Courtney will be teaching 5th grade this year. She has taught for 8 years and has experience teaching 8th grade, 6th grade, and 4th grade. She has worked in 1:1 classrooms for all of her career using iPads, Apple TV, laptops and Chromebooks. She has a strong understanding of effective web tools when working with a variety of students/grades. Courtney is my wife so she was the first person I asked to review my website because of her teaching experience and because I knew she would give me honest feedback. Courtney used an iMac - OS X El Capitan and Google Chrome to review the website.
Leah has taught 5th grade for 8 years and has worked in a 1:1 classroom with student laptops for her entire teaching career. Leah has a strong understanding of valuable resources for 5th grade students along with their varying technological abilities. Leah and I teach in the same school so I knew that she would be an excellent evaluator to determine if I’ve accomplished my goal and created a quality student resource. Leah used a ThinkPad - Intel Corei3 and Google Chrome to review the website.
Kerry works in the hospitality industry and spends a majority of her day working online with a variety of technology and web tools. She works in hospitality group sales so accessing information quickly and with ease is important to her job success. I wanted to get her perspective on the website because she will view it through a different lens due to her not working in education. Kerry is my sister so I knew I could expect honest feedback from her. It was difficult to find evaluators in the summer when many teachers or students that I would have contacted to review my website are on vacation or summer break. Kerry used a Macbook Pro and Google Chrome to review the website.
All three of the evaluators commented that the website was very easy to navigate and it was well organized. They scored and commented that the site did not appear cluttered or difficult to understand. The evaluators also shared that they expected this website to be successful with providing 5th graders the information that they need for assignments and events.
| Evaluation Category | Average Score |
|---|---|
| Design | 4.74 |
| Content | 4.67 |
| Credibility | 5 |
All three of the evaluators shared positive comments about the design of the website. Evaluator A and C shared that they liked that the school colors are incorporated into the design while Evaluator B shared that the English Landing Eagle logo was a nice addition to the homepage. Evaluator B suggested that the color scheme was a little dark or subdued. However, Evaluator A shared that she liked the soft colors used.
All three of the evaluators commented that my website meets the intended goal of sharing information with 5th graders. Evaluator C shared that students will often check the site to see what new assignments have been added While Evaluators A and B shared that the students would find the information useful. Evaluator B encouraged me to fix two links that should open in a new window instead of the current window to improve the navigation.
The evaluator participant feedback supports my ability to successfully support the three use cases from my design document while providing me suggestions for improvement in these areas. The evaluator feedback reinforced that the purpose of my site is clear and I’ve achieved these goals.
The three use cases I proposed are to have a 5th grader find home learning directions, find information about an upcoming school events and access class resources. I received feedback that the home learning bingo board link should open in a new tab when clicked making the site function more user friendly. I did not receive any feedback to lead me to believe any other areas should be addressed before my use cases are fully supported by my site.
Evaluator B offered two suggestions for improvement. One suggestion I plan to change and one I plan to keep as it is currently designed.
The first suggestion is that I should have the laptop checkout and home learning bingo board links open in new window. This was a coding mistake that I made when designing these links and I plan to go back and make the corrections to my final website. I understand how this current setup makes navigation more difficult by taking the user away from my site instead of simply opening a new tab for these links.
Evaluator B also suggested that I make adjustments to the color scheme because it appears dark or on “low-power mode”. I reviewed the feedback from the other two evaluators and did not receive the same suggestion.I plan to keep the color scheme as it is because I believe this to be a personal preference of evaluator b and not a critical change needed.
I believe the evaluation process was a critical step for my website design because I was able to have multiple people provide their suggestions about the site. Hearing positive feedback reinforced my ideas and design while hearing suggestions gives me alternative perspectives that I may have not considered. It was also useful to have multiple people testing and clicking throughout my site to identify any errors or ways to improve the navigation.
If I were conducting this evaluation process during the school year, I would have the abliity to have 5th graders test my site and provide their feedback which would be very beneficial for me. I would take into consideration what 5th graders liked or wanted changed/improved because this site is designed for them to use. Not having access to this end-user feedback is my biggest regret about the reflection and evaluation process. I know that I could perfect areas of my site with the ability to interview students and find out what they really need in a class website.