http://www.useit.com/alertbox/multiple-user-testing.html

Training Facilitators

Ideally, your new facilitators would go through a full usability training workshop, but this is rarely possible in practice. Still, it's best if you spend at least a few hours training facilitators before giving them a go with real users:

• First, of course, you should explain the theory and best practices of user testing, including steps such as "keep quiet and let users do the talking," which I've discussed many times before.
• Second, newbie facilitators should watch an experienced usability expert run a sample session with a pilot user. Doing so
  • shows newbies how to facilitate a study, and
  • better concretizes the test plan and test tasks than simply discussing them or going through them on paper.

Third, conduct a role-playing exercise in which the usability expert plays the user and simulates difficult situations that facilitators can encounter, such as users who don't talk or users who ask if they can use certain features. (In the latter case, we typically say: "You can do anything you would normally do at home/in the office.")

On occasion I've told a student who's behaved or performed badly to "remember how this feels" and to think back to this feeling as a way of preventing themselves from making the same mistakes again.

I'm taking my own advice and writing this to do exactly that. To remember how utterly frustrating the last few weeks have been working towards our A-level students in ICT completing their coursework (and possibly longer back but especially these last two or three weeks).

Here are some examples of students' recent actions and attitudes. The final one sums up things perfectly. Leading up to that they show a lack of ownership, attention to detail and caring about the final result. In other words, a lack of independence.

• Several days after the deadline of a project, a student asks the teacher if there is anything else they can do to their work because they "need" a particular grade. The project has been running for nine months - there has been continuous marking of their work and detailed assessment information is available on the website
• A student contacts the teacher to ask why, when they have done "everything [the teacher] asked them to", they have not improved their grade very much. The tasks given to the student were reminders of work that was long overdue or had not been correctly stored and subsequently lost.
• Students were requested to carry out final checks to their practical projects in case any mistakes had been missed. Around half of the students failed to complete this task satisfactorily - they began this process during the lesson and it was to be finished in their own time. It is worth one-third of their entire grade.
• After an extended absence, a student arrives back as though time had stood still while they were away. No contact was made with teachers during their absence - in addition to the usual school contact details, the teachers' email addresses are on the relevant pages of the website. Neither teachers were spoken to by the student during their first lesson back. The conversation about catching up was initiated and led by the teacher.
• Repeated requests to a student to hand in a coursework section are verbally agreed to and then subsequently ignored or carried out incorrectly (not using basic common sense). These requests are all after the original deadline.
• A student asks why they can't be given a "tiny extension" to improve a piece of work. It is already past the original deadline for this and the student has failed to attend a pre-arranged (and supervised) session to complete the work. This latest request has only been made because the teacher went to find the student. They themselves have made no contact. The reason for the request from the teacher to improve the work is that without it the mark would have to drop to one of the lowest available without it.
• A student fails to meet a deadline for handing in a piece of work that is a vital part of a bigger project. Absence delays this further but when they next attend they explain that they can't bring the piece in for technical reasons (which could, with a little thought, be overcome). The deadline is extended but not met again. When the piece is finally handed in, it is not in a state that can be used in the project but the student does not mention this to the teacher. All of the dialogue about this is initiated by the teacher.

My exasperated response to the student after the last incident sums up all of them perfectly.
"You're just doing this for me. Don't do anything for me. Do it for you!"

Before I lay out my action plan for attempting to correct this behaviour from *young adults* I should offer, by way of balance: examples of high quality essay work from several students (some of the best I've seen); a student travelling to another school off their own back to produce a project for a teacher there (acting as the 'client' for their product); a student considering changing his initial thoughts about university courses after the successes of his project work in ICT.

Here is my strategy for solving the AS ICT model:

• highlight on the map the towns that need visiting
• mark out routes:
  • group together nearby far-out towns (e.g. Cantebury/Brighton)
  • limit long journeys to fewer stops
  • group together close-by towns
• check that I've picked up everybody
• go to Timetable and set start times to arrive at 11:45(ish)
• review start times and make changes if start is too early
  • try changing order of stops to see if this helps
  • reduce number of stops 

This post on the BBC Internet blog gives an insight into the design process behind the BBC website, in particular how it based on a grid design.

We've just returned from St Thomas School's annual Study Tour. All of the students from the school travel around four different sights of interest, stopping for a long lunch in the middle of the day. After collecting together on the school basketball court, we travelled in five buses that held up the traffic as all 350 students boarded them. The first two stops were Hindu temples at Mangueshi and Mardo, just south of Panaji, the capital city of Goa. At the first of these, we had to walk up a long road to the temple that was lined all the way with market stalls. But in spite all of the distractions along the way, including sweets, drinks (won by throwing a hoop around them) and tattoos (temporary - at least one student got one!), all of the students eventually made their way to the temple.

After removing our shoes we entered the 400 year old building which contained magnificent decoration inside. A Hindu priest from the temple gave us a brief tour and explained all about the history of the temple and the festival of Maha Shivrathri happening tomorrow. And then he demanded a donation from Mr Hardy (he gave 20 rupees)! Whilst inside, the students who are Hindu performed the necessary rituals, as did one of the teachers - a lady who is due to retire in April and who gave us some sound advice and wisdom about education and life in general the other day. She began by laying completely outstretched on the floor - on her front with her hands pointing towards the altar of the temple. She had spoken to us so passionately about her faith before and it was inspiring to see her participating in it now.

After a second temple, we then visited Se Cathedral which houses an archeological museum with many artifacts from previous centuries when the Portugese occupied the state of Goa in India. It was great watching students of all ages make their way through these places taking an interest in what they saw.

Yesterday I saw my third computer room in a school here in India. It had ten computers in it, just like the other two I have seen. So each of these schools has only one computer room with a small number of PC's in them. All of the schools have around three to four hundred students in them.

In all of those rooms, only one computer is connected to the Internet. With its basic "dial-up" connection down an ordinary phone line, the speed is up to 200 times slower than most broadband connections, including Redhill's.

I remember over ten years ago when we also only had only one computer on the Internet at Redhill. It was used by some of the staff and did not appear as a feature in lessons until several years later when we got our first room of PC's (where C3 is now). However, it was still some time after that before the Internet became such an essential part of lessons, first in ICT and subsequently in other subjects.

Most schools in the UK were upgraded to broadband through a national programme in the first part of the last decade. As yet, a similar programme in Goa has not yet reached any of the schools we visited. However, there are programmes in place for both teachers and Sixth Form students to buy a computers for home use. Students in their final year of Sixth Form can apply for a PC for only 1000 Rupees (£15). As you can imagine this is extremely popular with students. A Psychology teacher at St Thomas High School, Nathalie Figueiredo (many names in Goa are Portugese in origin) told me that often this is all the students talk about and proves a big incentive to stay on into the final year. However, she says, many parents complain that their children are spending more time playing games on it rather than doing their studies. In Miss Figueiredo's school, some of the parents will not have had an education themselves and as a result will have little idea about using a computer.

There is also a scheme to provide teachers with laptop. This comes at the much higher price of 40,000 Rupees (around £500) which is given to teachers as an interest-free loan. An amount is deducted each month from their salary. Miss Figueiredo complained that, as she already has a computer at home, purchasing a laptop herself would be pointless unless she also had a projector in the classroom. Without that she would be unable to use it with the students in her lessons. Her school has one room fitted with a projector, along with a pull-down screen, amplified sound and a computer at the front. This is called their Audio-Visual Room and was designed primarily for showing DVD's. No other room has a projector. In the UK we have had targets in the past for the ratio of computers to pupils. At Redhill it is roughly 1:4. Some would consider this to be too low and there are some who want to see one computer for every student.

See photos here

On the way to the school this morning we saw an elephant. On Saturday when we saw it we lept out of the taxi and took photos. This morning we just glanced over and nodded. Elephants on the way to work now seem perfectly normal.

I'd already read that it would be a very abrupt culture shock upon arriving in India. However, nothing prepares you for the onslaught of people, traffic, noise, hawking for goods or services, like carrying your bag ten yards to a bus and then demaning a pound (no rupees exchanged yet at that stage). That bus journey (to the hotel) rudely introduced us to the Indians driving skills (or lack off). No road sense at all, no indicating, no staying in lane and, according to our guide at the hotel, no lights at night (to save the batery!). And on top of that, our suitcases had been thrown up onto the roof. Only in India. The town we are staying in has everything you would expect in a small town. And some of it is gorgeous. However, a lot of it is rubbish-strewn, abandoned, unfinished. This just seems to the way India is put together. Those finishing touches that we take for granted, like pavements and kerbs don't get added. Work is being carried out on the roads and various buildings but they give the impression of being casual labour - no uniforms, no safety gear, no "we apologise for the inconvenience" signs. Rough and ready. No polish. But it has a charm all of its own.

In a few days I will be travelling to India as part of our international link with St Thomas' School in Goa. I have a large collection of questions to take with me for the students there - thank you if you were one of the people that contributed those. It's very much appreciated and I hope that I can get as many answers as I can.

There are some answers that I think I could probably have a good guess at now, particularly those about the technology they use. However, I'm expecting a few surprises! When I do, I hope to pass on those observations.

You can check in on our progress on our Goa webpage where you will find photos, observations and a link to the posts on my blog here.

Finally, for those of you interested in technology, this is how our Goa webpage has been put together...

• Photos will be taken on a mobile phone and emailed to our Twitter account (redhill_goa) via a website called TwitPic. A feed from this site will appear on our Goa webpage
• Our Twitter account (redhill_goa) will be used to quickly record observations. These will be sent to Twitter via a text message from our mobile phone. India is one of only several countries to have a dedicated service set up for mobile use of Twitter, reflecting how popular Twitter is in India.
• Our blogs will be updated when we can access a PC (school, internet cafe?). The RSS feed from the Learning Space website displays on the Goa webpage
• Google Maps makes it very straightforward to embed a small version of any part of its maps on your website. Click the link below it to see the full version. Better still, download Google Earth!