Joyce He
Effective note-taking strategies can benefit a learner over a lifetime. Studies have shown that students who take notes by hand learn more than those who take notes on a laptop. Additionally, adding drawings to notes to represent concepts and relationships has a significant effect on memory and learning. This practice of representing ideas through diagrams and drawings in notes is referred to as visual note-taking.
To engage learners in taking handwritten visual notes, we developed VisualNote, which is comprised of two parts: (1) a physical journal that facilitates purposeful practice of visual note-taking through meaningful scaffolds and (2) a web application that allows for organized storage of notes, dynamic tagging, and ways for learners to share notes within class and amongst broader communities. Guided by Universal Design for Learning (UDL), we took a constructivist approach to provide alternative approaches of expression, representation, and engagement that can be leveraged to equip learners with tools to pursue more pathways to learn and make learning visible.
Visual Thinking, Note-taking, Communication, Expression, the Mindset that everyone is different.
In a team of three, I was heavily involved in all aspects of the design process, including the literature review, user research, ideation, prototyping and user testing. I was also heavily involved in drafting our research paper, and our project has been accpeted into 2019 ACM Interaction Design and Children (IDC) conference for Demo Presentation.
Skills Applied: Constructivist and Constructionist Learning Theories; Universal Design for Learning Principles; User Research; Laser Cutting; Product Design.
