Kajal Madeka's Digital Portfolio

The report of the usability test of an online inductive reasoning training prototype for elementary school age children in grades four and above forms the first artifact for Competency 3.  This study was done as a team project with two other members for the class on Program Evaluation - CI 504. Keeping in mind the age group of the participants in the usability study, some rather innovative strategies were adopted to gather information and thus form an appropriate artifact to demonstrate the knowledge, understanding and ability to tailor-design and carry out effective research and assessment to fit uncommon testing situations with the use of technology. The report of the usability study can be downloaded or viewed from the button link above. The Inductive Reasoning Training prototype may also be viewed from the link above and in addition, screenshots of the prototype have been put up as a slideshow on the website to give an idea of the evaluation object.

The Alternative Technology Exploratorium and Usability Lab was a very bold and visionary project undertaken by the Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching with CAC funding. I was fortunate to be the Lab Assistant for this lab and working in it, I gained so many insights into the problems and challenges in setting up such a lab (theory vs practice) and experience in setting up different kinds of tests – from website usability, paper prototype study to object usability, all requiring different technology and test design. I also had limited exposure to marketing strategies in trying to encourage students to use the lab and setting up demonstrations for the class on Program Evaluation. I also had the opportunity to explore and experiment with sophisticated usability software like Morae and saw the possibilities of the huge amount of information that could be extracted from its recordings – and why it was so underused! This reflection incorporates the experiences, insights and possibilities mentioned above. The context and location of the lab is described outlining its proposed set up as well as the setup we finally had to go with and the constrains that made it so. Images of the proposed and modified setup as well as pictures of different testing activities in progress are incorporated into the slideshow above. The reflection can be downloaded or viewed from the button link above the slideshow.