Boone, and D. Williams replicated the work of Zane and Frazer and contacted 33 educational software publishers. Documentation and support should be provided The technical adequacy of the software, for example, can your child easily figure out basic software functions such as starting up and closing down the program?
Factors to Consider in Evaluating Educational Software Just because a piece of software is reliable and easy to use does not necessarily indicate that it is of high educational value or that it meets the learning needs of a child with a learning disability. Share on Pinterest. Get the GreatSchools newsletter — our best articles, worksheets and more delivered weekly. Sign up. Was I wrong to drug my son? Finding our own fix for ADHD. Red flags of a learning issue Red flags of a learning issue.
Please enter a valid email address Thank you for signing up! Does the software increase student understanding of the topic? Does the package show any bias social, religious, ethnic, or gender which might taint its presentation?
Presentation Format "The medium is the message. Educational software requires an attractive and consistent interface. Such an intuitive environment allows for easy navigation through ideas and avoids the "cognitive overload" of too much information presented too quickly. Consider these questions when evaluating the presentation format of educational software: Does the software effectively organize its materials?
Does the tool present easy-to-follow on-screen instructions? Does the application provide clear feedback to student responses? Is the content presented in the appropriate format? Is the text accurate and easy-to-read? Are the graphics clear and relevant to the subject matter? You could find that doing research to find statistics about usage, or collating data about what your students thought through a feedback system could provide you with a more accurate evaluation of educational software which is relevant to your circumstances.
It needs to represent value for money, and it can be a sad truth that there are many pieces of software which are only used once by organizations because of how they are not versatile enough to fit in with different lesson requirements.
Having educational software which is flexible and available for multi-use in a variety of classroom situations can ensure frequent usage that represents a worthwhile investment. If it is something which is a novel idea, it is likely that there could be a teacher resource out there that could have done the same job far more inexpensively.
Indeed, Reiser and Kegelmann note that student evaluation of software is necessarily subjective and should be supplemented by that of subject matter experts, media specialists and administrators. In comparison, summative evaluations can be much wider in scope. They occur when the finished product is examined and can benefit from hindsight.
She notes that a number of characteristics go with this definition, such as inclusiveness, the search for both intended and unintended effects and the capability of the activity to be made public. She emphasises that evaluation is not synonymous with assessment. Bain and McNaught examined the ways in which academic faculty view student learning. They suggest that academics hold certain views on the ways in which students learn and therefore tend to adopt one of the following teaching approaches:.
All three of these approaches can be found in educational software. The pre-emptive orientation, in which the academic knows much about the learning difficulties past students have exhibited, can be found in interactive multimedia as well as in games, simulations and problem-solving courseware.
The conversational approach may be found in multimedia exploration-of-a-microworld examples and in simulations and games where students interact with both software and people to construct knowledge and receive feedback on their thinking.
Therefore, it is hardly surprising that some software is only treasured by its developers. When its advocates leave teaching, the product is no longer used. Tailorability Products which allow users to configure them and change them to meet particular individual needs contribute well to the quality of the educational experience. The technical approach to evaluation used to be very important. Students were said to be frustrated with technical problems and to complain that these interfered with their learning.
Technical evaluations of software are still of significance even though students of the s are accustomed to computer crashes and often know how to address them.
Technical difficulties often arise with authoring products produced in an educational organisation. With some echoes of the well-known MicroSift courseware proformas, Squires and McDougall provide a helpful series of lists for technical evaluations of software.
Barker and King have developed a method for evaluating interactive multimedia courseware. They provide four factors which their research suggests are of key importance to successful products. They state that several other factors should be considered as well, although their importance is seen as somewhat less than the four listed in Table 1. Difficulty in choosing an appropriate navigation method may arise if the designer and the academic hold different views of the ways in which users will learn from the software.
Young points out that, if students are allowed to control the sequence and content of the instruction, they must acquire self-regulated learning strategies for the instructional experience to be successful. They also note that such students may be beguiled by special features not central to the instruction and fail to acquire the information important tothe section.
This finding is supported by Blissett and Atkins , who find that the sophistication of the multimedia environment may prevent some students from taking time to reflect on what they have just learned. Unless software is specifically designed to expose naive beliefs and support the construction of more accurate knowledge, it is likely that at least some users can navigate through a product without recognising that they hold erroneous ideas.
Administrators of tertiary institutions in which there is an increased use of educational software to supply some of the teaching may hold a perception that the desired learning has taken place if the assigned work is accomplished. Ramsden thinks that the context of learning is very important and remarks on unintended consequences of planned educational interventions which can result in an increase in superficial learning rather than the opposite.
He suggests that assessment methods may have a negative effect on student learning. If these effects are true, then an outcome of multimedia teaching could be superficial learning, just as with more traditional methods.
Some multimedia proponents suggest that experiential, visually accurate, interactive software will help users attempt to solve problems in the ways that experts would. Thus, students from cultures different from that in which a software product is developed are likely to experience difficulties in using that product.
Baumgartner and Payr state. Learning with software
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