Report STIC I - Exercise 2 : Introduction to computational thinking and programming

Written by Kenneth Rioja, on October 31 2021.

1. Links

2. Goals

Objectives can be seen in the Introduction section of this exercise 2.

  • This flash card will allow psychology students to identify the different functions and know their location in the brain.
  • Target audience : french-speaking undergraduate students studying the brain (psychology, medicine, neuroscience...).
  • This flash card is meant to be use alone, no need to use it with other people.
  • The goal here is to be able to quickly identify the brain functions, name them and visualize where it is.

3. Design

  • If a student need to locate the brain functions, this flash card will help to learn the brain functions by visualizing the brain itself. It is important to know the location to better tackle few of the neuropsychological disorders.
  • Once the user gets into the page, a brain image is displayed. It is asked to identify and mentally point five brain functions.
  • When the user thinks s-he has them all, s-he clicks on the button 'Montrer les fonctions'. The five functions appear and each is pointing toward a specific brain area.
  • Also his/her mark appears. The more the user reveals the functions, the lower the mark is. If the mark gets under 4/6, then a comment pops out.
  • The use of this card ends when the user thinks s-he retrieved all the functions and pointed them correctly, the final mark appears as a cue to his/her next exam for example.

4. Production

The image was an SVG image taken here (free of use).
With Inkscape, I zoom out to be able to place every word and saved two plain versions with the same dimensions.
On the version with annotations, I wrote the functions and created arrows pointing toward the specific brain area and changed the thickness.

5. Self-assessment

I could have gone deeper in the different functions of the brain areas. Why 5 functions? I only referred to the textbook of Gazzaniga.
This flash card is only useful for beginners. Its lifetime is really short once the user know and name every function.
A way to improve this way of learning would be, when the user point every brain area with the mouse, then the brain area gets highlighted with an extensive explanation of the functions of this area. And if we click on the area, it would redirect to an other page / menu with more information to deepen the user's learning.

6. References

Gazzaniga, M. S., Ivry, R. B., & Mangun, G. R. (2013). Cognitive neuroscience: The biology of the mind. 4th edition.

7. Resources