ECT
PEDIA
Educational communications and technology knowledge hub.
Nov 2022- Dec, 2022
Overview
ECTPedia serves as a free online encyclopedia encompassing theories and advancements in Educational Communications and Technology (ECT). This community-oriented platform is specifically designed for individuals in the field to condense, integrate, and simplify crucial ideas essential to the domain. It acts as a centralized repository managed and contributed to by the community.
Content is created and managed by students enrolled in the Master's Level program at New York University's educational communications and technology department. The articles undergo peer review by both students and faculty members to ensure accuracy and quality, providing verifiable information from credible sources. The community diligently works to uphold the accuracy and impartiality of the content.
Target Audience
- Students taking educational communications and technology courses
- Educators and professionals in instructional design, pedagogy, education, and technology
- Enthusiastic learners keen on exploring effective technology-enhanced learning techniques
My Role
Product Design and Strategy
UX Designer
Product Management
Collaborator
Yoav Bergner, Associate Professor at New York University
Platform:
Webpage
Duration:
6 Weeks
Clients
Department of Educational Communications and Technology, New York University
Impact
30%
Non-native English speakers showed improvement in academic performance.
50%
Students reported a decrease in their anxiety levels.
2000+
users
110+
pages
45+
contributors
Background
Students in the Learning Experience Design and Technology and Games for Learning programs at the Department of Educational Communications and Technology have diverse backgrounds, 75% being non-native English speakers. They face challenges like dense academic texts, limited multimedia resources, and ineffective note-taking strategies. While using Perusall for collaborative learning, there is a need for a centralized system to retain valuable insights and knowledge gained during courses, especially in Cognitive Science and Learning Science.
Problem Statement
Graduate students lack an effective, accessible system to capture, retain, and share critical course knowledge, particularly challenging for non-native English speakers, leading to potential loss of valuable insights and foundational field concepts after course completion.
Interview Sample
40
Interviewees
23 - 1st year students
9 - 2nd year students
6 - graduates
2 - faculty members
75%
Don't have a prior background in education
29
yrs
is the Avg age. Range between 21-56 years
Insights into pain-points
Information overload from complex theories
Inability to synthesize information in the absence of prior knowledge
Unfamiliar jargon
Lack of legitimate
summaries online for revision
Missed notes during
busy weeks
Inability to save comments made on Perusall for future references
High volume of readings
Lack of multimedia and multimodal
representation of knowledge
Lack of texts explained
in simplified language
How might we?
How might we create an accessible and effective knowledge retention system for graduate students, especially non-native English speakers, to capture, synthesize, and share critical course concepts, ensuring long-term access to valuable insights and foundational field knowledge?
Personas
Motivation
Mingyuan dedicates four hours daily to studying foundational courses. He translates the textbook into Chinese, reads it, and takes notes. Following this, he rephrases his thoughts back into English.
However, he expresses concern that his ideas and comprehension may be lost in translation. The time-intensive process has left him feeling academically behind compared to his peers.
Challenges
- Finds academic jargon in texts overwhelming, causing anxiety as it lacks simple and understandable English.
- Academic achievement holds high significance in his family & culture, leading to constant pressure to excel without sufficient supportive resources available.
- He lives too far from school to attend the in-person study group with his Chinese-speaking friends in the program.
Mingyuan Li, 21 years
1st Year Student at ECT
An ESL student from China, who is the first in their family to attend college. He wants to start his own company back home after his graduation.
He speaks in English, but struggles in expressing himself easily. He is unfamiliar to complex English vocabulary and prefers speaking in Chinese.
Language Proficiency
Needs
- Simplified and accessible academic materials to aid understanding.
- Opportunities to connect with peers and build a supportive social network.
Chinese
English
Short-terms
To get an A grade in Foundational Courses
Long-term
- Graduate on the top of his class
- Work as a researcher at Yuanfudao, homework tutoring app
Preferred Learning Methods
- Visual Aids: Diagrams, infographics, and videos
- Study groups and collaborative projects to learn with peers.
Quote
"I want to succeed in my studies and make my family proud."
Motivation
Samantha wants the course to support her profession as a learning designer. She is motivated to learn efficiently to balance her work, studies, and family responsibilities. She aspires to improve her note-taking skills, seeing her classmates’ notes are better organized. From this semester on, she wants to grow professionally and is determined to make her practice more research driven and supported.
Challenges
- Balancing her studies, full-time job, and parenting responsibilities.
- Struggling to remember content from earlier semesters due to the long duration of her program.
- Her notes are often not in place, making it hard to study and apply her learnings into practice at work efficiently.
Samantha, 38 years
Part-time student at ECT,
6 year in the Masters program
Needs
- Tools or platforms that can help organize and streamline her notes and study materials.
- Methods to reduce duplicity and redundancy in her study materials.
- Access to support systems such as study groups, tutoring, or mentoring to aid in her learning process.
Language Proficiency
English
Samantha, a mother of two, works as a full-time learning designer at NYC Botanical Garden. Over the last six years, she has been dedicated to pursuing her degree and expects to complete the program in two more years.
Short-terms
- Develop a more efficient and organized system for taking and managing notes.
- Find and utilize resources that can help her streamline her studies and reduce redundancy in note-taking
Long-term
- Degree Completion: Finish her Master’s program in the next two years.
- Career Advancement: Use her degree to advance her career and potentially move into a higher position within her field.
Preferred Learning Methods
- Prefers study groups or peer discussions to enhance understanding and retention.
- Prefers digital note-taking tools that allow for easy organization and access across devices.
- Engages better with interactive and multimedia learning resources.
Quote
“At this point, I can’t even remember what I studied in the first semester”
Departmental constraints
Limited Cost Budget
Students are already overworked with course load
Faculty members do not have additional time for side projects.
Solution
A collaborative learning platform, resembling Wikipedia, enables students to upload and share notes, creating simplified summaries of intricate academic texts. This student-driven system aids diverse learners in understanding crucial concepts, retaining knowledge post-course completion, and developing a comprehensive grasp of the subject. It tackles language barriers and information overload in graduate-level educational technology programs.
Additionally, this platform would integrate into in-class assignments, allowing classroom-generated knowledge to benefit the community. This approach ensures students remain within their regular course workload.
Faculty oversight is guaranteed, with instructors grading assignments, albeit on a different platform. The platform's Wikipedia-like history feature allows faculty to monitor individual student contributions.
The collaborative nature of this system ensures students receive feedback from both faculty members and peers.
Approach
Step 1: Collaboration with Faculty
Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences and Educational Technology, Yoav Bergner, identified an issue and played a key role in establishing the ECT Wiki Page. He modified his class assignments to involve creating content for ECTpedia.
Step 2: Collaboration with classmates
Fellow students actively participated in the platform by sharing their work and providing feedback on others' work, enhancing the verification process. This not only strengthened the academic community but also helped students forge social connections, establishing a supportive network for both academic and professional growth.
Step 3: ECPpedia goes live
We commenced uploading our assignments, the Key Concept Papers, on ECTpedia. As the final assignments approached, several groups initiated the creation of a network of interconnected pages linking different key concepts on the platform.
Case Study: Mayer's Principles of Multimedia Learning
Mayer's Principles of Multimedia Learning are vital for designers when creating learning-centric products and tools. However, introductory courses cover only 12 principles.
By creating a dedicated page on ECTpedia summarizing all the principles, community members are offered opportunities to explore and delve into more principles by offering them a snapshot of which the principles. By summarizing the key concept and showcasing practical applications of the principles, it supports designers in making better decisions for their products.
Impact
Saves research time and enables faster decision-making in design processes.
A lifelong resource to refer back to throughout one's career journey.
Bridges theory and practice by summarizing and comparing principles with real world application.
Learning Design Principles
Advanced Organiser
Dual-Coding
Scaffolding
Metacognition
Collaborative Learning
Distributed Cognititon
Socio-constructivism
Legitimate Peripheral
Participation
Community of Practice
Product Roadmap
Collaborating with faculty members for assignment integration
On-boarding full-time moderators
and content creators
Boosting user engagement on Wiki to encourage more page edits.
Expanding the platform to other colleges and communities that share a relevant interest in the field
Key Learnings and Reflections
User-Centered Design is Paramount
Understanding diverse user personas like students, educators, and professionals was crucial for ECT Wiki's success. Continuous user research and feedback loops were essential for refining the platform's usability and functionality.
Balancing Simplicity and Complexity
Balancing the simplicity in design with the complexity of content taught me the art of progressive disclosure and layered information architecture, allowing users to seamlessly navigate from foundational concepts to advanced applications while maintaining clarity and engagement at every level of expertise.
Scalability Factors
Creating adaptable systems that can grow alongside user requirements and their progression was crucial for intentional product development aimed at future expansion and scalability. Building a product driven by a community-centered approach ensured that users feel a sense of ownership, which is essential for sustained growth.
Why did I have to stop building?
ChatGPT and GenAI
- ChatGPT was gaining prominence and by January 2023, students began using it regularly to support their learning.
- Instead of note-taking, they relied on ChatGPT to provide immediate responses, thereby decreasing their reliance on ECTpedia. The number of active users reduced and the product became non-viable.
- However, it still built a strong community and professors still recommend using the product in their classes to build a collective knowledge database.
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