Summers-Knoll Digital Portfolio
Touch Screens in Education
Fall '10
Course: Transformative Technology in the Classroom
Throughout the semester, my class explored the use of technology in the classroom. What we found out is that
a lot of different technologies claim to aid learning but what we found is that most can't live up to this
claim. For my final paper, I examined touch screen technology and it's educational promise. What I found is
that for the most part, touch screens are not yet transforming the way we learn. There is a lot of promise
though, especially in the realm of group collaboration and for special needs students, particularly those
with Autism.
Read the paper here. You can also read my
Conceptual Framework exploring what I think makes a
transformative technology.
Kerrytown BookFest
Fall '09 - Fall '10
Role: Web Designer/Developer
Client: Kerrytown BookFest Board
The Kerrytown BookFest is an annual celebration of books. It goes beyond just what we read, but also the science behind binding,
the authors behind the books, explorations of the paper used to print on, and so much more. In 2009, the Kerrytown BookFest was looking
to upgrade their web presence. As a volunteer, I remade their website with a custom WordPress theme and a custom back-end to help the
Board track exhibitors, speakers, volunteers, and events. This project involved using Flash, PHP, SQL, JavaScript, and HTML/CSS.
See the site here.
Casting Stereotypes Aside
Fall '08
Roles: Interaction Designer, Lead Developer
Course: Technology and the Humanities
The goal of this project was to use technology to teach something in an interesting way. My group tackled typography and its use in signage.
We took examples found around Ann Arbor, MI and created a map to navigate around to the examples. Using Adobe Flash, we created an interactive site
that lets the user select different locations and read about the particular typography used.
See the site here.
Squirrel Sense
Fall '09
Roles: User Experience Designer, Developer, Art/Audio Designer
Course: Computer Game Design and Development
Squirrel Sense is a fast-paced action video game for the PC. You choose your squirrel and compete against up to three other players. The goal is to collect and hide as many
acorns as you can. Helping you to do this is your Squirrel Sense, which reveals buried acorns in enemy territory and your Squirrel Scream which chases off other
squirrels. The squirrel you choose affects the strength of those two powers and also the speed at which you can move and the number of acorns you can carry.
Squirrel Sense was written in C/C++ and uses the proprietary
ZeniLib engine.
See more about the game here and
get the game here.
GravEATy
Fall '09
Course: Computer Game Design and Development
GravEATy is an arcade game for the PC that pits you against the sudden loss of gravity's affect on you. The people on the ground are trying to help you by
throwing food at you for you to eat. Why? Because you need to gain weight, and gain weight fast before you're lost to space. GravEATy was written in C/C++ and
uses the proprietary
ZeniLib engine.
Get the game here.
Vocabulearner
Winter '09
Roles: User Experience Designer, Developer
Course: Computer Science Major Design Project
Vocaulearner is a tool that aims to help you learn new vocabulary. It is a Windows Gadget that lets you look up definitions and save them or your own
custom definition. Then, at user defined times, Vocabulearner pops up a little quiz to test what you've learned. It's also possible to look through your
saved definitions for review. Vocabulearner was written using SQL, JavaScript, and HTML/CSS.
Download it here.
The Ultimate Machine
Winter '09
Course: Video Games & Learning
The Ultimate Machine is a design document for a game that focuses on teaching middle school aged children about physics. The child builds a plane, boat, or car and
races them against other children or computer players. A parental-figure provides advice to the player in order to make a better machine. There would also be an online
community for children to discuss and share their designs.
Read it here.
Bill Manager
Fall '08
Roles: Developer
Course: Java Programming
Bill Manager is PC application that helps manage bill collection between people. The primary use case was for a household of people all splitting bills. The
application supports multiple users and splitting of bills by as many people as you want. This comes from the beginning of my career and it's not pretty, but it works.
I hope if you look at this you see the potential and see how much I've grown in my other work.
Download it here.
Sweetland Center for Writing Website Evaluation
Winter '11
Roles: Project Manager, Interviewer, Usability Tester
Course: Evaluation of Systems & Services
Client: Sweetland Center for Writing
The Sweetland Center for Writing is a deptartment at the University of Michigan that offers services and classes
to students that focus on improving their writting skills. The website serves as a portal for students to sign up for
advising appointments and to learn more about writing requirements and classes. My team evaluated by performing many
different usability studies. We created an interaction map, performed interviews, a comparative anaysis, heuristic evaluations,
conducted a survey with more than 2,000 responses, and carried out usability tests.
Download the interaction map as a PDF for better viewing.
The Adventures of the Super Readers
Winter '11
Roles: Designer
Course: Principles of Software Design for Learning
The Adventures of the Super Readers is a touch-enabled game that allows students to improve their reading skills.
Students become super heroes that help a city that's had all of its words scrambled by a nefarious villain. It is intended
to be an aide to teachers and parents, engaging students from Kindergarten through 5th Grade. The game grows with the
children and continues to work on skills that the Common Core State Standards recommend.
Read more about it at the design blog.
Video Game Popularity Visualization
Fall '11
Roles: Designer / Developer
Course: Information Visualization
The Video Game Popularity Visualization uses site traffic data provided by IGN to let users explore the popularity of video games
over time on IGN.com. It lets users choose from a large array of games and provides multiple options for making comparisons. Users can
look at the popularity chronologically or normalized around release date. This allows users to better compare popularity of games across a
series (like the Halo games) or across platform (ex: comparing XBOX to PS3).
Try it out here. Please note that it takes a while to load. It works best in Google Chrome
or Mozilla Firefox.
Commute Time Visualization
Fall '11
Roles: Designer / Developer
Course: Information Visualization
This is a visualization of my commute time for one month as I traveled to and from downtown Ann Arbor by bus and car.
Try it out here.
About Me
That picture to the left? Yeah, that's me. I'm a User Experience Designer and my background is Computer Science. I'm finishing up my Master's of Science in Information
from the University of Michigan and then I plan to hit the real world running.
I'm particularly interested in using technology to improve education. Instead of doing things better we need to be looking to do better things. The distinction is subtle but
what I mean is that instead of redoing something we already have and making it slighly better we need to exploit the advantages that new technology provide and use them to do
things that weren't previously possible. An example is flash cards. Why make flash card apps for mobile apps? It's not terrible, but it's not exactly a revolution. Instead, we
could be creating collaboration systems that allow for better exploration of terms among students instead of rote memorization. These are the sorts of things I've
been trying to tackle with my work at Gooru and for school projects.
As for personal interests, I love Tennis and swimming. I've skied all my life but recently I've taken up snowboarding and while I'm not very good, it's been a ton of fun.
I'm very into all the latest technology and follow it closely. I love media in all its forms: video games, books, comics,
TV, and movies.
Gooru
Summer '11 - Present
Roles: User Experience Designer / Developer
Gooru is a startup company developing a web platform that allows teachers and students to share and learn from the best learning resources. In the summer of 2011, I interned at Gooru (formerly Ednovo)
as a User Experience Designer. While there, I had the opportunity to work on many different projects. One of my big projects was designing and developing the company's website. It can be seen
at
Ednovo.org. With the name change to Gooru, a new website was developed and it can be seen at
GooruLearning.org. Another
of the projects I worked on was a tool for Gooru Administrators to edit large amounts of content in a quick and efficient manner. I also ran usability tests with teachers to discover areas they
were having trouble with which has informed further design refinements.
Take a look at Gooru here.
Menlo Innovations
2008 - Present
Roles: Developer / Quality Advocate / High-Tech Anthropologist
Menlo Innovations is one of the coolest and most unique custom software development firms you're going to find. I've been working there since
2008 when I started as a Software Development Intern. Since then, I've worked for them full-time, part-time, and in different roles such as Quality Assurance
and their designer role caled High-Tech Anthropology™. They're unique because they develop software using agile methodolgies, pairing with a partner at all times,
and use test-driven development. All of this combines to form an amazing experience for clients and the people working there.
While working there, I've worked on many different projects:
- Developed industry-leading flow cytometry software in Java
- Developed their website using WordPress, PHP, JavaScript, HTML/CSS
- Designed and developed a prescription management app for the iOS
- Developed survey tracking software in C#
- Developed patient tracking software using Visual Basic
Learn more about them at their website.
