Herkese Merhaba! (meaning, Hello Everyone in Turkish) :)

Happy Monday :) Last week, my group mates and I got to create an evaluation rubric for our block language. I started by reading each of my group mates’s (including my own) research summaries and picked out what I found to be essential for our block language :)

Evaluation Rubric (rough draft):

• User Control – easy functions
• Match between the system and real world – words kids know , trigger words
• Visibility of system status - keeping users informed
• Aesthetic and minimalist design - nothing irrelevant
• Consistency throughout the program
• Help & Documentation - Hints
• Feedback and designer/learner models - learners need to get feedback on their progress
• Interaction Flow, Symbolic Representations and Terminology
• Attractive Text/Graphics/Video Sound, Navigation
• Deep Shareability - Computer Clubhouses
• Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors, learn by mistakes
• Creative Options – make it fun, non-threatening

We discussed each of the points in the rubric and came to a conclusion that it should be in more detail. The rubric should also include a ranking system based on importance in having in our block language. My mates and I will continue to research scholarly journals and continue to evaluate the other block languages to make sure our rubric is perfect :)

Also, each of us in our group got to come up with two story lines for the students to play. My story lines included characters, which were important women in computer science history, Margaret Hamilton and Grace Hopper!

This week, I will be reading everyone else’s story lines and reading four more articles and taking notes on them :) Futhermore, I will be researching at least one educational article/scholarly journal to help support the imporatance of user interface.