Evaluation

This phase involves both formative and summative evaluation of the online learning Activity (OLA).This gives the Online learning developer information about the effectiveness of the OLA aimed at improving the design of this activity.In this particular design,Student were given specific questions through a Google docs form (Google Docs Evaluation) inorder to access their learning and to determine specific tools which could be incoperated into the OLA.Also,a simple evaluation widget was incoperated into the blog in order to make it possible for the students to give instant evaluation with a 'yes', 'no' or 'neutral' response, considering the fact that the students involve in this OLA were mostly matured working learners who might not have enough time in completing the Google doc evaluation.This constituted formative evaluation which involve evaluating the design of the OLA prior to launching it. Summative evaluation was made possible by incoperating a quiz in the blog in order to test the students' tacit knowledge.According to Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland,2005:146, specific activities of this evaluation phase included; There was a srong need for evaluation in order to determine the effectiveness of the OLA.The purpose of this activity was to solve the problems students usually encounter prior and during the Adobe connect meeting.It was important to determine if this OLA archieved this goal.So the purpose of evaluation was to find out what the students have learnt from the blog and to ascertain if the purpose for the design has been established.This also enabled the designer to determine if the design interface was simple enough in order to enable the learners focus on the learning task rather than how to use the blog.Hence the results of the evaluation assisted in helping the designer make changes to the blog.Google forms was used in presenting the questions for evaluation because it could be easyly accessed for analysis. Review of the this OLA was made by current student in the course and its usability was also tested by the designer.From the results gotten on google docs (Google docs evaluation),the designer was able to add other features to the design such as a short quiz which would help the students' to test their knowledge and also some other features were excluded from the design because there was feedback complaining the blog was too congested. All this evaluation strategies assisted determining the final product of the OLA (Online learning Activity).  **Lessons Learnt from the Google Docs evaluation form:**
 * Clearly determining the purpose, desired results and methods of evaluation of online learning.
 * Formatively evaluating the design and development prior to launching the OLA.
 * Revising the OLA according to the results of the formative evaluation.
 * Implimenting the online learning experience and evaluating the results according to the identified goals.
 * Need to de-congest the online learning prototype. Hence the designer removed the initial Google Docs evaluation form which was embedded in the blog.
 * The students also needed a knowledge testing tool which was related to the content of the learning activity, hence the designer embedded a short quiz on Adobe Connect in the blog.