iDAT 206 - Forum Online!

I have finally finished the forum for the site! It is really good and works well with the colour theme that I have chosen!

Click Here to have a look..

iDAT 206 - Completed Site!

I have finally completed the site. I am unsure on whether I can get it live but it will still be able to link to the forum effectively even if it is just opened from the directory. I will update if I manage to upload it online.

iDAT 206 - Website Taking Shape!

The flash site is coming along very well indeed. I have decided to go for yellows, oranges and reds and I have divided the site into 5 Sections; Home, Recipes, Health, Nutrition and Forum.

The Homepage contains an introduction and what the site should be expected to hold.

The Recipes page should show different ideas on what on-the-go pro's could cook in a short space of time in order to fulfill their RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) quota.

The Health page should show the different problems you could face should you not maintain a healthy balanced diet.

The Nutrition Page should show the essential nutrients that is needed to keep you healthy.

The Forum page explains how to access and what the Forum contains along with a link to the forum itself.

iDAT 206 - Logo!

Here is the finished logo for the site.. I think it gives a feel of sophistication alongside the light and healthy image that I want my site to portray...

iDAT 206 - Target Audience

"I can't be bothered to go and cook/make 3 meals a day. With such a busy day ahead of me for every day of the week, it is so much easier to just walk out of the office and into Starbucks where I can order a coffee and a panini for lunch and then get some take-out Chinese on the way home. I don't care about breakfast, I'm not awake enough to notice anyway!"

Mary, 28 - London

"Everyday I do try and make the effort to make some food to take to work, but my bed is just too comfy to bother getting out of it until I have the bear minimum of time left before I need to be out of the door in the morning. I don't bother taking lunch with me to work as I just go down the pub with my workmates or skip lunch altogether."

John, 27 - Bristol

These people that I have heard back from about their lifestyles prove that it is simply a time-based problem that prevents them from having a healthy lifestyle. My site is designed to take away this issue by suggesting sensible recipes to cater for their bodies' needs without having to take their much-needed time away from them.

iDAT 202 - The latest UI character prototypes..

iDAT 206 - Change of Plan!

Although I came up with good enough reason to have an HTML site, I have opted instead for using a flash-based site. The reasons for this, is because I can make a much better themed site and attract my target audience with ease with Flash whereas with HTML, every element of the site would need a lot more work in order to make it thematic.

iDAT 202 - Page 1...

Here is a first look at our title screen for our game, with the wand as a cursor included.
Check out the link below:

Page 1

iDAT 202 - Wand Cursor..

James has come up with the good idea of changing the mouse cursor during the game to a wand..he's found the code on the net that does the job..

cursor_mc.startDrag(”true”);
Mouse.hide();

iDAT 202 - Latest UI Character..

Here is the latest Harry model that I've made in Flash..for some reason the pink colour for the face is not what it looked like on a mac on a PC...hmmm..

iDAT 202 - Logo for the game..Final(ish!!)

So here is best version so far..

iDAT 202 - Logo for the game..

We have come to the idea of calling the game "Harry Potter and the Mathematical Quest". Thanks to the internet, we have acquired the font that the original Harry Potter titles were in so we could adapt it to our own. So here is the first version..

3rd Year Project...

This is my first entry regarding my 3rd year project. Obviously I am going to endeavour in doing something that has not been done before, but I will initially start with something very general and work my way down to something more specific.
All I know, is that its gonna be a film and its gonna involve surfing...only time will tell!
Until then, I wait in much anticipation to see the 3rd year project open day this thursday. Let's hope that it being on my birthday will bring me some enlightenment on what I am going to do!!

iDAT 202 - Storyline & Questions..

At each step, these questions will be asked:

Level 1

Fat Lady: “Code Please, harry”

Harry: “Uh, oh”

Fat Lady: “Ill give you a clue”

“Todays Code is the answer to this question”

4 x 8 + 2 x 4 = ?

A - 40

B - 80

C - 160

D - 32

Level 2

Mr Filch: “What are you doing out of bed Mr Potter?”

Harry’s thoughts: “Quick i need to find a different route.”

Harry can either walk quietly 1 way for 1000 meters OR Run another way for 2500. Harry runs at 10Km/h and walks at 6Km/h.

Which way is faster?

Walking - it takes 10 minuets to walk 1000m and 15 minuets to run 2500m.

Level 3

Harry: “oh no! Snapes Guarding the door!”

Ron: “Quick Harry, mix the vanishing potion to get past him.”

You need 500ml of the potion to make you invisible.

You will need 2/5 of Beetle Eyes

1/5 of Flux Weed

2/5 of Rats Spleen

How many ml of Rat Spleen will you need?

A - 75ml

B - 50ml

C - 100ml

D - 200ml



Level 4

Shhh Harry fluffy is sleeping.

Harry you must play the harp to keep fluffy sleeping.

The harp has 100 notes.

70% of the notes must be played twice.

10% of the notes must be played three times.

20 % of the notes must be played once.

How many notes must be played in total?

A - 200

B - 190

C - 140

D - 150



Level 5

Voldermort: “So harry, we meet again.”

Harry: “Give me the philosopher’s Stone!”

Voldermort: “NEVER!!!”

Harry you must cast the Expulso Spell.

You need to cast the spell with your wand at the correct angle.

To work out the angle solve the problem.

(2×4+3×9) + 10

A - 32 degrees

B - 54 degrees

C - 90 degrees

D - 45 degrees

iDAT 202 - Storyboard for the game..

This is a rough sketch of the sequence of events that will occur when the user starts up the application. The user will be asked questions (in English that is easy to understand for that specific year group) and the level of difficulty will increase after each of them.

Page 1 - This is simply the introduction page where you can click

either to start the game or to read the instructions

Page 2 - Character Selection



Page 3 - This is the first part of the game..the character - in this case Harry -

has to work out a maths problem in order to work out the code to get

through the door from his house - Gryffindor.


Page 4 - The character then has to work out another problem in order to work

out a better route in order to avoid getting caught by Mr Filch and his cat.


Page 5 - The character then has to work out a maths sum in order

to make enough potion to make him/herself invisible in order to get

past Prof. Snape who is guarding the door.


Page 6 - The problem this time is for the character to work out how

many notes in total is required to play in order for the 3-headed dog to fall asleep.


Page 7 - The Final Challenge...In order to beat Lord Voldemort,

the character has to once again work out another maths-based

problem.


Page 8 - Should the user manage to finish the whole game,

this will be the page that will appear.


Should the user answer a question wrong, this is the slide that will appear.

iDAT 202 - Research..

Obviously, in order to work out whether or not our game will be appealling and worthwhile to our target audience, some research will need to take place:
- A questionnaire for both the teacher and pupils of the targeted age range to answer in order to identify the requirements.
- The national curriculum key stage 2 maths syllabus.
- Looking at other maths-based learning programs online:
Example 1
- Harry Potter based Flash games (in order to keep the theme as vivid and as accurate as possible to the story(ies))
Example 2
- The government's guidelines on teaching maths to Year 4
Example 3

iDAT 205 - Ideas

Due to the nature of the site and that children are our main target audience, it seems to us (the group) that it needs to be bright and colourful with fun animations. The suggestion of a game on the site as an extra attraction has been a good addition to the site.

- A Flash website seems like the right platform to meet all of our production requirements. It is simpler to make it eye-catching and to design fun animations and games and to integrate them in the site in Flash.

-To add a little bit of sophistication alongside making it appealling to kids, there will be several parts of the site that will add a bit of style. For example, the bright colours, although they will predominantly involve primary colours, they will have tone and gradient instead of simple bold colours.

-There will be a static HTML backdrop behind the Flash site that will be a simple partially floral border in one corner to segregate the active content from the inactive. Here is an example of one that we have been inspired by:




We have been told that the "Den Days" can also have an added depth to the promotion. I have come up with the concept of having an underlying theme where kids will learn that although its fun to build dens out of anything they can get their hands on, people in developing countries such as Brazil, have to live in such constructions known as "Favelas" or "Shanty Towns".

More ideas in the next blog...

iDAT 205 - Creative Industries

This term, the coursework given is a piece of group work. Its title is "Group Multimedia Project". The task is to produce a website that promotes (on behalf of the The Eden Project) a time over the summer where the Eden Project encourages families to get together and build dens in the grounds. The site will need to be attractive from both a kid's and an adult's point of view.

"This will involve the group development in real time of a project (to be confirmed) for a local charity organisation based in the South West. Projects in recent years were for the Eden Project, Rame Conservation Trust and Surfers Against Sewage. The project brief will be delivered in the first two weeks of the spring term."

iDAT 206 - The look and feel of the site...

I will be making the site look and feel appropriate to the target audience. In this case, on-the-go professionals are likely to have a fairly good knowledge of the internet and how to use it. Even though professionals will be confident on sites as complex as flash sites, there are several distinct disadvantages in making the site too complex;

i) If a flash website was to be produced, although it does a good job at catching the eye, a person who has very limited time to browse the net would be less likely to visit the site on a regular basis if there is a lot of loading involved.

ii) Flash websites are notorious for not being universal in terms of access in a web browser. For example, if someone does not have the latest flash plug-in in their browser to accomodate the particular version of flash that was used to design the site, the user would have to download it which would obviously take time. If time was an issue (which it would be in the case of the target audience), the user would probably not bother to wait.

To overcome this problem, a simple, yet stylish HTML website will be used. It would have to be appropriate to the content of the site as well as eye-catching for the target audience. I will blog again when I have made a beta version of the layout of the site.

iDAT 206 - What is a typical "On-the-go Pro"?

In today's society, it is perceived that an on-the-go pro is someone who works 24/7, lives in a big city, eats organic food, and goes to the gym everyday. Whether or not this is the truth is a different matter. There are many sources that disagree about the above description:



Kathryn Burkholder says she is like millions of other folks. She wants to be healthier, but hasn't been able to do it alone and make it work with her lifestyle.

The 31-year-old finance manager for Cingular Wireless feels she is where a lot of people are as they get into their 30s. They start to gain weight and have a harder time getting it off, she says. It's hard sticking to a 1,200 calorie a day diet; it's "just annoying," she says.

Burkholder is 5 foot 8 and 150 pounds, but, she says, "stuff isn't where it's supposed to be."

Click Here For The Whole Article


This is what has brought me to see the necessity for a site like I am going to produce. Although people have the money to go to the gym on a regular basis and buy and make healthy food, they often don't as they get caught in a vicious cycle that becomes very hard to get out of.

iDAT 206 - Slow Food..

We have been given the brief for this piece of coursework that requires us to use new media in order to explain "Slow Food";

"The project you device should address an identified need and operate within a broader community, it should critically address production and distribution issues raised in the lecture/tutorial sessions, such as open source and social networks. This may sound vague but all will be made clear in the lectures/tutorials."

My idea is to make a community-based website to encourage "on-the-go-pro's" (Professional people that are on the go all the time) to try and maintain a balanced diet no matter how busy they are. This will involve recipes for them to follow that do not require much cooking or preparation time, a forum for everyone to share ideas and perhaps an area where they can submit their own recipes so they can be shared.

iDAT 202 - Metacognition

In one of our meetings, as this module is supposed to give us some insight in pyschological theories to the way someone learns, we tried to pinpoint which theory on how we learn was as close to the way we expect our target audience to use. Katina helped us out and mentioned metacognition.

Having learnt a little about metacognition, I decided to do some further research to see how relevant metacognition really is.

To start off, a definition:

"Metacognition is recognition on the part of the learner that learning has taken place, or is taking place. It involves understanding and appreciating the factors that make learning possible and one's own strategies and processes of learning...". www.assessnet.org.uk/mod/glossary/view.php

This is a very common cognitive process with problem-solving in mathematics. When someone reaches a problem in maths, they consciously acknowledge the problem and manages to find a way to overcome it as a consequence.

I read a few chapters of the book "The Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning" -
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lLeo33Tvz9
UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=metacognition&lr=
&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0#PPP1,M1

In chapter 15, it goes into a large amount of detail on how "problem-solving must be one of the fundamentals of teaching mathematics in schools". Although this is not chipped in stone gospel words of wisdom, the opinion of the author does have a valid point. Solving numeric problems is the best way to learn the very fundamentals of mathematics. This gives us even more reason to carry along the same track we are on already in terms of how to structure the learning element of the game.

iDAT 202 - Further Ideas

In order to make the game attractive for Year 4 students, a theme is needed for the user to be interested in. As most people know, Harry Potter is a continuing theme that all kids love to read and watch. This has brought us on to the idea of a role-playing game on the them of Harry Potter.

The idea is:

Once the user has chosen which character they want to be (either Harry, Hermione or Ron), the idea of the game is to find the Philosopher's Stone by solving maths-related problems along the way and avoid being caught and getting sent back to bed.

iDAT 202 - E-Learning Module

"This module is an introduction to theories of learning and range of pedagogical approaches in formal and informal education. This module explores the potential and use of interactive multimedia and networked technologies for learning. Through an investigation of e-learning products and environments, explore the collaborative, remote and individual learning with interactive and networked technologies. Develop a critical awareness and practical application of learning theories and styles in interaction and interface design."

We have been put into groups of 2. I have got together with my coursemate James Court and we have decided to come up with a Flash application which will test and teach maths for kids in Year 4 (ages 8-9).