Muhammad Rajput (100488643), Christian Laughlin, Justin Duong

Team Design Project

Link to the project made: http://muhammadrajput.weebly.com/team-design-project.html
Roles and Responsibilities: For our group project, we decided to divide the work as evenly as
possible. We realized that we wouldnt all be able to work on the same thing at the same time,
so we decided to delegate certain tasks within the project. For example, we couldnt all edit our
presentation at the same time, so while one of us was working on the PowerPoint, the other two
members would be finding images, or examples that we could implement into the presentation.
The action plan was a collaborative effort created on Google Docs. Using Google Docs allowed
all of us to write and edit the action plan together. The learning object itself was done using
Google Hangouts screen share tool. This is why we feel that each of us took equal
responsibility in each part of the project.
As for the final PowerPoint presentation, Muhammad Rajput would edit the PowerPoint on his
PC while Christian, and Justin were viewing it on a share screen. Christian and Justin were
finding pictures and other valuable sources online to include in the PowerPoint, whereas
Muhammad was styling it with things like bullet points, themes, centering the images, etc. As for
the compiling the video, each of us recorded the audio for our designated slides, and included it
on the slides we assigned ourselves. Then Muhammad used a video recording software and
recorded the PowerPoint presentation into a video before uploading it to YouTube.
As for the written report for this project, we all worked on it collaboratively on Google Docs. To
be specific, Muhammad worked on the challenges, and design principles and elements. Justin
worked on the deliverables, design goal, context, design problems, and helped out with design
principles and elements.
Work Breakdown: We started to brainstorm ideas for the project after the class on October
21st, 2015. The research was done entirely in collaboration with each other using electronic
means of Google Docs, and Skype. The curation for the project took place between the week
of October 28th, and November 4. After the action plus submission on November 11th, we
started to put the gathered information together, and create our presentation. We finalized and
composed our presentation in the week of November 18th.
List of Deliverables:
Research
Brainstorm about what we are going to teach. (Bilal, Christian, Justin)
Fractions - Chosen
Drug Abuse
Brainstorm about medium choices (Bilal, Christian, Justin)
Poster
Presentation - Chosen
Video

Muhammad Rajput (100488643), Christian Laughlin, Justin Duong

Brainstorm about choice of audience (Bilal, Christian, Justin)

Adolescents
Young children - Chosen
Curation
Choosing what software, we can use. (Bilal)
PowerPoint - Chosen
Prezi
Finding images, we can use in our object. (Christian, Justin)
Picture of pizza
Pictures of chocolate
Graphical representations of fractions (Wholes, halves)
Choosing how to record our presentation. (Bilal)
Creation
Creating examples of fractions to use in the presentation (Christian)
Editing the previously found images to crop out excess portions (Justin)
Creating visual examples using the images (Christian)
Composition
Creating PowerPoint presentation (Bilal)
Recording audio for the slides (Bilal, Christian, Justin)
Uploading final product to YouTube (Bilal)

Specific Deadlines for Deliverables:

Rough Learning Object: November 14th 2015
Final Learning Object: November 15th 2015
Rough Presentation: November 21st 2015
Final Presentation: November 22nd 2015
Collaboration Sessions:
Meeting Date

Meeting Time

Agenda Items

Meeting Type

Nov.24

12:00pm - 3:00pm

Finalize presentation
Practice presentation

Google Hangouts
Google Docs

Nov. 23

10:00pm 12:00am

Work on Presentation
Practice timing of presentation

Google Hangouts
Google Docs

Nov. 9

4:00pm - 8:00pm

Final touches on Action plan for

Discussion Week 9 submission

Skype Call

Nov. 2

6:00pm - 8:00pm

Continue work on Action Plan

Skype Call

Oct. 28

7:30pm - 8:00 pm

Start Action Plan

Skype Call

Oct. 20

10:00pm 12:00am

Finish Elevator Pitch for our

presentation

Skype Call

Muhammad Rajput (100488643), Christian Laughlin, Justin Duong

Oct. 14

7:00pm - 8:00pm

Decide on project
Research delivery methods
(PowerPoint? Prezi? Poster?)

Facebook Messages
Skype Call

Sept. 28

7:30pm - 8:00pm

Meet each other

Brainstorm ideas for project

Facebook Messages

Feedback: Our feedback from our peers in the class mainly came from the discussions section
on BlackBoard. We were asked to submit our action plan, and we received critical feedback on
it by the people in the class. We also briefly discussed our project in in the breakout rooms we
were put in during the class. That was another place where we received feedback on our
project.
Some of the feedback we received on BlackBoard was:
1. Keep a similar colour scheme throughout the slides so that the children will be less
distracted.
2. Use Dora the Explorer to gain the interest of girls.
We decided to implement the first set of feedback which was including a similar colour scheme
throughout our presentation. We did not include an example of Dora as we felt it might alienate
boys and cause them to lose interest.
Relation to the Project: The discussions regarding the design principles and elements is
completed in this document itself. Not only have we discussed the design problems, and
challenges that we faced throughout the creation of this project, but we also made critical
relationships to the knowledge that we gained from this course.
We have also made a presentation on Microsoft PowerPoint which we are planned to present in
the class of November 25th. We have included in the presentation our reasoning for making the
choices we made throughout the project.
Context: Our video presentation is for teachers who are looking to teach children fractions. We
had a difficult time learning fractions when we were young, and we could have benefited from a
learning tool that would help us visualize fractions. Hence, we think that our video would enrich
the learning experience of students in grade 4-6.
Design Goal: The goal of our design was to create an effective teaching tool used to teach
children from grades 4 - 6 the mathematics of fractions. This tool is to be more effective than a
teacher writing on the board or reading from a textbook.
Design Problems: The biggest problem we were having was in terms of design is in regards to
tailoring our presentation to an audience much younger than ourselves. Its been quite a while
since weve learned fractions and have forgotten what it was like to be in early elementary
school. Being out of touch with the younger audience proved to be a problem, especially in

Muhammad Rajput (100488643), Christian Laughlin, Justin Duong

terms of our vocabulary used. Young children have a limited vocabulary so we needed to be
specific in our choice of wording. Another design problem we faced is finding a good balance
between learning styles, such as auditory, visual, etc. We wanted to include a good balance of
images, audio, and text to be able to effectively stimulate the learning process and keep the
youth interested.
Challenges: We initially started to work on Prezi to do our presentation. Prezi was very
interesting to start with, as it offered animations which we had not seen before. After exploring
various themes, and making a few slides in Prezi, we found that it was very limited in options.
Even though Prezi is free to use, and it is something which is less known by people than
PowerPoint, we still choose to go with PowerPoint instead. We felt that Prezi lacks the
advanced features that come with PowerPoint, such as timing our audio recording to the
animations which we have in the slides. Also the fact that PowerPoint is very expensive did not
apply to us, as we are provided with the University Laptop which comes with Microsoft
PowerPoint.
We also faced a lot of problems with Skype. At many times the screen share option on skype
would not work. Another issue we had with Skype was that we were unable to pickup any call
because the call notifications were not showing up. After this issue persisted in few of our virtual
meetings, we decided to call it off on Skype and look for another means to work collaboratively
online. We researched a few software, like TeamViewer and VCE screen share, but the best we
found was Google Hangouts. So this was another technological challenge which we faced.
Design Elements:
Colour: Colours are associated with certain emotions. We only wanted those colours in
our PowerPoint presentation which give a sense of happiness, and trust. We decided to keep
the uniformity throughout the presentation by going with the same colour schemes in every
slide. The title and slide design we picked was a combination of black and white. The reason
why we choose white is because it is a very calm colour. It brings balance to all the other
colours on our design. Black was chosen for the text so that it would be easily readable.
Mood: We definitely wanted a very happy mood throughout our video. Hence, planned
on avoiding any difficult examples which can lower the confidence levels of the students. We
planned on including audio which would bring energy to the video. This is why we choose to go
with simple examples. We also changed the tone in our voices while recording our presentation
to be more charismatic.
Emphasis: We are planned on using different colour schemes, sizes, and audio tones in
certain parts of our presentation to give emphasis to what is important. This is what we ended
up doing. We used various colours like Red, and Blue to catch the attention of the children. We
also used a simple white background so that the information on our foreground can be
emphasized.

Muhammad Rajput (100488643), Christian Laughlin, Justin Duong

Shape: We wanted to include shapes to help visualize the fractions. At younger ages,
visual examples are more helpful than wordy definitions, so that is why we included circles,
squares, etc. to represent objects and how they may be divided into fractions. We choose food
pictures like a chocolate and pizza to give visual illustrations for the fraction examples which we
were doing. The reason behind choosing these was to gain the interest of our audience, which
are children.
Design Principles:
Harmony: We kept harmony through the presentation keeping the same colours, fonts, and
shapes similar to each other in every slide. If every slide of ours was different than the others,
then it would not look part of the same project.
Repetition: We used the same shapes in different orders in various examples so that the
student feels comfortable. This repetition was a method used by us to achieve harmony.
Balance: We kept balance in our design by keeping everything centered in the slides. The
shapes, and text were all centered to give a sense of equilibrium.
Hierarchy: Since we did a PowerPoint slide, hierarchy was to be achieved with going forward in
the information in a nice, sequential order. We started with defining fractions, and then grouped
together the slides for adding fractions, followed along with the slides of subtracting fractions.
We hope that our chosen hierarchy would help the students digest the information with ease.