For ease of reference, I decided to name my project Care Focus. The project is a web interface that educators in the early childhood care and education industry can use in order to calculate, communicate, record and view child to educator ratios in order to assist educators to better meet the legislative and quality care requirements (Queensland Government, 2021). This project will keep information relating to the current occupancy for the service and educators currently available. It will then use a ratio formula to calculate how many groups of children, what ages the children in each group are and how many staff are required for each group. This data is then stored and made accessible when needed.
My motivation for this project is to enhance the quality of care that educators can provide for children in the early childhood education and care environment. I spent 15 years as an educator in early childhood and have a personal passion for the care and education on young children. During my experience, I found that recording the attendance of children and then being able to compare the current occupancy to the number of educators to calculate staffing needs took a lot of time away that I could be using to develop plans or meet the needs of the children better. Management also aimed to save on costs of staff so required senior educators, such as the role I was in, to ensure that no staff were working when they weren’t needed. This is what began the process of my project idea and the motivation of developing this project.
The project calls for an interface which educators can use to calculate, communicate, record and view required child to educator ratios as described by Queensland Government (2021) legislation. Educators would access a user interface using an application connected to a web interface. In this application, the educator can then log into to where they can access and record information. The educators will then have a menu on the side which would contain options to edit information to the database or to view it. On the main screen there will be a dashboard that displayed information about how many groups there were currently, how many staff and how many children. When age groups can be merged, a notification will display and possibly an audible notification to ask the educator if they would like to combine age groups depending on the staffing available. They can then choose an option to end an educator’s shift, dismiss the notification or snooze the notification.
When the educators view the data, they will be able to see the number of children currently in the service, the number of staff at the service and the current groups that the children and educators are nominated to. Management could also view staff shift times and children’s’ attendances. In the editing section of the interface, educators would be able to move staff between groups as well as children. This would allow educators to maintain records of the flexibility of grouping arrangements without losing time for teaching. The educators would also have the option of signing children out of the attendance without the record being sent to the software that is connected to the software that is responsible for fees and payroll.
The project does have some small drawbacks which mostly relate to the secure storage and use of data regarding the families and children that attend the service. The application would require secure enough means as to not jeopardize the privacy of the service employees, trade secrets or the families which attend. This would be done by using a secure source to store the data and the need for educators to log in to the application would increase security. To further increase security of the data, 2 factor authentication could be used
The project would be compatible for both apple, android, and PC devices to use and retrieve data from the software that’s responsible for maintaining a roll of the children currently in attendance. If the service doesn’t have this software, they are able to add children from a database which is formed upon the enrolment of a child at the service. Educator information will be retrieved from the software responsible for maintaining payroll or time clocks. If the service doesn’t have this software, upon beginning employment, all educators will fill out a profile either using the web interface accessible via PC or the application. The profile will include the job title, any employee identification number, and any qualifications the educator has as well as a photo of the educator. When an educator begins a shift, they will then log in to the application and mark themselves as working. At the end of a shift, the educator will mark themselves as finished working.
The data for the application will be stored on a cloud which the application can access when needed. Should the incorrect information be shown, an educator is able to edit the data. The ratio formula that the application would use would be based on the current legislation. Staff that are not working directly with children aren’t included in the ratio formula and are able to be moved by an educator that is using the application to a dedicated group called non-contact.
I researched the tools and technologies that might be included to make this project work. If an application was to be made for apple products then according to AWS (nd) XCode would be need to run a graphics interface and include everything you would need to design, develop, write and debug an iOS application or alternatively swift coding could be used. To develop an application on the android system, then Android studio could be used as both a graphical and a code based software to design, test and implement android applications (Android, n.d.). As for the web application for the project, using HTML a web application could be designed (AppsGeyser, 2020). The storage and networking related to the data which the educators input would utilize cloud computing in order to store all the data in a place that is accessible to any device via the application which is suggested by Reply Alpha (n.d.). To ensure privacy and security of data, 2 factor authentication use would also be needed such as talked about by (Bozho, 2017).
The skills required to make this project work would consist of several disciplines. To begin the process of developing the application, skills in XCode or swift would be needed as well as skills in Android studio would be required. This will give the necessary interface needed for the application to be used on android and apple devices. To develop a web-based interface, skills in html coding would be needed to design the web application for the project. The next step would be developing the storage of the data collected from user input or from databases of other software. Pulling this data from other software would depend on how the software stores the data of its own. Skills in cloud computing would be needed for this part to store and retrieve the data through a third party. To utilize the 2 factor authentication work flow, Bozho (2017) talks about using java code. This would mean that skills in java coding would also be needed. A background knowledge of the early childhood education and care industry would also be an advantage as this means very little research would be required to know the correct formulas for educators, however knowledge of the formulas to calculate educator to child ratios would be mandatory. This knowledge could be obtained through research of legislation.
This project’s aim is to create an interface that educators in the early childhood care and education industry can use to calculate, communicate, record and view child to educator ratios to assist educators to better meet the legislative and quality care requirements. I predict this project, when completed, would deliver this objective. After educators have set up the initial profile and children have been entered into the database, the application will allow educators simple and easy access to not only view but also record, communicate, and quickly calculate the care requirements for the children in their care. I predict this would have a great impact on the early childhood education and care industry in the way it will allow educators more time to spend teaching and implementing the educational and care plans they create or planning lessons as well as ensuring the children in their care are supervised according to researched legislation.
This project’s aim is to create an interface that educators in the early childhood care and education industry can use to calculate, communicate, record and view child to educator ratios to assist educators to better meet the legislative and quality care requirements. I predict this project, when completed, would deliver this objective. After educators have set up the initial profile and children have been entered into the database, the application will allow educators simple and easy access to not only view but also record, communicate, and quickly calculate the care requirements for the children in their care. I predict this would have a great impact on the early childhood education and care industry in the way it will allow educators more time to spend teaching and implementing the educational and care plans they create or planning lessons as well as ensuring the children in their care are supervised according to researched legislation.