dp2- Teenagers and Collaboration

Our second design project was about leveraging technology to foster collaboration between 12-17 year olds (with a vision for 5-10 years in the future). We focused on 12-14 yr olds, a group that wants to be treated as adults or equals, but are still forming their identities. They spend the majority of the time with their family or those most accessible to them.

The design principles that we settled upon are as follows. We wanted our product to:
1) lower the barrier teens have to trying new things
2) empower teens to teach and learn from each other
3) assist in gaining life experiences to prove improve self-confidence and help build rapport with adults

This story walks you through a day of the life of a teen using our product system: Everywear

I wake up, shower, eat breakfast, and take my uniform shirt off its inductive charging hanger. I scroll through the default shirt images and choose my favorite one: Spongebob Squarepants. My shirt beeps to remind me that I have 5 minutes to leave in order to be on time for school.

My mom drops me off, and as I walk into the building, my attendance is automatically registered. My shirt glows green temporarily with the time 7:23 to indicate that I made it to school on time.

I get nervous as I notice the boy I have a crush on. As I walk near him, our shirts both switch to images of Ne-yo. I notice the picture and ask him if he heard about the concert on Friday. He says that his mom won’t let him go but that he really likes the new cd. Our shirts start to glow yellow and we realize that we’d better get to class before we’re late.

As I enter history class, my shirt glows green again to indicate that I am on time. The walls have been converted to images of Washington DC. I sit down at my interactive table with three other students and my section of the table automatically loads my customized workspace. The warm-up question says "Spend 5 minutes finding something that interests you about Washington DC to share with your peers." I love music and quickly find a Duke Ellington music clip to share with the class since he’s from DC. As I submit my warm-up response, it posts to the white board, next to other students’ clips of the

"I have a Dream" speech and written history on the Lincoln memorial. When the 5 minutes is up, 3 responses are randomly chosen to share with the class.

My teacher begins to present the class material, and pauses in 10 minutes. "Based on we just learned, which is not one of the key points made in MLK's "I have a dream" speech? We all input our answers, and teacher automatically receives the feedback that only 30% of us got the right answer. "Alright, class, we are not ready to move on, we need to spend 10 minutes on additional information about this topic. The 6 different ways you can learn more about this are now on your tables.”

I see on mine that I can watch the speech live, read a transcript of the speech, or watch a youtube re-mixed musical enactment of it, among my options. I decide to watch the musical. I am also interested in a

couple of the other options, so I drag them to the "save to

backpack" icon so I can look at them later. My teacher puts up another similar quiz question, and we are again given the opportunity to respond. This time 90% of us get the answer correct. "For those of you who understood the question this time, submit a way that helps you remember the answer." After class, she goes through the answers and submits one to a nationwide data library to be used for future classes. This registers a collaboration point for our school. The schools that receive the most collaboration points in the city receive money from the government and private sponsors to spend on events during the year, where we get to invite kids from nearby schools. Class ends, I go to my other morning classes, and then I head to lunch.

As I walk to sit down with my friends, I notice Melanie, someone I’ve seen in my classes, but don’t really know. As I approach Melanie, her shirt changes to say she wants to learn piano, so I suggest we meet after-school so that I can teach her and practice some new songs I’m working on at the after-school learning center. "That would be great!" says Melanie. Thanks! I leave to go sit with my friends.

During lunch, my friends start discussing new youtube videos. "Wait, did any of you see the viral video about the dancing mouse?" "No!" I scroll to the still frame of the video that I have uploaded as one of my default shirt images to show my friends. As lunch finishes, I return to class.

After school, I walk to the after-school learning center to work on homework and practice piano. I sit down at one of the collaboration tables, which instantly shows my homework assignments and I start to work on my math. I have a question and looks around to see what other people are working on, which is displayed on the walls behind them. One of the others is also working on my math assignment, so I write a quick digital note asking for help on question 13 and fling the note electronically to the other student. The other student walks over and helps me, which logs a collaboration point for him.

After finishing his math homework, I write a new note, explaining that Melanie and I are about to go practice piano to invite anybody else who's interested. I fling the note into a "pile" in the center of the table, which automatically displays it on the wall near me. When I teach new kids piano, I automatically gets individual collaboration points that will give me money to spend at stores that have joined the school's collaboration point program in exchange for advertising.

At the end of the day, my mom comes to pick me up and it's time for dinner. We go to Dionni's, my favorite pizza place, and I go in to pick up a pizza for the family. I pay for it with my collaboration points because Dionni's is a participating business partner in the collaboration project. As I’m paying for the pizza, the person working at the counter asks him if he'd like a free Dionni's picture upload for his shirt. "Yeah! I love Dionni’s!” The image I chose is attached to his account and now accessible to him when he goes home. I go home, hang my shirt back up for charging and upload the new Dion's picture as one of my new default images.