Children's evaluation??

I just wanted to reflect on what I have learned in class. Dr. Zaida give us an article about “Evaluating the Usability of Educational Websites for Children”. The study examined the usability of educational websites for children. Children ages 7 - 11 performed seven search tasks. To further understand what aspects of educational websites influence performance and satisfaction, they evaluated childrens' success, navigational efficiency, and satisfaction with three educational websites which are Enchantedlearning.com, Factmonster.com and Infoplease.com's Homework Center.

Another thing that I don't know before, there is one scale to rate children satisfaction - "smiley-face" Likert scale. It looks interesting...


From the finding, one aspect that we usually didn't alert is children tended not to scroll down the page. In addition, the website for children has to consider:

• - page length is not too long
• - don't offer too many links, it's confusing
• - use simpler terminology
• - large font size and pictures
  

Overall, we can say that the website is good if the children can perform the entire task given. Due to task based question, the website must be similar and have the same content. "Time" is also very important as indicator of the website performance.

Source: Full Article

Tough Planning

A few days ago, I watched Geng: Upin dan Ipin movie with my friends (Betol..Betol..Betol)..haha.. I never thought it’s splendid, enjoyable and we are laughing till the end…I like!!!From the viewed that I heard and read, everybody agreed to give good comments and that’s the reason why I have to see the movie myself. I also recommend to you. I can bet you’ll never regret. Hence, this shows the development and new image of film industry in Malaysia…

Okey.. .that’s enough. Back to the topic - the web task. We have a discussion with dr. Zaida in the class because she want to know the progress in each group, where are we going right now…especially the paper work about the planning of our project. We have just started the engine. .hehe..One of the important parts is to choose an instructional design model. There are about 40 models and I only experienced using ADDIE model. It’s quite simple and easy to understand. However, for this task, me and my group members are looking for something new and suitable in web-based project. We have discuss for several times (day and night thou), but we still can’t decide which model that we want to use. Belum dapat 'petunjuk' lagi..It’s really tough…help!!!

Designing Web Template

Half lying on the bed, I kept thinking about the class on Wednesday...After presenting our all-night-work, slowly I started to get sore throat and badly headache due to hot weather lately. Luckily, the presentation is over and I’m getting better now. The task is, in a group, we have to develop a web template by integrating a learning approaches/theories. The funny is how come we forgot to change the background colour or even the font types. Then, we realize that our template is only black and white..haha..too much focusing on the strategy resulting: ‘the design is out!’ but as a student, we take the good comments to improve ourselves.

By the way, when you experienced yourself, you will find out that it is much different to apply the theory/approaches in the class and when you want to implement the theory/approaches in the webpage. In the class, we have the teacher to deliver the contents and tell the students what to do and then, the activities can be done. Unfortunately, in the webpage, the activities have to be well prepared, so that the student can interact and actively participate. Not just looking at the computer screen without doing anything (or sometimes staring into space). Moreover, in the template that we have to develop right now, we have to create a webpage whereas teacher (anyone) can use it to insert the activities based on the guide line we’ve made. See the differences??

From the several of instructional design, we have chosen Discovery Learning. This approach provides students with opportunities to develop hypotheses to answer questions and can contribute to the development of a lifelong love of learning. Students propose issues or problems, gather data and observations to develop hypotheses, confirm or refine their hypotheses, and explain or prove their problems.

From our readings, to integrate the discovery learning into this technology, we have found a few activities related such as

- simulations
- hypertext
- microworlds
- forums or Wiki


One interesting part that I like, the Discovery learning is based on this "Aha!" method. What is it??mm..discover yourself..hehe..=)

Triangular Time-Cost-Quality

When you are planning out your next design project, keep the graphic above in mind. The design triangle has three sides: Quality, Time, and Cost. Design takes time. Design takes money. And design is expected to be high quality. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to turnaround a great design fast and cheap.

Time
• Time is defined as a dimension that represents an opportunity to perform some useful activity such as adding to the wealth of an individual, a corporation or society as a whole. If time is of the essence, say the project is event driven, then the price may increase, or parts of the process must be skipped to meet the deadline. Skipping parts of the design process means that quality will suffer.

Cost
• Cost is defined as being the monetary amount paid for labour, plant, materials and
components, overheads and profit.If your piece must be mistake-free, then expect to spend more money for quality assurance. If the piece is going to be seen by the general public, this is an aspect you definitely should not cut corners on.

Quality
• Quality is viewed by the value specialist relates to the performance of functions, both use and aesthetic. If your budget is next to nothing and you don’t have a designer in your family to run to, then quality assurance will be lacking, and your project will become a lower priority compared to more profitable projects, therefore taking longer to complete.

While the goal of every job is to maximize all three of these factors, typically one suffers at the expense of the other two. You get what you pay for. Good design does not come cheap nor does it come quickly.

More:
Value Criteria
Fundamentals