Talk provides a classroom experience that is fun, engaging, and full of personality. Many of the elements that make it this way are not easily replicable on a digital platform. This includes discussions in classrooms and seeing live demos and materials in person.
With such sensitive content, both parents and students set strong boundaries and limits around the context in which they would want to participate, and we will need to design within these contexts if we want users to adopt our platform. Some of these boundaries include: public spaces, non-family member third parties, intrusive technology, and passive vs active delivery.
One of the most special aspects of Talk is its ability to meet students where they’re at and adapt to their specific needs. Students struggle to identify what they want to learn–because they don’t know what they don’t know–so it’s important to pay attention to their needs. Talk does this through both a pre-evaluation and constant check ins. This is one of the most important things to include because this presents students information in a way that is relevant to the student.
Onboarding is an essential process to increase trust and credibility in the course as well as build a safe space for students, which is key when dealing with sensitive content. This is another element of Talk in the classroom that will be included in some form in the virtual platform.
People have strict mental models of what they accept as a “class.” When asked if they had ever taken an online course, participants never included educational platforms like Duolingo or Khan Academy. This also leads participants to guidelines of what platform they will take seriously; when presented purely narrative or gamified solutions, they noted that they would have difficulty seeing the information as reliable or trustworthy.
Students consistently told us that amid all of their other school work and activities, they would not be motivated to complete a course in their free time. Some sort of external motivation or deadline seems to be required for students to complete an online class. This leads us to believe that our course either needs to be part of a required school curriculum or engaging enough for students to continually follow through on it in their free time.
.png)
.png)
