Our knowledge is valuable....

Just wow, when I surfed the Net to investigate the price of designing website!
For the basic one with following details

•Upto 5 Internal Pages including contact form(About Company/Services/Contact/Management/Achievements)
•Contact Form - Data emailed to email ID of your choice
•Submission on major search engines (Google/MSN/Yahoo)
•Search Engine Optimization - **On Page optimization only**

It will be $150.00 US !!!!!

However we are not business persons, but as a teacher our knowledge is valuable.

What does happen in web-based class?

Today, I became so haapy when Dr. Zaida told we will have a relaxation class and we will have time to disscuss individually about the assignments. Oh, it was a good opportunity at least for me to discuss about the final project.

But I don't know what did happen to this class, when Dr. Zaida started to speak biefly about last week topics. Suddenly when I looked at my watch!!!!Oh surprisingly time was passed already. How ever I learnt different things, I had no any tiredness feeling. I did not ever realize when the time passed.

Vilidy & Reliability in simple words

Validity refers to the degree to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure.
Forms of validity:
1) Content validity -> To what extent does this test represent the general domain of interest?
2) Criterion-related validity -> To what extent does this test correlate highly with another test?
3) Construct validity -> To what extent does this test reflect the construct it is intended to measure?
4) Consequential validity -> To what extent does this test create harmful consequences for the test taker?

Reliability is the degree to which a test consistency measures whatever it is measuring. The more reliable test is, the more confidence we can have that the scores obtained from the test are essentially the same scores that would be obtained if the test were readministered to the same test takers at another time or by a different person.
Types of reliability:
1) Stability -> Give one group the same test at two different times, and correlate the two scores.
2) Equivalence -> Give alternative test forms to a single group, and correlate the two scores.
3) Equivalence and stability -> Give two alternative tests to a group at two different times, correlate the scores.
4) Internal consistency -> Give test to one group, and apply split-half, Kuder-Richardson, or Cronbach’s alpha to estimate the internal consistency of the test items.
5) Scores -> Give copies of a set of tests to independent scores or a single score at different times, and correlate or compute the correlate or compute the percentage of score agreement

Reliability tells about the consistency of the scores produced; validity tells about the appropriateness of a test. Although a valid test is always reliable, a reliable test is not always valid. In other words, if a test is measuring what is supposed to be measuring, it will be reliable, but a reliable test can consistency measures the wrong thing and be invalid.

According to ‘Educational Research’, Ninth Edition by L.R. Gay, Geoffrey E. Mills & Peter Airasian

Deviate to research method!

I surprised when Dr. Zaida told to prepare an evaluation form or even questionary we have to know about scales of measurement. However I had a little bit information about them but I didn’t know that I have to apply them in preparing evaluation form and questionaries…

Magnitude, equal intervals and absolute zero are the properties of scales. Considering to these properties we will have :

A RATIO SCALE: Any scale of measurement possessing magnitude, equal intervals, and an absolute zero point is called a ratio scale.

AN INTERVAL SCALE: An interval scale possess the properties of magnitude and equal intervals but not an absolute zero point. -> Fahrenheit (or Celsius) scale for measuring temperature.

AN ORDINAL SCALE: An ordinal scale reflect only magnitude and does not possess the properties of equal intervals or an absolute zero point. -> ranking students according to their heights .

A NOMINAL SCALE : A nominal scale result from the classification of items into discrete (i.e., mutually exclusive) groups that do not bear any magnitude relationships to one another.

My mom! I miss you…

It seems the title of this post is not related to the education, but I will explain my feeling:
During last week class, Dr.Zaidatun asked us to consider an article: Evaluation of websites for older Adults: How "Senior-Friendly" Are they? It was about the main factors to design a website for older users. I faced new factors about designing website for old people which I never thought about them. Text size, text weight, line spacing, textual links and usability are some important factors for older people. They also need to have an enlarged and highly contrasted text. Moreover consistency is another factor which the older adults pay attention to it.
When we discussed about people in our parent age, their needs and their demands, I felt a strange feeling. That time -Wednesday, 25th of February – was the exact date in last year that I left my country to Malaysia to continue my studies. One year! It’s not easy. I feel an unusual homesickness.