Romey completed most tasks with ease, however on a few occasions she came across recurring issues. She had trouble working with the ‘Big Ideas’ control, updating the various expedition and case study grids, and not correctly saving each form. ...
Recently Microsoft started offering a $100 per month credit to all MSDN subscribers for using their Azure cloud based services. A lot of developers here at ICF have MSDN subscriptions so I definitely recommend checking this out if you haven’t already done so. I never really considered using Azure for anything as I had assumed it was mostly used as a cloud based hosting service similar to Amazon. It wasn’t until I recently read a blog post by Scott Hanselman that I realized Azure could be used for much more than that. ...
Curriculum Mapping is the process of documenting lessons, activities and assessment methods used within different grade levels and classes in an educational institution. Expeditionary Learning (EL) is a style of teaching that involves the students in experiences and problem-solving activities. This paper explores the intersection of these two educational theories and addresses how pedagogical goals are met/not met by designing for both. It also addresses how the research of Heidi Hayes Jacobs (2004) affect efforts to design for and support this intersection. ...
Backwards design is a methodology used to develop curriculum, which promotes the identification of learning results at the start of the design process. Wiggins and McTighe defined this term as part of their Understanding by Design (UbD) framework. Backwards design is not a new concept, it has been around for a long time and this paper explores some of the underlying research behind Wiggins and McTighe’s work. Backwards design promotes a focus on teaching for understanding and learning, as well as designing the curriculum in way that meets learning goals while aligning results with state requirements. (McTighe & Wiggins, 2012). Often within education, learning goals are set first, before considering the assessment strategies that will be used to measure students’ understanding. Without considering the results that are expected of a student, the chances of goals and assessment aligning with required results, or outputs are greatly diminished. ...
Jeff ran into some problems when he did not save the form page he was on and lost changes. He had trouble remembering to press the update button on the various grids. In addition to this, he also came across problems with the ‘Big Ideas’ control and text area bug for ‘Final Product’ that others faced. ...
This usability testing session revealed some issues with the using the Big Ideas drop-down selectors for adding new records. In addition to this, the process for adding standards, targets and assessments appeared confusing to the user. There were some issues with workflow where the user was confused about which screen she was on. Recommendations were made for allowing file uploads. ...
Megan was able to complete most tasks with ease. The only issue she seemed to have was related to workflow and finding specific sections or areas of the application. The confusion stemmed from differentiating between the case study and expedition screens. ...
This remote usability test also revealed some problems with workflow as well as keyboard accessibility problems not previously discovered. In addition to this, Kate noted several problems with form controls including the ‘Big Ideas’ dropdown selection and ‘Common Core’ search picker. ...
The second remote usability test revealed some recurring issues as well as new observations. Rob noted some issues in remembering to click update on the various grids. He also ran into some problems with workflow and general navigation in terms of locating various parts of the system. ...
Since the last sprint, the first iteration of the actual application was developed using ASP.NET MVC 5 and SQL Server backend database. This application is being used for the upcoming remote usability testing sessions. ...