Today’s Plan:
- Just One Thing Project
- IRB and Informed Consent
- Team Formation
Project Three: Just One Thing
Today we officially start our third project, what I term the “Just One Thing” project. This is a longitudinal project that we will be working on, in parts, from now until the end of the semester.
Outline of the stages of the project:
- Element One: Advocacy Video [Likely due next Friday]
- Element Two: Develop IRB Matierals, Data Collection Form, and Logs [Due before March 1st]
- Element Three: User Test Phase and Logs [To be conducted all March long]
- Element Four: Collect User Feedback via the Data Collection Form with Memo
- Element Five: Advocacy Video Reshoot [To be completed in April]
Advocacy Video
The first component of the Just One Thing project will involve developing a short video that attempts to convince people to make a minor change in their daily routine. The video will advocate for how a small change to someone’s daily routine can have a major impact on their individual life and/or our collective world. This will be a group project (since there’s seven people we’ll have two groups of two and one group of three). We will form groups on Friday. Between now and then I’ll ask you to think about potential projects (and we’ll do that a bit today). In the past, I’ve had students do projects built around the use of lights (changing light bulbs, using less lights, etc).
This first stage of the project has a few objectives. First, it provides you with more practice shooting videos. Second, it gets you thinking about how to develop a shorter, condensed, viral-style video meant for social media. We’ll spend some class time researching/inventing practices for viral video production.
Develop Data Collection Form / User Test Phase
Once you develop videos, it will be time to recruit research subjects. Surprise–you are all each others’ research subjects. This means that every person will test the “Just One Thing” recommendation suggested by the other groups.
Furthermore, I will extend an extra-credit opportunity to the 45 or so students in my two other classes. I had a very high participation rate last year.
The objective here is to familiarize you with some basic methods and expectations of human research. This involves understanding IRB research protocols, designing quality surveys and questionnaires, and collecting/synthesizing/presenting data.
In order for this test to be meaningful, groups will need a way of collecting information. Keep this in mind as you choose and design your topic–how can we collect information and demonstrate potential progress. For instance, I gave the example of the lights in the bathroom. One way to test that is to use electricity bills. Obviously, we want to protect people’s personal information, so the proposed measurements cannot be too intrusive.
You will prepare a Google Form to distribute to those folks not in your group–the form should collect this information. It might request supporting documents, like electricity bills. It should also ask for some kind of “log” that follows progress. Finally, it should have some open-ended questions to solicit attitudes and feedback.
User Feedback Memo
Users will test your proposed “Just One Thing” for 30 days, filling out your Google Form and providing any necessary documentation. At the end of 30 days, your team will synthesize all the data the other 6 users provide into a memo. The memo will also lay out your ideas for the the final element of the project, the Advocacy Video Reshoot
Advocacy Video Reshoot
The final stage of the project. You will develop storyboards for your video and present them to the class. The class will critique the proposed plan and provide feedback. You will then write a memo discussing how the creative presentation influenced your approach to the reshoot. You will then reshoot the video, pulling out all the stops!
Just One Thing Topics
As I mentioned last class, the Joe Smith TED video can serve as a guide for thinking about your first advocacy video. Not necessarily the form (you should do something more interesting than just standing on a stage and talking), but the content. Your first video should reflect some research on your part–give us some quantitative justification for why your proposed change would matter.
That’s what I would like you to think about before Friday’s class. I’ve set up a Canvas thread for Friday. Before we meet, please articulate two projects that you’d like to nominate for consideration on Friday.
Let me share the three projects from last semester:
- Staycation
- Say No to Cookies, Chips, and Candy
- Clean Space, Clean Head
Some resources to start thinking about a project:
- Lifehacker: Ten Small Ways to Make the World a Better Place
- 30 Small Things I Do Every Day That Improves The Quality Of My Life
- 50 Ways to Help the Planet
- EPA “Home Helps” recommendations
- Bored Panda’s “10 Tips for a Healthier Life”
Homework
We are watching videos on Wednesday! Be sure to complete the postmortem as well.
Contribute to the Canvas discussion for Just One Thing by Friday.
