Bye bye web-based multimedia development class!!!

Without explanation!!!:(

Am I happy or not?!!!

Today around 30 minute later, will be the last class of web-based subject and also last class of current semester! Oh..the time is running so fast.
Just now I was thinking about the first session which Dr.Zaida asked us to create a blog and now....
It 's really hard for me to explain my feeling, I don't know I am happy or not for finishing this class!?
I remember before this at the end of each semester I was so happy because I had time to rest, but this semester and specially this subject....

How to Set a Price for Web Design Work?

If you're first starting out as a freelance Web Designer, you need to think about how much you're going to charge, and how exactly you'll charge. But before you quote a price, you need to take a few things into consideration. What is the project? Before you evaluate any Web design project, you need to determine what it will entail. Some questions to ask include: How many pages will need to be created? Are there images and/or design that need to be used, or will they be created as part of the project? Is there content for the site, or will that be written by the designer? Will there be any Flash, multimedia, programming or scripting required?Depending on the answer to those questions may raise your prices. More info

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.

Why Usability is Important

On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here? There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty.
The first law of e-commerce is that if users cannot find the product, they cannot buy it either.
For intranets, usability is a matter of employee productivity. Time users waste being lost on your intranet or pondering difficult instructions is money you waste by paying them to be at work without getting work done.
Current best practices call for spending about 10% of a design project's budget on usability. On average, this will more than double a website's desired quality metrics and slightly less than double an intranet's quality metrics. For software and physical products, the improvements are typically smaller — but still substantial — when you emphasize usability in the design process.
For internal design projects, think of doubling usability as cutting training budgets in half and doubling the number of transactions employees perform per hour. For external designs, think of doubling sales, doubling the number of registered users or customer leads, or doubling whatever other desired goal motivated your design project.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox (More Info)

ADDIE? Assure? Hannafin & Peck? or ?????

Base on my reading, considering to different Instructional Design models indicates that even though each of them has its properties, they are basically similar to each other. They just express the steps with focusing on any aspects of teaching. ADDIE base on behaviorism, Assure base on media selection, Hannafin & Peck base on education and so on.
However designing an application base on each popular model creates validity and reliability, but why we should limit ourselves between an exact framework and infrastructure? Any application base on its needs may be apply some different phases, however the most important thing is focusing on target group and also the objective. How this objective can be applied for this certain audience? This is a key point to make any educational program.