Artefact Six Evaluation

The sixth artefact produced involved two groups of kinesthetic and visual learners. One group were asked to look at information on an existing website and then complete a quiz to test their knowledge. The second group looked at the same information on an interactive Flash page where the information was more broken up and they were able to move sections of information around to suit themselves. This group was then also asked to complete a quiz. The aim of this artefact was to find out if on-screen interactivity could truly increase learning and understanding amongst kinesthetic and visual learners and why. In the second group the users arranged the information according to their personal preference, some were completely random, other reasons included just spacing out the information and arranging it by important and then fun facts. The results from the quiz were that group one averaged only five out of ten, and group two, eight out of ten. This clearly shows that the learners using the interactive tool were able to absorb the information more effectively than the learners reading static text. The feedback received from group two was extremely positive and helped influence the final conclusion. It is clear that on-screen interactivity can help visual and kinesthetic learners by allowing each learner to be individual, there is no one-way that is best for people to learn and by giving the control to the learner they can decide what is best for themselves. It has been discovered that the act of moving information around on a screen can be just as effective as arranging information physically and this requires the learner to look at information more carefully and can help to promote understanding, sometimes without the learner even being aware.

Artefact Five Evaluation

The fifth artefact produced involved kinesthetic and visual learners altering a block of text to find out how the learners would change the layout of text on screen in order to understand information more effectively. The aim of this was to be able to view the different styles of preferred layout amongst the learners in order to influence design in the final artefact. The text was emailed to several learners with instruction on what to do. It was seen that there were similarities between the layouts when they were altered. Each person divided up the text into chunks, some smaller than others, this shows that they do not think one large block of text promotes learning. The use of bold text and sub-headings was common, as was the use of colour. A few learners also used underlining as a way of separating sections. It was interesting to see how separated most of the learners made the text, this clearly made it easier to read and also therefore more appealing to extract information from. I also received some feedback from the learners on what they thought of the exercise and it was clear that by moving and altering the text they found they were able to absorb information more easily than they would have if they had just been given a piece of paper containing information to read. I have discovered how visual and kinesthetic learners would prefer to see text laid out and the information I have gained from this artefact will allow me to effectively display the information I will be using to create an interactive Flash based learning tool.

Artefact Five Presentation

Artefact Four Evaluation

This artefact involved one-on-one interviews with kinesthetic and visual learners. During these interviews the learners were asked to view three websites that had been chosen specifically as they are all aimed to help people gain new knowledge and varied widely in the way they displayed information. Each learner was asked to answer questions about each website including, ‘What would you change?’ and ‘What are your opinions on the layout and colour?’ The aim of this was to help to find out more detailed information from the learners about what they find is useful and what is not from an online learning tool. The feedback varied with each website but there was some consistency on main points such as; overcrowded pages; dull colours; unclear navigation; too much bulk text. When improvements to the sites were discussed it became apparent that dividing the page in a clear way is important, as is text layout. It was also a popular opinion of the learners that sectioning up a page can help to make a lot of information seems less intimidating but if there are too many sections then it can become confusing. Some of the learners commented that they became frustrated with the websites when the navigation was not clear and there were forced to look through a lot of buttons and links hidden in large blocks of text before finding what they wanted. This information is useful, as I have learnt what is effective in online learning tools and what is not. Therefore, in my next artefact I plan to produce a digital version of artefact three to find out if this can be a successful interactive learning tool for visual and kinesthetic learners when based on-screen or if physical movement is too integral to the learning process.

Artefact Four Presentation

Artefact Three Evaluation

For this artefact an interactive paper-based learning tool was produced. Eight historical facts were printed, each on a different coloured piece of paper. The aim of this artefact was to find out if the act of physically laying out information could help with the learning process. The test was carried out on ten kinaesthetic and visual learners, each was given the information and asked to lay it out in anyway they thought it would be effective to learn from. A picture was taken of the final layout and then feedback and reasons were given from the learner. The layouts were all different but many learners gave similar reasons for their choices. The main reasons for the layouts included using the dates, similar topics, colour coding, or completely random. The feedback received was positive and it was discovered that, although it was not a particularly physical task, the act of moving and laying out the information helped the learner interact with the information. In general the leaners felt they had absorbed the information more than they would have otherwise. Being in control of the layout encouraged effective learning as it was completely up to the individual which, in turn, made the information more personal to the learner.

Artefact Three Presentation

Artefact Two Evaluation

The topic of the practical research is ’How can the uses of interactive learning tools help to further understand and promote kinaesthetic and visual learning?’ The first artefact produced was an interactive flash-based learning tool. The user was asked to navigate through various pages of information in any order they chose and then complete a drag and drop game at the end to select true facts out of a selection of both true and false. The test was timed and after this was completed the user was asked to complete a short questionnaire to find out if they are a visual, kinaesthetic or auditory learner. The test was carried out on eleven people aged between 16 and 26 years old. This artefact was designed to find out if an on-screen interactive game would be an effective learning tool for visual and kinaesthetic learners. The on-screen game was scored out of six and although the results were varied between all three types of learner the highest results were achieved by visual and kinaesthetic learners and the lowest by an auditory learner. This appears to prove that visual and kinaesthetic learners have gained knowledge effectively through the use of this on-screen interactive learning tool. The timing of the test was less conclusive with both the lowest and highest time recorded being in the visual and kinaesthetic categories. This test would have been more conclusive if it had been carried out on more people and also if the game had been scored out of a higher number of points therefore giving more varied results.

Artefact Two Presentation

Artefact Two

For my second research artefact I have decided to design a questionnaire and ask people (mainly multimedia students) to fill it out online. The questionnaire will be simple and quick to fill out as people often lose patience when filling out something very lengthy. I will be using an online tool called surveymonkey.com which allows me to design my questionnaire and provides me with a link to forward to people I would like to complete it. The website will also save the results of the survey for me which makes it simple to analyse. I feel that doing it online will allow me to collect a larger amount of results than I would be bale to by trying to find people face-to-face to fill it out.

The idea behind this is to find out a bit more about visual and kinaesthetic learners. The first part of the questionnaire will help me discover what type of learner the person filling it out is. The second is some quick questions including; favorite and worst GCSE subjects and why; what they think is most and least important when looking at a website to find information; anyway they think online information could be given more effectively. I am hoping to find some interesting correlations in the results that will help me decide where to go next in my research project.

Artefact One Evaluation

The topic of the practical research is ’How can the uses of interactive learning tools help to further understand and promote kinaesthetic and visual learning?’ The first artefact produced was an interactive flash-based learning tool. The user was asked to navigate through various pages of information in any order they chose and then complete a drag and drop game at the end to select true facts out of a selection of both true and false. The test was timed and after this was completed the user was asked to complete a short questionnaire to find out if they are a visual, kinaesthetic or auditory learner. The test was carried out on eleven people aged between 16 and 26 years old. This artefact was designed to find out if an on-screen interactive game would be an effective learning tool for visual and kinaesthetic learners. The on-screen game was scored out of six and although the results were varied between all three types of learner the highest results were achieved by visual and kinaesthetic learners and the lowest by an auditory learner. This appears to prove that visual and kinaesthetic learners have gained knowledge effectively through the use of this on-screen interactive learning tool. The timing of the test was less conclusive with both the lowest and highest time recorded being in the visual and kinaesthetic categories. This test would have been more conclusive if it had been carried out on more people and also if the game had been scored out of a higher number of points therefore giving more varied results.

Artefact One Presentation