LDT300x - Week 1 Activity: Digital Media Checklist & Executive Summary on a Module on Newton'
So, the first week of my LDT300x: Digital Media, New Tools and Technology course on edX was rather interesting! I learnt the basics of why and how to use technology effectively in teaching, and how, when properly used, it can have a huge positive impact on learning.
For the first week's activity, we have all been asked to prepare a Digital Media Checklist that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of e-learning tools, and to then use it to evaluate any one e-learning tool of our choice.
I decided to use my Digital Media Checklist to evaluate a module on Newton's Laws of Motion that I found on the Khan Academy website.
You can find my Digital Media Checklist here.
An Executive Summary of my evaluation is given below.
Executive Summary of an Evaluation of the module on Newton's Laws of Motion (Khan Academy website)
Overview:
This is a report summarizing an evaluation of a module on Newton's Laws of Motion (found on the Khan Academy website) carried out in order to analyze its effectiveness in learning. The evaluation was carried out with the help of a digital media checklist created to ascertain the presence or absence of components critical to the creation of engaging e-learning courses.
Observations:
The course explains concepts related to Newton's three Laws of Motion and some examples of these laws that we see in everyday life. The course is mainly video-lecture based; however, it also contains a few supplementary reading materials. As the course progresses, small practice tests are presented at the end of videos covering Newton's First Law of Motion and Newton's Third Law of Motion. The module concludes with a final test that presents questions covering all topics covered in the module.
Although the content presented in the course was rather well explained and the course had a good sequential flow, there were some major flaws in the course that have made me vote against it (unfortunately). Some of the main problems I noted are as follows.
1. No mention of Target Audience: The course does not outline the targeted learning audience for whom it has been created. Judging by the course content, it seems to me that it has been created for high-school or university-level students. However, one needs to go through the course in order to be sure of this aspect, which can be a huge waste of time for learners for whom this course was not originally intended.
2. Lack of Learning Objectives: The course does not include a list of learning objectives/learning outcomes containing measurable verbs, which is a huge negative considering the importance of learning outcomes in the context of assessment design, pedagogy and content creation.
3. Lack of Sufficient, Rigorous Assessment: As mentioned above, the course does include some practice questions at the end of two of the three major concepts covered in it. However, the third key concept, Newton's Second Law of Motion, which is, in my opinion, the hardest of all three concepts covered in the module, has no practice tests or questions following it, which is just a huge negative for the module overall. Moreover, the difficulty level of the questions covered in the tests is not very high (many of the questions from the practice tests were exactly repeated in the final test), and the module could, in my opinion, benefit from some more well thought-out assessment questions.
4. Absence of Peer Discussion and Review: Although each video lecture has a comment section underneath it, the module, in general, does not encourage much constructive peer discussion and peer review.
5. No Simulation-based Activities: The topics covered in the module have an excellent scope for some simulation-based activities and numerical problems, that could help solidify the learning in a student's mind. The absence of any such activities also, for me, counts as a negative for the module.
Conclusions:
Although the module houses some excellent content, the lack of key features, such as measurable learning objectives, specification of targeted learning audience, simulation-based activities and rigorous assessments, weakens the module overall. If these points were considered and necessary changes were brought about, the module could transform into something completely wonderful!!
Hope this evaluation helps!
