychological changes make online sex education an urgent matter.
So we designed this course for 6th grade children. The main content and teaching purpose of the course are derived from the requirements of the Quebec Education Bureau for sex education for students of this age. The curriculum takes into account both knowledge and interest. Let children freely explore and understand sex and sexual concepts in a safe and interesting environment.
From a long-term perspective, "M-learning" sex education by technical means is very practical.
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The whole project is developed in the form of a game, mainly including introduction, knowledge explanation, practice in class, evaluation formative (situational game), evaluation sommative, interspersed with learning objectives, operating instructions, feedback and corrections, throughout the game process A dictionary containing learning concepts is convenient for learners to review and consult. According to the learner's progress, the entire training project will take about 10-15 minutes. The learner will be able to distinguish the concepts of gender identity, gender expression, biological sex and sexual orientation precisely.
Tools:
We use Articulate Stotyline 360 to realise the final M-learning program. The drawings (characters and certain elements of the decor) were made with Gimp Pack software. The title of the training was animated with Adobe Premier Pro. The flowchart was made by Cmap (cmap.ihmc.us). The storyboard was worked on with PowerPoint and some designs were transferred to the final software. Some pictures and sound effects was edited with Canava.com.
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Challenges, solutions & thoughts:
1. Project selection:
When we were brainstorming and choosing this project, we unanimously thought of child sex education. As I grew up in Asian culture, sex education is missing. Another team member just finished the sex education teacher training. Another member is a mother of two children and teaches at the university. Our different ages and growing backgrounds make us feel the importance of this training.
But the topic of sex education is also a challenge.
First, how to determine the teaching content. The content should be aimed at the age of the learners, in line with their physical and psychological characteristics, and safe and scientific.
We choose to design the curriculum according to the outline of the Quebec Education Bureau to ensure that the content fits the learners and the content is reasonable and safe.
Sex education is a sensitive topic. Even as a parent, we often don't know how to explain it to our children. This is also the reason for the need for professionals to design online courses. And sex education is not only about understanding the physical level, but also the psychological and social level.
Second, what kind of expression is used.
We must be both serious and interesting in the course. In considering the use of real pictures or cartoon images, we finally decided that it will be easier for children of this age to understand the concepts involved in this part of the course through cartoon pictures.
In addition, it reflects the value of PEA.
In order not to be too complicated, we did not write the intersex part in our original version. But considering the universality of the objects of online education, we hope that all children will not feel excluded when facing this course, so we finally decided to join this part.
In the selection of cases in the course, we also deliberately included possible gender awareness and physiological gender differences, and told children how to understand them correctly.
Taking into account the differences in the individual environment and understanding of sex education, we specially designed the communication button. In this way, children can send their questions to the teacher who presides over the course and get targeted answers. In the first version, we added some credible sex education website information, but considering that children of this age may have the ability to search and identify knowledge, based on your feedback, we temporarily conceal this design in the final version . Maybe we will join in the design of sex education for older students.
We produced the game version in three languages, Chinese, English and French, and involved images of children of different races and genders. These are reminders of this fairness value.
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2. Another aspect of the challenge comes from technology.
This is the first time our team has tried to use Storyline software. The similar appearance of the software and PowerPoint at first made our tasks easy to operate.
The fact is that this software has good compatibility with ppt. Many format buttons are similar to ppt, saving a lot of learning time. But the core of storyline is process-oriented design. If there is no complete design idea, the final project will not run.
In addition, there are many details in actual use that require careful attention, especially when it involves branch operations. For example, there is a quick access menu in our design, which is convenient for learners to switch between scenes when needed. This adds branch operations to the main flow. I found that although scene switching can be realized after running this menu, it will affect the calculation of numerical functions and cause abnormal final results. It is necessary to add a command to restore the function value when there is a scene transition to solve this problem. This is a lot of tedious and meticulous work.
Not only that, when clicking the icon halfway to activate different calques, if the media does not add a pause command, it may cause two sounds to be heard at the same time. These details need to be adjusted one by one.
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3. Opportunities and challenges from teamwork.
Our team has always had only three people since some members dropped out of the course when it was formed. The three of us have different ages and our living environment is different. But they all have sufficient enthusiasm for art and teaching, and love and responsibility for society. Lisa is always in charge of technology. Marie's creativity and communication skills impressed me deeply. I feel honored to work in this team and learn a lot.
We are the smallest team. A small team may be better at unifying opinions, but in fact it has lost many opportunities to get different information. I personally like a diverse team, because it is easy to get new ideas and it is easy to jump out of my familiar circle.
But no matter how many people there are, the most important thing about teamwork is to listen and communicate. How to regulate emotions, if I conduct project management, is a precious experience I learned in team projects.
For projects involving artistic aesthetics, opinions are often difficult to unify. In addition, the different setting of completion goals will also affect our expectations and investment in the project. For example, there may be only a 20% difference between completion and perfection, but it requires an extra 80% of time and energy. At this time, people who pursue completion and perfection will make different choices. At this time, prior communication is particularly important. Mark the changes that need to be made, and provide reasons, and the team will decide whether to make changes and then act. This is also an important lesson I learned.
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Please click the button to see the details of our project in French.