This morning I've been "out in the wild" (a recreation area close to our school) with some colleagues to experience what an awesome education tool seppo.io could be. No matter how good the educational thought is with seppo, my colleagues still needed a real case to experience before they could truly understand the power of seppo! They also needed to act as students in order to understand the game mechanics and the different possibilities (or obstacles students run into).
As schools and educator's are so afraid of step out of their comfortable zone, it's very hard to try something new. They are often so locked in their mindset, even if they are allowed to use the device to both play as google, it's too much information and too much out of their comfortable zone.
REAL CASE SCENARIO
Research has proven that walking at least 30 minutes a day, with an activity level that is higher than an average stroll, has an effect on the general condition and general well-being. Also, the activity should preferably be performed in continuous periods of at least ten minutes. The activity should be so intense that you get easily breathed and get a bit difficult to talk at the same time.
THEREFORE
I have my students out walking for at least 30 minutes, and every 10 minutes they will have a short break. During that short break I want them to answer some questions with seppo.
THIS HAPPENED
First my players (the teachers) had challenges to log in to the platform. Of course they hadn't read through the walkthru I made for them. The sports teachers were the ones who was most suspicious about seppo but eager to go out exercise.
Next challenge, chrome and Samsung seem to be a lottery. Suddenly chrome stop answer, the teachers didn't know how to access the settings (of the work phone) and were almost about to give up. The problem occurred when we tried to reach the camera to do selfies.
All controls had different examples of seppo solutions to answer a question; text, movie, audio, photo, check boxes, missing words. After each question we went through each question by edit it, and they slowly started to realize it's their own imagination that sets the limits.
The board we used had the wrong layout, it should be more of a circle, else the students take the nearby controls first and in wrong order. They will get exercise in order to answer all questions but the educational idea of have them walk for 10 min, take a pause and answer a task then repeat fails.
Same experienced as when I tested with my daughter and her friends. It very soon turn into a competition, even if you discuss and collaborate you want to put in individual answers. And if you were skeptical at first to really do the faster walking it only takes a control before you actually walk a bit faster.
The more controls, the more variations of how to answer a question the more they started to see the possibilities of using seppo and how to design the question (change the traditional questions) so they fit the audio/photo/movie option.
To chat was too hard, they couldn't multitask even though the girls was in majority.
To be able to light up a question first when you're on a certain distance was surprisingly positive, as they many times thought they were in the right spot but now have to understand you can't cheat.
RESULT
Even though we had challenges, the overall experience of this was very positive. Our sports teachers changed their opinions 180 degrees and understood the limits are their minds, and all that they now need is creativity and think differently.
Thumbs up seppo!
WALKTHRU
