Thanks to everyone that attended our virtual forum on 15th February on the use of media in e-learning. I am thankful to the attendees, particularly for the wonderful interaction we had throughout the session.

During the session we discussed the benefits and pitfalls of media use and a method to evaluate the use of media in our e-learning courses.

The core of the discussion centered on a tool that I developed to help evaluate two aspects of media in elearning. First, we looked at what I termed “media complexity.”  Media complexity analysis allows us to judge media types against each other and determine a relative, weighted score for each media type based on how complex it is to use/edit that media type in elearning.  After that we looked at the instructional effectiveness of media types. The instructional decision analysis allows us to determine a second score for each media type with regard to how they support learning. Finally, we combined these two scores to allow us to determine the media type that best suited our individual organizational needs.

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We have explored a few aspects of learning in my blog posts and now I would like to build on my thoughts about the importance of meaningful interactions in e-learning.

What role do tests and quizzes play in learning?

Typically we view tests as assessment tools, either formative or summative. I have said and heard others say, however, that good tests are a great learning activity.  Recent research shows this to be true as Karpicke and Blunt (2011) have demonstrated that recall improves with the frequent use of tests.

The key to learning is organization and recall.  I am sure you have said to yourself “I know this” about a fact or detail that you needed but have found yourself unable to retrieve it.  Using tests and exams helps students organize and then recall later.  There are numerous strategies for organization like mnemonics, flow charts, concept maps, and so on.  What is most interesting in Karpicke and Blunt’s research is how well tests performed against traditional study.

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