FRONT-END ANALYSIS AND SYSTEM EVALUATION
I developed critical and analytical skills for data collection and evaluation and can reflect and apply these skills to assess and evaluate learning systems.
OBJECTIVE 2.1. STUDENTS ARE ABLE TO CONDUCT ANALYSIS IN ORDER TO TRANSLATE AND USE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND EXISTING RESEARCH TO DESIGN/DEVELOP LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES AND SYSTEMS.
ISLT 9461 – Interaction Design
Project: Cultivating the American Film Institute (AFI) Website
Description and Learning Process
We analyzed an existing website and created low and high fidelity prototypes. I selected this project because analyses led to development. We located a renowned website “AFI.com” and chose to cultivate the site in a way that allows the user to personalize by creating their own categories and pinning their favorite movies. The process was locating a website, interviewing the users, findings problems with the website, developing a design plan with detailed wireframes, peer reviewing the low fidelity prototype, redesigning the prototype, peer reviewing a functional high fidelity prototype, surveying and observing users, evaluating all outcomes, and redeveloping the high fidelity prototype.
My role included creating every graphic and writing the sections within the problem analysis, high fidelity prototype, evaluation report, references, and the appendices. I made all the graphics in PowerPoint and was responsible for the overall design of the updated website. The writings consisted of the problem introduction, user analysis data and instruments, high-level architecture blueprint, low-fidelity prototype, participant summaries, reflections and recommendations, references, and interview protocol. I was responsible for the graphic design, presentation, and submittal of the final project. I, as well as my teammates, were responsible for editing the entire project.
Reflection
I learned how website users interact with a website. For example, we applied the four-paned window to follow the perception aspect of cognition in terms of grouping the content with a border. The windows also promote recognition over recall. We applied the Gestalt principles of the Law of Figure‐Ground (images are commonly at the center of the page) and the Law of Similarity (top and bottom banners are perceived as one group due to the similar shape, color, font size, and brightness). The biggest takeaway was that the usability test can be used as framework during the design process.
OBJECTIVE 2.2. STUDENTS ARE ABLE TO MANAGE AND OPTIMIZE ANALYTICS COLLECTED BY LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE SYSTEMS TO DEVELOP CRITERIA TO MEASURE LEARNING IMPACT AND TALENT DEVELOPMENT.
ISLT 9466 – Learning Analytics
Project: Learning Analytics in Moodle
Description and Learning Process
I applied learning analytics to one of my hybrid courses at Drury University that incorporated the Moodle learning management system. I selected this project because learning analytics led to teaching adjustments. The purpose was to identify at-risk learners and suspect content to facilitate subsequent communications between the teacher and the students. The data was the online clicks used to activate the video tutorial assigned to each learning objective. The Moodle LMS collected and collated the data. The data includes the comic character code names of the students, the number and name of the video tutorials, and the number of video activations. The data was tidied in Microsoft Excel and visualized in Tableau with horizontal bar charts and a heat map. The analytics revealed the individual student viewing patterns and relationships between the student actions and the learning objectives.
Reflection
I learned that big data informs teaching. The LMS captures moue-clicks and stores them is comma separated values spreadsheets. These massive data houses can be cleaned and tidied into a manageable and understandable spreadsheet. The spreadsheet can be visualized, which is very convenient since I am an architect. The learning analytics process leads to adaptive learning opportunities.