Inspiration
We decided that gamification is the best way to inspire kids to learn about different career paths in an interactive, educational way.
How it works
It is an immersive, sims-like experience that allows students to step into the role of a student pursuing any chosen career, make their own decisions, and see where it takes them. In this virtual world, classmates can team up for hybrid challenges. Making personal choices allows students to gain decision making skills by seeing the consequences of certain actions. They will understand the advantages and disadvantages of different career choices because of the skills and tools given to each character role. There are benefits for students, teachers and parents. Teachers have access to class data and can foster collaboration. Parents are notified of their children's progress and are provided with advice to get involved. Students are provided with a fun and educational experience.
Challenges I ran into
Within the team, each individual had different skill sets and it was difficult to decide on a platform to build our web application. Additionally, none of us had animation experience so it was tough to navigate around building animations for a gamified app. However, once we decided to split up the work and make use of all our varied skills, we worked great together as a team.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We are proud that we finished in-depth wireframes for the entire idea and carried out one part of it for our demo.
What I learned
We learned about wire-framing and combining these designs with a working prototype. We worked with people we had just met and decided to take a risk with an idea we felt strongly about but could not implement to its fullest extent.
What's next for ThinkabitTown
We would love to get to the animations and implement an actual game into the experience. We would love to add more challenges and allow more ways for teachers and parents to help their students. We also want to figure out the best way to match students with the right careers for them.
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