Originally posted by Meghan Gallant on November 24, 2017
Motivation and Process
As an educator living and working in a country where it is odd to see someone not looking at their phone, and where a phone with WeChat can allow one to accomplish an entire day’s worth of activities–from buying breakfast to doing some late-night online shopping without leaving the app–I was curious about why such an ubiquitous app was not being used in education. My own use of WeChat in education is limited to posting “Moments” of school activities and, twice a year, using the group chat function to organize the groups for a biannual school trip. How could an app that most people, including myself, can not live without not be used more in education?
Design Choice
On my daily commute I am surrounded by commuters watching videos on their phones, so I wanted to cater to that type of audience and create a video. I chose to use Adobe Spark video because I could create on my tablet with ease. While it is, admittedly, difficult to grab and hold attention for a 5 minute+ video, I chose the music and transition theme carefully to build momentum and, hopefully, entice people to watch until the end–this is another great affordance of Adobe Spark.
Hi Jane,
I agree with you that WeChat is a great APP that has developed over the years to be so much more than an instant messaging provider. During my time living in China, I would say I used WeChat at least once every 10minutes. It was personal, and it was for work. The functions are constantly evolving to better cater to its users. Mini-programs allowed for fast access, so a lot of private education companies made them for the purpose of storing student academic performances, and class information, etc. Even though they are great, I think there are downsides to them, since they are made for quick access, while you have a mini-program opened, your notifications for WeChat messages won’t pop up, so in order to check them, you would need to exit your mini-program. Also, the system does not allow for too much complicated function, for the purpose of keeping the mini-program light and quick to access. So if educators are looking for more complicated functions such as actually doing interactive quizzes, it’s still best to use an actual APP.
Thanks for making the video! I think it was really well made.
I was happy and upset at the same time when I found this post in the Knowledge Mill because I didn’t think somebody would do this, and I had planned to use this as my A3 project. (This is an introduction video of the mini-programs of Wechat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKcdUT3ZSwA)
Anyways, WeChat mini-programs are powerful apps that you can get access to as long as you use Wechat, and everything can be logged in with one account. And there’s another feature I want to introduce here other than the mini-program is that Wechat has embedded in-app translation, which enables you to translate conversations in WeChat. Although the translation quality is still far away from accurate, it is a start. All my Canadian co-workers use that to communicate with local friends who don’t speak much English.
Back to mini-programs. I am awarded that google created many excellent platforms and tools for education. Sadly, it is difficult for us to get access to those. I like the idea of mini-programs because it redefines mobility within mobile devices. It relieves the app fatigue. You can simply scan at a QR code and get the mini-program to work instantly instead of having to wait minutes for an app to be downloaded. You can easily manage your mini-program and stick it to the top. For example, I bought a work-out course from a company, and the lessons can all be accessed through their mini-program in WeChat. And as long as I’m logged in with the same WeChat account, I can change different devices and not having to go through the process of reinstalling as many apps as we used to.
Also, as mentioned by Meghan, WeChat itself is more targeting at the Chinese market. As a Chinese, I do hope WeChat or other companies in China will keep creating more educational products to benefit more Chinese students, something that doesn’t require us to go beyond ” the Great Firewall.” I’m looking forward to seeing more software companies would adopt the idea of mini-programs.
Originally posted by Ed on November 26, 2017
Hi Meghan This app checks most of the boxes for relieving app fatigue as you mention. Being able to access the app across a wide range of devices makes it very appealing. I especially like your projection on being able to produce educational apps through open sourcing the development tools. For educational apps to be included in a familiar platform would make it more likely for learners to accept and access it.
Reply from Meghan on November 26, 2017
Hi Ed.
Thanks for the feedback. I truly believe that, if we can leverage WeChat’s affordances and ease-of-use, both students and teachers will be more likely to use it in education as they already using WeChat for almost everything else. If the same context-aware functions being used to suggest relevant mini programs based on locations could be used in an educational setting, imagine how much easier it would be to do flipped classroom work, move about the school, or even do fieldwork. Everything you need would be available through a single app and would be suggested to you once you are near the location where it is tagged.
When I have finished my courses for this term I am going to explore the mini program maker tutorial I mentioned in the video to see if I can make something that I could use with my classes. It will be a little bit of a learning curve for me as the toolkit is in Chinese, but I’m convinced that it could ease many of the problems I face with tech integration, especially in an EFL environment where we spend so much time going over English terms for software functions–I think using WeChat mini programs, if I can create something useful and worthwhile, could get us up and running much faster than our current approach.
Originally posted by Joyce on November 29, 2017
Hi Meghan, thanks for this video– I have heard a lot about WeChat, but I really had never done much research into its use and capabilities. I have a couple of questions regarding WeChat: 1. Are there cultural factors at play that might have contributed to its popularity in China, and would those cultural factors transfer to other environments? 2. How might the definition and current educational practices in China affect the employment of WeChat in mobile education in the future?
Reply to Joyce from Meghan on November 29, 2017
Hi Joyce. Thank you for the thoughtful follow-up questions. A very brief answer to your first question is that WeChat has an advantage because it works within the restrictions of “The Great Firewall”–this allows equal access to services (as long as one had Internet access) whereas other apps which may require a VPN can not be adopted as widely. Transferring to other environments–I think you mean different countries/cultures–WeChat would definitely not be as ubiquitous because there are more options once outside the reach of the firewall, so perhaps WeChat would not be posed to make the inroads in education I forecast. However, many articles suggest that other companies are attempting to follow WeChat’s lead–for example, WeChat had been in talks to buy What’s App, but a delayed business meeting allowed Facebook to purchase it (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-28/tencent-rules-china-the-problem-is-the-rest-of-the-world). Perhaps Tencent’s WeChat will not be the app that reaches every country, but its strategy is likely to be used by others. On November 21, Tencent briefly overtook Facebook in value–so it is undeniable that they are an influential and successful enterprise. As for current educational practices in China, I want to direct your attention to the State Ministry of Education’s Education Information Technology Development Ten-Year Plan (2011-2020) which has three main goals: 1) everyone can enjoy an IT study environment, (2) formation of a learning-based social system supported by IT platforms, and (3) implement broadband coverage for all districts and schools. Education is moving toward technology integration and, with WeChat’s current affordances and reach, it is posed to meet the goals of this initiative. Additional points of this plan aim to take advantage of the cloud and big data–WeChat makes use of the cloud for its mini-programs, and since users use WeChat for many tasks, the amount of Big Data it generates would be significant. Another point is that China lags behind the US in educational technology integration because educational goals are different. WeChat is a domestic product which gives it an advantage as it knows, firsthand, the goals of Chinese education. A final comment is that educational resources have not realized the benefits of the Internet–but WeChat definitely has. If they shift their attention to education, Tencent/WeChat is in a advantageous position to meet the needs of this technology plan. Read more here: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/cn/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/deloitte-cn-tmt-reflection-edu-tech-development-china-2013-en-020513.pdf