Through Clover, a computer-based tool for authoring animated vignettes, middle-school teachers and students have a new way to combat social dilemmas and build character. The authoring tool, designed for students in grades 5-8, allows for transformation of real-life social experiences into short animated scenarios to share and discuss with peers.

Brian Bailey, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University, and Sharon Tettegah, an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, worked closely to develop the tool. Tettegah had been developing similar vignettes with off-the-shelf applications for several years. Bailey had been working on user interfaces for designing multimedia applications. Combining their respective experiences, Bailey & Tettegah were able to design and develop a better tool for users.

The focus of the project was to have middle-school students look at issues such as social justice, honesty, and conflict resolution through computer-based storytelling, Tettegah said.

“If you actually have the kids construct real-life scenes and use them to problem solve, they can begin to think and act in more socially responsible ways,” she said.

Using Clover, students can share social dilemmas they have had around peers, whether in the cafeteria, bus, playground or school hallways. Teachers encourage them to draw from their real-life experiences, so the entire class can more effectively discuss, problem solve and learn from the depicted situations.

Students create the stories through a process that includes writing a narrative and script, sketching characters and scenes, and animating character dialogue in the scenes. A Microsoft Paint style program is used in the Clover tool. It includes the basic essentials – a pencil, eraser, paint bucket and color pallette – which makes it easy to draw characters and scenes. Students can also resize characters with a click and drag of a mouse, as well as create distinct speech and thought bubbles as part of the animation.

Students also have the option to either record their own or other students’ voices or use a text-to-speech function to create communication in the vignettes.

“The part everyone seems to like the most in terms of using the tool was its multimedia features, such as the ability to record and use your own voice,” Bailey said. “Students can get their friends to add different voices to the characters and actively participate in the story.”

Bailey and Tettegah originally installed the tool in Urbana’s Canaan Academy school, where students and teachers tested its usability and effectiveness.

“Sharon and I worked together on pilot studies of the tool with both teacher groups and student groups and got feedback from both,” Bailey said. “Since then, we’ve modified it to be as easy to use as possible.”

The tool displays a number of tabbed panes to support the process, so someone using the Clover tool is able to visualize the different parts of their story at once. Students and teachers tended to create stories in a non-linear, non-sequential order when testing the program, so it was important for users to be able to see all of the frames of their story at once, Bailey said.

He said the biggest problem in designing the tool was making sure to find a balance between technology and ease of use so students could gain its full benefit.

“The main focus was on character building, but there was a peripheral focus on getting kids engaged in technology — they learn a bit about programming through Clover,” Bailey said. “It was a big challenge to make sure the technology was simple enough that it didn’t get in the way of kids being able to express their stories.”

Clover is available to download for free at www.icctp.net. Users can view others’ projects, upload their own stories to share, and review articles about the tool.

The ability to upload vignettes made from any location can also act as a tool to study cultural, race and gender differences when dealing with social situations among peers, Tettegah said. Students tend to side with classmates of the same gender and boys almost tend to draw them selves bigger than girls, and white students bigger than minority students, Tettegah said.

In this way, Tettegah said, Clover could prove to have a variety of uses.

“Researchers can study character development with the tool, and educators can use it to get students to recognize and solve social problems,” she said.

Most recently, Tettegah used Clover to work with 4th and 5th grade students at Yankee Ridge Elementary School in Urbana. She said students and parents from the school said they enjoyed using the tool.

Tettegah and Bailey agreed that their ability to work well together was an important ingredient for the success of the project. Clover will next be presented at the American Educational Association in April 2006 in San Francisco.