This week’s discussion of learning theories was informative and very helpful for this class and other courses with learning elements, as it allows me to conceptualize the ideas that influence learning and design.

With that in mind, we took a chance to evaluate some online learning tools on the six principles and see how they faired.

My group evaluated Elluminate, an online collaboration tool for leader-led learning. The tool allows a teacher or educator to lead virtual lectures and discussions, push files and websites out to students’ computers, and accommodates students working with one another during the class. The tool succeeded in 5 or the 6 principles, but the design was lacking a bit. Many of the unimportant elements were very prominent, and some of the more important pieces were small or hard to find. Overall, the tool seemed like a good compliment to an online curriculum or a classroom looking to add electronic elements.

The other products that were evaluated seemed to suffer more from fundamental problems. For example, the site for the video series to combat bullying seemed difficult to navigate, and poorly utilized. The company seemingly did not put much effort into establishing it as a major advertising resource for the project.

Life has been crazy, and I’m still not sure how I’m going to pull off my 2^nd digital artifact in a little over a week.