Evaluation

=__ Evaluation __= Evaluation is an important process for any teaching and learning process in both traditional and online environments. Simply put, the function of evaluation for both teacher and student is to indicate the effectiveness of the learning process (Kozma, 1978). Tessmer in Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland (2005) noted how evaluation is a crucial part of every design and development because it can determine the worth or value of the instruction or training as well as its strengths and weaknesses. It is, therefore, important that my online intervention is evaluated to ensure its effectiveness in the learning process and to determine its value and worthiness. I used formative evaluation for my online intervention in order to satisfy the iterative nature of online instruction design. The information or comments from evaluators will go a long way in improving the intervention before it is made available for learning. In this project, however, I will not have the chance to implement these changes due to time constraints.

Formative evaluation is designed, done, and intended to support the process of improvement, and normally commissioned or done by, and delivered to, someone who can make improvements (Dick and Johnson, 2007). My online intervention was evaluated by a prospective student for the Advanced Research Design course and also the convener for the course in 2012, Dr Brown. The feedback from these evaluators is very important to the effectiveness of the online design task, because the student has an invested interest in the task and Dr Brown is not only a seasoned educational technologist but also an expert in the use of telephone interviews for research. Although the student did not provide any meaningful suggestions on the on the online intervention, Dr Brown suggested improvements that can enhance the effectiveness of the online task.

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The questionnaire I created for the formative evaluation process had very few questions which required the evaluators to evaluate both the technology and instructional strategy. Kozma in Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland (2005) strongly advocates considering the connection between the instructional design or technology (instructional strategy or method) and the delivery technology (online learning systen) as well as how these elements intersect in the specific learning context. I picked out some questions which had interesting answers which I am going to analyse. A link to the actual Google forms with the rest of the feedback is provided at the end of the section.====== Dr Brown Considering student who use the intervention will be using Vula as part of their course then YES Vula is an appropriate location for the intervention. It also enables storing of files including exe files and provides links so the Wiki is a good tool to use to pull a variety of hyperlinkedfiles and url's together. Student yes,its an online learning management system,so its good for course participants.
 * Is Vula the appropriate delivery system for the task? **

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Though I had doubts on the use of Vula as a delivery system, the responses from the evaluators proved it was an appropriate tool to use for delivering the task. My doubts were based on the fact that a Vula site seemed to be too big for the task but as noted in Dr Brown's comment it affords storing of files and as noted under the technological affordances section one can easily link the Vukla wiki to sites both on the project site and the URL. The summative evaluation of my online prototype by my educators noted how the intoductory page of the Vula site was weak and did not provide the necessary information about the site. This is the main reason why I thought a Vula site was too big for the site because I knew what I wanted for the learning task but I was also aware of my inadequacies as to the provision of the necessary content and resources that would support the task.======
 * Have the technological tools used in the intervention been used creatively and optimally? **

**Dr Brown ** I think the Vula Wiki is a good placeholder to give students instructions on how to use telephone interviews.Audacity is the obvious choice to use to record interview (can you assume all students know how to use audacity? If not perhaps a help file on how to use it would be good?)But I am not sure why students would get their info from Vula, upload the interview guide and transcipt to google docs and store the audio file in audio boo rather than the Vula site? It seems to me like its making students go to three different places and the benefits  are not clear to me. I also dont know what au...  Dr Brown’s suggestion of storing the recorded interviews on Vula is valid and would reduce the number of places that the task would be linked to. She also suggests that the interview guide and transcript could also be uploaded on Vula. I had chosen Google docs mainly because of its share-ability and comment-ability affordances. I believe audio-boo might not be the right place to store the recorded interviews, learners can just store them as podcasts on Vula. Audioboo for me provided the same affordance as the podcast, but with the added notch of variety. I thought audio-boo would reduced monotony,since most of the time the resources and task of the learners are on Vula, but I agree that making student work on three different places might be cumbersome. **Do you think this task is relevant for this course and why? ** **Dr Brown ** I think telephone interviews are an underused and yet valuable way to collect data. So providing students with tools to enhance their skills in this regard is important Student. Yes...good for reseach preparation <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The link shows a Google docs form of the questions and responses received. [|Formative evaluation] **__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">References __** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Dabbagh, N., Bannan-Ritland (2005) Online Learning Concepts, Strategies and Application. New Jersey: Pearson Education <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Dick, W., Johnson, R. B., (2007) Evaluation in Instructional Design; The Impact of Kirkpatrick’s Four Level Model in Reisser, R.A., Dempesy, J.V., Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology. New Jersey: Pearson Education. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Kozma, R. B., Belle, L. W., William, G.W., (1978). Instructional Techniques in Higher Education. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs.