UX Module 3: Fantasy Geopolitics Feature Extension

For the third project in UX Design, I created additional features for a web app called “Fantasy Geopolitics.” Fantasy Geopolitics allows students to play a simple version of fantasy sports using countries and how often they appear in the New York Times. While this gamifies the experience of following the news for students, winning requires a strong understanding of geopolitics, current events, and news cycles in the United States. I chose this application largely because it is a bare-bones application. At this point, teams simply select countries and the game runs for a length of time determined by the teacher. Because it is still being developed beyond the basic concept, there were lots of places with opportunities to enhance the experience.

Creating a knowledge construction environment was interesting in part because compared to information acquisition and response strengthening there are fewer examples of it which can be easily found out in the world, maybe because it seems to require both subject matter expertise and more familiarity with teaching and learning than creating a simple digital quiz game.

After I found out Fantasy Geopolitics, I then created a lesson plan. While there are a few worksheets and packets for students available on the internet, none provided much structure or an organizing view from the teacher’s perspective. I based my lesson plan on what it seemed like teachers were doing according to the materials they were giving to their students and according to the resources shared by teachers who are members of the site. These materials also lead to my identification of a hurdle to getting students playing Fantasy Geopolitics. Most of the teacher materials I found online focused on getting their students in connected with relevant sources and encouraging them to create a list of countries to draft, which is the first step of the game. This became the basis of the feature I created.

I’m very happy with the way this feature fits with the rest of the application. While there are some minor redesigns which would be necessary to get students online on the application, it could essentially be developed alongside the existing application without interference. However, in retrospect I think that if this is going to mainly be a team activity (which it appears to be, based on the resources I found) features for teams to work collaboratively on the same list should be implemented, although theoretically students could sit together at a computer. I also think a simple dashboard for teachers, or an addition to the current Fantasy Geopolitics dashboard, would be necessary so teachers can both track students progress (i.e. who is doing what) as well as review their answers to the reflective questions to ensure that students are on the right track.