Team Size: 10
Prototype Timeframe: 3 weeks
Correlational Study Timeframe: 1 month (+3 weeks of testing) for each study
Revision Timeframe: 1 month
Role: Interactive Editor (Core)
Key Contributions: Master Logic
Learning Prompt: Ideal flow for a child through experiences + Growing (targeted) preschool literacy and math skills with Noggin
Date Completed: October 2023
One of the most significant contributions I’ve made to the Noggin process is helping to develop the vastly extensive PAV network for “special delivery testing.”
One of Noggin’s core goals going forward is developing targeted literacy and math skills for its players, and it aims to do so by utilizing its vast library of PAVs and short form videos. What that this means is developing an experience that groups sets of experiences that each target similar skills, and encourage kids to play through not just a single experience, but several.
Specific logic utilized within our in-house tool enabled different PAVs to link to each other upon input (i.e. launching a different PAV if you trigger a certain thing in a main PAV, and then be able to return to the previous PAV rather than exiting the experience entirely). And in April 2023 and May 2023, we ran two separate testing studies to see if, indeed, having kids play through experiences of these groupings indeed improved learning understanding and comprehension.
How it works is, basically, when you enter the experience, you are asked with inputting your custom-made ID that is then stored in a master tracking variable that carries over across all of your experiences. Then, Skye walks you through an introduction and reveals to you a special delivery box that holds two “core content” cards.
Each of these content cards contains launching links to the cards’ respective PAVs.
Upon entering those PAVs, you can click on the back button (which normally takes you out of app completely) that has been customized to take you back, instead, to the main PAV that is storing your progress (i.e. there are variables that track if you have reached the box of core content, so when you return to the main PAV, there is logic there that determines where in the main PAV’s source video you will return to).
You must complete both pieces of core content to complete the experience, but the pieces of core content typically have internal progress variables of their own, so you indeed can enter and exit the pieces of core content as you will.
Upon completion of each one, there is a “completion variable” stored globally across the experience that turns on and then, upon return to the main PAV, shows that piece of core content as “complete.”
Once both are completed, return to the main PAV will take you to a window that showers you with confetti and then leads you to a final replay window if you so choose (both of these checkpoints come with tracking variables themselves).
As you move through this, you are also given the option of opening the “supplemental editorial cord” that houses eight different pieces of supplemental PAV content (click one to launch that PAV). These PAVs are not required to be completed in order to finish the experience, but each one teaches a learning skill similar to the ones being taught in the core content.
The supplemental PAVs don’t have completion variables, just the customized back buttons that return you to the main PAV, and then the main PAV’s progress-tracking variables get to work on moving you to where you need to be.
This process actually began in January 2022, when I was initially tasked with constructing a small prototype (then called the “lobby prototype”) to see what building this kind of library experience would entail (see below).
In 2023, when build-up to these targeted rounds of testing were announced, having the completed lobby prototype mostly allowed me and a supporting interactive editor, Cristian Duran, to re-use much of the logic developed in the prototype phase from the previous year (i.e. the launch content logic had been developed in the prototype phase, as well as the disable/enable logic of the core content cards that comes with turning on/off the supplemental editorial card, respectively).
What needed to be added was updating the assets to a new source video that involved Skye instead of Rubble, plus updating the main PAV with the content to be used for testing.
The way the testing process worked is that a single main PAV would be run and showcased to kids for a first week. Then, content would be shuffled for week 2 (this was completed by crafting a second main PAV of different content) to test skills similar to the core skills, but different in their specificities.
For each week (i.e. a different PAV), there would be different internal tracking variables (i.e. the completion variables, the progress variables), so the next week’s PAV would simulate you starting from scratch, even if you participated in the first week of testing. The only variables that carried over across all experiences/weeks were a main “is this your first playthrough” variable, and the ID selector.
***Note: As can be seen in my playthrough, a “reset PAV” was also developed to allow the player to reset these variables and start from scratch if need be, which then in turn links to the various “main PAVs”
My main playthrough (see top) shows a walkthrough of the literacy correlational study (May 2023), at least its first week. Below, you can see the different weeks of its content, core and supplemental.
Much of the supplemental content in the literacy study is re-used across the three weeks, just interchanged as to which is core and which is supplemental. As can be seen in the playthrough, this content typically involves listening to these words, letters, and the sounds they make.
***Note: The only piece of supplemental literacy content I didn’t get to in my playthrough was “Terrific Toy Factory.” For those curious about its content, view it here***
Many of the photos shown above in the written walkthrough (those with the ornage “Mighty Minds” box) are of the math correlational study (April 2023), week 1. A shortened playthrough of the week 1 main PAV can be viewed below, as well as images of the study’s different weeks.
As opposed to the literacy study, there were four weeks of the math study, but weeks 3 and 4 simply re-used the content from weeks 1 and 2, respectively (with week 4 swapping out one of the core PAVs, “Rocket Lab,” with a supplemental, “International Shape Station,” but otherwise unchanged). The first two main weeks can be viewed below.
The supplemental content in the math study was fully changed from week 1 to week 2, the first week focusing more on matching objects and the second focusing on shapes, much of the content involving sorting in some form.
Another interactive editor, Peter Klinkon, helped set up a series of analytics show that we could see where and what kids were clicking on and how successful they were at them, per week.
The full content list across all studies can be seen below (core content is bolded).
Math Week 1, Matching:
- Tales of the Sleepy Knight
- Perfect Pair
- Wild World of Animals
- The Sneaky Sock Monster
- Rainbow Sprinkles Sorting!
- Felt Friends, Dress Up!
- Secret Mystery Birthday
- Where’s Gopher
- Colors Everywhere
- Weather Report with Felt Friends
Math Week 2, Shapes:
- Dodo’s Wild Ride
- Rocket Lab
- International Shape Station
- Flatland
- Dodo’s Pogo Fiasco
- Ice Cream Shape Song
- Deep Ocean Mystery
- The Aquarium Fix-It
- The Way of the Rectangle
- Purple Monkey Rescue
Literacy Week 1, Initial Sounds:
- Alphaboogie
- Ranger Rescue
- Rubble Rumble
- Terrific Toy Factory
- Skye’s Song Squad
- Case of the Mysterious Dinosaur
- G for Grocery
- Alphabeats O and S
- Alphabeats F
- Word Family Reunion
Literacy Week 2, Initial Blends:
- Rubble Rumble
- Terrific Toy Factory
- Alphaboogie
- Ranger Rescue
- Skye’s Song Squad
- Case of the Mysterious Dinosaur
- G for Grocery
- Alphabeats O and S
- Alphabeats F
- Word Family Reunion
Literacy Week 3, Syllables:
- Skye’s Song Squad
- Case of the Mysterious Dinosaur
- Alphaboogie
- Ranger Rescue
- Rubble Rumble
- Terrific Toy Factory
- G for Grocery
- Alphabeats O and S
- Alphabeats F
- Word Family Reunion
In the end, although there are limitations to these studies (i.e. there was no control group, hence the name “correlational studies,” and as such it’s not a guarantee that improvements could have been picked up outside the app during testing; the skills being tested here are extremely targeted, and most content in Noggin is broader), preschool kids showed, qualitatively, a tremendous increase in math and literacy skills at the end of just the corresponding testing periods.
Such implications mean that this kind of targeted learning methodology can be used across a multitude of different skills nourished by Noggin, from social emotional learning to art and science. And is “encouraging evidence that Noggin provides a potent boost to early learning” [1].
An additional series of dual math+literacy studies were being set up, with six weeks of content per study, for October 2023, to test whether indeed it is Noggin specifically that is the definitive cause of these noticed improvements. However, I unfortunately left the company before these studies were run, handing off the skins of these PAVs as well as internal documentation I wrote before I left.
Even though I didn’t see this project to its fullest completion, I remain proud of the work done, and I look forward to seeing how these results are utilized to help encourage the academic and emotional development of children, which is as good a cause as any there is.
[1] Correlational studies: Math and Literacy, Sofia Jimenez and Michael Levine, unpublished
Matthew Floyd 