13111s

13111s

Student Presentation (20 minutes)

Susan St John, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, susankcl@hawaii.edu
 * Our Class Website: Evaluation of a Resource Website for Yearbook Students**

The production of a high school yearbook demands high-level skills, which require time to learn. However, this 10th grade yearbook design course, offered at a private high school on Oahu, has limited face-to-face instruction. Consequently, students need to complete many of the assignments independently. The instructor created a resource website to augment learning materials. The purpose of this instructional design project was to evaluate the effectiveness of this resource website. The instructor conducted a survey and “talk-aloud” interviews to assess the students’ usage of the course website. The majority of the survey respondents claimed that they consult the website at least once or twice during a 6-day cycle. The majority also agreed that this resource helped them become more productive members of this course. The talk-aloud interviews suggested that there was little to no user disorientation while navigating the website. In general, students reacted positively to the addition of this resource. This study implies that a website, designed with respect to characteristics of effective websites, has a positive effect in the affective realm. However, the majority of the students still felt that more face-to-face class time would improve the quality of the instructional experience. This project may be helpful to any instructor whose class is expected to produce a product—a publication or student performance—but who has limited class time to teach necessary skills.

All Audiences coursewebsite yearbook journalism talkaloud usabilitytesting instructionaldesign