Notes on the Road

Notes on the Road === To Joanna and Travis ===

Dear Joanna and Travis, 

Joanna’s summary precisely matches my understanding of what we talked about for the site. Travis, how does this sound to you? Here are a few additional thoughts and my responses to Joanna’s questions:

  • Regarding the built-in calendar vs. Google Calendar question: I think this is a question mostly for Travis—I would suggest considering who is going to be the primary Calendar maintainer. I think a Google Calendar is generally easier to use, and parents will have an easier time adding it to their personal calendars. But it’s up to you. 
  • Regarding coordinating chaperones: I think the most important things here are simplicity and consistency. However we do it, people should always go to the same place, and they shouldn’t need to sign up for anything new, etc. One way we could do this is to use a Google Doc for field trip signups (either Docs or Sheets), and to post a link to this doc on creeksidestudents.org. With this setup, it’s easy to change the form as necessary, or for parents to make informal notes as needed beside their signups. If you have another preferred service, I’m fine with whatever, but would suggest having everything link out from creeksidestudents.org.
  • We discussed locking the whole site so that you can’t see anything without the password. No usernames and accounts needed—just a password. Shall I do this?
  • Finally, it might make sense to do some communication to teachers, students, and parents about the new site and how communication is going to work. I would be happy to spend a few minutes introducing the site to parents and answering questions during Back-to-School night if that made sense (I know that time is precious!), to show it to students during CS, and/or to draft something you can send out to parents. Let me know what works best! 

I also wanted to check in on my schedule—I have my fall courses figured out and have confirmed my fall travel schedule. I’m going to need to miss a few sessions toward the beginning of school, and would love to figure out whether there’s a way to resechedule them. I will be out of town from now until Saturday, September 3, then in town until Saturday, September 10, then away again until Thursday, September 22. I’m going to need to miss the scheduled CS classes on 8/26, 9/2, and 9/16. I’m not sure what your weekly schedule looks like right now, but if you wanted to schedule additional classes during the weeks of 9/5-9/9 and after 9/22 so that the students have the full amount of scheduled CS, my weekly course schedule is pretty flexible: I have class every day from 1:30-2:50, and a solid block Tuesday mornings. I’m sorry for taking so long to align all my commitments—if it would be easier to talk over the phone about possible ideas, I’m around most of this week. 

Thanks, Chris

=== Paly research ===

TODO

  • Post both assent and consent forms on resources page
  • Post interview protocol on resources page
  • Send Slack invites (and to Paul!)
  • Finish email
  • Finish Monday meeting notes
  • Finish Wednesday meeting notes
  • Take down signup page
  • write back to Paul

=== email to research team === Dear team, 

Thanks for joining me in our meeting on Monday. I have posted meeting notes at chrisproctor.net/paly. As a reminder, there are two deliverables for next week:

  1. Two interviews. Should be sent to Chris by Sunday night at the latest. 
  2. Your commitment. Please decide this week whether you would like to be part of the research team. You are of course free to withdraw later, but it will be increasingly disruptive to our work. 

You will be spending your research time this week conducting interviews, so we will not have a meeting on Wednesday. Instead, I have posted several readings—please do at least the minimal amount that I have requested, since we will need these concepts in the next few weeks. 

Our next meeting will be Monday, August 22, at 3:30pm. 

Thanks! Chris

Monday meeting notes

A. Logistics

  1. Communication. Email will be our primary communication tool for this project—please make sure you are checking yours at least every other day. We will also try using Slack for “research chat,” in the same manner you might text someone. The project webpage, chrisproctor.net/paly, will be your go-to place for project resources.  2**. Informed consent.** We talked about the principle of informed consent, that the participants in research should know what is going to happen to them and should give their OK. The Stanford Prison Experiment is an example of why this is necessary. When doing research with/on minors (that’s you!), two things are required: first, the assent of participants is required. This means you need to understand the study, be OK with it, and know your rights. Second, the consent of parents/guardians is required since you are minors. There are two sets of student assent and parental consent forms on the project website: one for members of the research team, and another for students we interview, get to try out our app, etc. 
  2. Commitment: I will ask you to commit to being part of the team by sometime this week. You are of course free to withdraw later, but it will be increasingly disruptive to our work, so please do what you can to 

B. We will start the generative research portion of the study.

  1. Goals. Broadly, the goal of doing generative research is to learn how our users (other students) understand the problem space. The end result of generative research will be a problem statement which our app will be designed to solve. We have four major questions that will guide our generative research:
    1. How do Paly students currently use social media?
    2. How do Paly students currently use mobile media?
    3. How do Paly students currently consume student journalism?
    4. What is the nature of the identities students perform at school? How do these identities affect students’ participation in school activities? How do the above media contexts shape students’ identities?
  2. Interview protocol. Chris shared an initial semi-structured interview protocol. We discussed the questions. (The protocol is on the project webpage.) We will check in on slack on how the interviews are going. Interviewees will need to have signed assent and consent forms. You have two choices for transcribing interviews: either record them and then type them up as you play them back, or take as many notes as you can during the interview and then type up the interview based on your notes. Recording is preferable, as you will capture your interviewee’s actual words. If you do record the interview, you are obligated to delete the recording after you have transcribed it. Make sure you tell interviewees that their personal information will not be shared outside of our research team, and that they may contact Chris or Paul Kandell if they have any questions about the study. 
  3. Getting diverse participants. Please do your best to select interviewees who are representative of a diverse cross-section of the school community. 

C. Deliverables

  1. Commitment. Please decide this week whether you want to be part of the research team and let Chris know. If you’re in, please read the assent and consent forms for the research team, and get them signed. You may scan them and send them to Chris, or you may hang on to the paper copies until we meet in-person.
  2. Interviews. By Sunday night, conduct two interviews with current Paly students, following the interview protocol we discussed in this meeting (available at the project webpage). Each interview should last for about 45 minutes. After you conduct your interviews, transcribe them (type them up as close to word-for-word as you can). For each interview, record the grade and gender of your participant, but do not include his or her name. Email the transcriptions to Chris.