This seems to be a fairly comprehensive listing on what is needed for a site to be considered a good tool for learning. The designer has many things to consider prior to moving forward with each level, and it seems to progress in a fairly intuitive order--starting small and working your way into the design until the end.
For the instructional site Learning Fractions (http://www.enchantedlearning.com/math/fractions/), I have evaluated it the following for these reasons:
PROBLEM | SILVER | Since I am a licensed math teacher, I know this category relates to the real world. The site specifically points to things like apples. However, it does not receive a gold because it doesn’t state why it is important to know fractions, just what they are. |
ACTIVATION | GOLD | This site gets a gold star for activating prior knowledge since it uses examples all students should have come in to contact with before, using well known fractions like half, using real world things like an apple, and recalling vocab words they should know about already. |
DEMONSTRATION | GOLD | This site abounds with many examples of all kinds of fraction problems. |
APPLICATION | GOLD | The site has hundreds of examples for the user to practive with following the examples that are laid out all over the page. |
INTEGRATION | SILVER | The site provides many worksheets with answer keys for the user to practice with and check their work against. However, if the user is getting the information incorrect, there is no way for the user to know where they are going wrong, just that they are. |
The second evaluation, Business Plans (http://payson.tulane.edu/courses/ltl/projects/entrepreneur/main.swf) rates as the following:
***many of the links on the site refused to load, so I am going by the little inforamtion I could glean off the screens I could see and the titles of each category.
PROBLEM | BRONZE | The site begins with a story of a college student that wanted to start a pig farm in Cambodia. It wasn’t until I got through a bit more of the tutorial that I realized this site wasn’t about Veasna’s pigs, it was about business plans |
ACTIVATION | GOLD | The site allows the user to think about what the best route to take in deciding on a business plan and questions that the user needs to ask themselves to more forward |
DEMONSTRATION | GOLD | This site does give Veasna as a demonstration of a good business plan, but it is at the beginning. However, on ce getting into the tutorial, there are many examples of the types of documents needed, how to fill out things like a business plan, and so on. It has a logical order as the what would happen in real life when navigating through the tutorial. |
APPLICATION | GOLD | There are practice pages for the user to look at and see what is expected. |
INTEGRATION | GOLD | There are practice and summary pages, marketing plans, and supporting documents that are printable/downloadable to take with the user to ensure they are able to follow the plan to set up the necessary documents to move forward in the business, which I think is what the website was about.**Again, since many items wouldn't open on the site, I can't be sure of all the content other than what I gathered from the small amount of information I could see and the titles on each page. |
Kristen since you already were familiar with the fractions web site, your rating was different from mine. I thought the site met all the criteria despite its unattractive visual look. The entepeuneurship site gave almost too much information and the technology seemed to get in the way of the true intent of the instruction.
ReplyDeleteTo Mary,
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to see how different we are. We have a Chinese saying of "100 reader 100 Shakespeare" meaning that we see things through different lenses. I thought the visual look was appealing to me. For the large amount of information, I feel it might be a long time frames training.
To Kristen,
I agree that it's a fairly comprehensive listing on what is needed for a site to be considered a good tool. It take much effort to design a quality course - many aspect to think about. I share this resource with my supervisor!
Yi
Yes I looked at the fraction website and was so overwhelmed I left! So if I had reviewed it we all probably would have had different scores. It is just so interesting to see it. I am sure the only thing we could all have the same score on is an elearning for ID!
ReplyDeleteI did not review the fractions Web site, but from your description and background, the content seems appropriate for students who need to learn fractions.
ReplyDeleteAs for the business plan site, I did not think the learner had any motivation or encouragement to actually create his/her own business plan. If I gave this link to my business students without a specific assignment to complete, they would not apply the information on their own. So, if this tutorial is part of a larger course and leads to a business plan assignment, the content would be more helpful and applicable. From my perspective, the content is delivered like an audio/visual book and lecture combination. The questions at the end of the segments are the equivalent to the sidebars in text books, which many students skip as well.
Just like others said above, I think its interesting how we have different perspectives regarding the same instructional products :)