Evaporation - Drying Rate - Activity Critique

Posted By Malcolm Drew


We discussed this activity in class as a group, and as such most of our combined or overlapping ideas have already been stated by the group members posting earlier.


The most significant problems have been mentioned as:

1. A poorly (or not at all) defined idea of rate (which is the main learning outcome of the task),
2. A mismatch between the learning object, the question sheet, and the stated learning outcome,
3. And the learning object's disconnection from the real world.

Points one and two have been thoroughly handled in the other posts, I'll contribute a bit more on the believability of the task.

The activity we chose used a Flash-based learning object which could only provide the learner with results programmed by the creator. The learner chooses parameters for temperature (hot/cold), wind (windy, no wind), and cloth size (small, medium, large). The simplistic choices for parameters, imply that the results come from a list that the developer created rather than from a formula. There is no reason given to the user that suggests why the results are true or meaningful in the real world.

I would intuit that the idea behind the learning object is to simulate a discovery experiment. Unfortunately the accompanying task did not follow an experimental method. The most value I see in this learning object is that it allows for the immediate testing of a hypothesis. Students could have practiced the steps of a scientific experiment by making a hypothesis, gathering data, analyzing the data, and performing a conclusion and discussion of the results. However, I believe that even this possible usefulness is lost because of the lack of any reason to believe in the results. Without that, there is no motivation to do any of these activities.

When using technology to simulate nature, the single most important aspect of the simulation is to provide the learner with a reason to believe that he or she is learning something real.

The greatest positive about the learning object is that it provides immediate results for a variety of combinations of parameters. With modification, it could be quite useful as an alternative to doing a lengthy real-life discovery experiment.