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CMU Internship: Mobile Pen Based Computing

 * Start Date**: May 21 2012
 * End Date**: July 2012
 * Project Proposal**:
 * Proposal Integrating Standards**:


 * Project Description:** Three students, formally student mentors with the Android App Lab, are working with a project team from CMU this summer with Ananda Gunawardena, Professor of Computer Science. Students will be creating mobile pen based computer applications for the tablet, using C# programming language.Our project team is developing a Flash Card game for students in grades K-3. The card game is being designed to help bring students below proficiency to proficiency level in basic math skills. The importance of the design is that we will be using a pen-based model. Rather than having students click on numbers on the keyboard they will use a digital pen to interact with the computer. In this online platform, the teacher will be able to see the students' practice work and determine what concepts they may need more help and additional learning exercises. When the prototype is completed we will beta test the product with students in our elementary school under the supervision of Laurie Gray and Greg Wensell. **The significance of this project is that our students, with the guidance of CMU professor and interns, are creating an innovative program, relevant to our math curriculum, to help improve teaching and learning for our students** **and others**.

Our South Fayette student team consists of Ben Kenawell, Radhir Kothuri, Vaurn Thangavelu, Shad Wachter and Aileen Owens. The CMU team includes Peter Appleby and Sarah Chen, CMU students, and Dr. Ananda Gunawardena, and Ann Williams. Aileen and Shad supervise the South Fayette team Monday through Thursday from 8:00am - 12:00pm. We meet weekly through skype conferencing with the CMU team and then every other week travel to CMU to meet as a complete team to problem solve and present project updates.

Our student team collaborates with the CMU team and the professor through a social media site called Classroom Salon. The team exchanges information and posts updates through the site. When there are questions regarding programming code, the code is posted and reviewed to help with the problem solving. The South Fayette team was given their first assignment through the site. The assignment was to review an earlier version of the Tablet PC Flash Card program and determine how to improve upon the system and prepare a scope and sequence for completing their improvements. Our team created a proposal and presented it to CMU during their first team meeting. One of the business leaders, Ann Williams was thrilled with the proposal. She said that she had been working in the industry for 30 years and would have given anything to have such clear and well written proposals presented to her. She was very enthusiastic by what the students had prepared and Dr. Gunawardena was as well. You will find the proposal attached for your review. The improvements that the students suggested and are working to address are as follows: (1) align math flash cards to Common Core Standards and align by Eligible Content Standards, (2) create two game modes in the deck; one for basic facts and the other for contextual math questions which will allow for word problems, (3) create a teacher dashboard that allows the teacher to create flash cards based on standards and with the ability to personalize student learning for each student, (4) create a student account that allows students to play the card deck delivered from the teacher's account and to create their own unique card decks for their own individualized practice, (5) design the interface so that students can have immediate gratification for correct answers and alerts to show when problems are incorrect, (6) students and teacher will have a record of their score and the amount of time it took to complete the card deck, and (7) the flash cards will include a motivational element which replicates some aspects of a video game though much less prominent.

Below you will see videos of some of the meetings and presentations the students are taking part in with CMU. In the first series of videos students are taking part in a skype session with CMU. They are facing the board and sharing their computer screen with Dr. Gunewardena and he in turn is commenting on their work.


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