Film Academy for Kids
Film Academy for Kids is an innovative app developed using design thinking methods to enhance essential future skills—problem-solving, creative thinking, and storytelling—through the art of stop-motion animation. By blending digital tools with physical toys, the app encourages students to engage in hands-on learning experiences, fostering creativity and critical thinking in a fun and interactive way.
By combining art, music, and storytelling, students can explore diverse interests and develop a deeper understanding of the filmmaking process. This unique approach empowers children to express their ideas, bringing their narratives to life while cultivating valuable skills that will serve them well in the future.
Design Thinking Process
Empathy
WHY Through our own experiences and observations, we have found that in elementary schools, students of varying abilities are placed in the same classroom, listening to the same material and taking the same tests. Those who struggle under Taiwan’s standardized education system often have to find their own way to survive, while some students may simply give up. Additionally, there is a disconnect in the design of our educational courses; students often do not see how the knowledge they acquire connects to the real world. For instance, when children learn math, they often do not understand how to apply it in real life; they merely memorize formulas to pass exams. However, if they later discover that math can be an enjoyable subject, it could lead to a wider range of opportunities for them.
Interview To gain deeper insights into our original thoughts, we conducted interviews with four parents and three elementary school teachers, in addition to researching the current Taiwanese education system. This comprehensive approach allowed us to gather valuable perspectives that inform our understanding of the challenges and opportunities within the educational landscape.Below are the summary of our interview.
-
Parents: Many parents have low engagement and struggle to grasp their children's learning situations. They often rely on easily interpretable data, such as grades, to assess educational effectiveness, which leads to a superficial understanding rather than a comprehensive view of their child’s progress.
-
Educators: While educators may aspire to innovate and implement curriculum reforms, they frequently encounter challenges in knowing where to begin and lack the necessary technology and resources to facilitate meaningful changes.
-
Society: Current Taiwanese educational content and methods may not adequately prepare students for future demands, potentially resulting in broader societal issues as the workforce evolves.
Additionally, we visited a Grade 3 classroom led by Miss Weng, a passionate advocate for innovative education. Our goal was to observe her efforts to cultivate skills beyond traditional textbook learning. To provide students with a deeper understanding of Taiwanese military dependents' village culture from the 1950s, Miss Weng designed a series of student-led activities, including board game creation, gameplay, and photography exhibition.
After in-depth research and a field trip, students showcased their knowledge through a board game, a self-written play, and a photography exhibition.
Define
HMW Based on the interview we come out with three how might we statements.
-
How might we create a system or platform that enhances parental engagement by accommodating various levels of participation and involvement?
-
How might we provide tools to support educators in designing innovative curriculm that inspire and engage students?
-
How might we design learning content that aligns with the skills and competencies necessary for future trends, ensuring students are well-prepared for an ever-changing world?
Ideate & Initial Prototypes
In the ideation phase, we explored various possibilities, such as a personalized learning platform for design courses and film learning videos for kids. We created quick prototypes of these ideas to determine which was the most feasible and desirable.
-
EdTech platform for 12 design classes
-
Film Learning Video for Kids
-
Stop motion lessons
For these prototypes, we conducted user testing with elementary school students. Below is the feedback we received:
-
'The video seems common to me, but I like the cartoonish style.'
-
'The EdTech platform is interesting, but I don’t want it to feel like I’m still learning after school.'
-
'I like that I can play with my classmates on the platform.'
-
'I’ve never heard about stop-motion! It’s interesting to me.'
We also conducted competitor research and determined that stop-motion was the most unique idea among them. To make the courses more accessible, we decided to create a digital format.
Test 1
Workshop To conduct deeper and more comprehensive testing, we hosted a three-day workshop in a Grade 3 classroom to test our complete concept. We ran courses that included stop-motion, video editing, and sound/visual effects. We also adapted our idea to an in-person instructional format, providing physical materials for hands-on learning.
The workshop was a huge success. We observed that students who originally lacked confidence in class discovered areas where they excelled compared to others. We also received a lot of positive feedback from parents, who shared that their children autonomously asked to practice making videos at home. I remember one boy, often labeled as a 'trouble' student for not paying attention in class, who showed tremendous potential during the workshop. He was motivated to stay after class to improve his work.
From the feedback, we also observed that during the stop-motion phase, students often combined different characters to create new ones. This led us to consider the possibility of making the materials more flexible and personalized.
Prototype 2 & Test 2
Our initial idea was to design our characters to be like Lego pieces. However, after testing, we found that instead of focusing on learning about filmmaking, kids tended to focus more on creating the characters.
Prototype 3
In Prototype 3, we incorporated user feedback by redesigning the characters to have detachable body parts, allowing for greater flexibility and creativity in character interactions. This feature enhances the hands-on experience, encouraging users to explore different character dynamics within a film context.
Additionally, we began building our app, focusing on the four main elements of film: character, stop-motion, music, and visual effects. This app development stage establishes a cohesive platform for users to engage with filmmaking concepts interactively. As the final prototype in this project, Prototype 3 encapsulates our vision, setting a strong foundation for the product's future and full release.
Exhibition
To bring our product to market, we showcased it at the Young Designers' Exhibition, Taiwan’s largest design exhibition featuring over 100 schools. During this event, we had the opportunity to pitch our concept to a wide range of potential investors, designers, and app developers from across the nation. The exhibition offered a valuable platform to expand our reach, spark interest, and build connections essential for bringing our product to market. Positioned among Taiwan's top emerging talent, we strengthened our path forward, gaining support and insights that will drive our product’s future success.
