For this review, I wanted to test a few key components to gauge how easily students are able to access the course. I asked my husband to try to navigate the course without any instruction from me, his goal was to find everything needed to be prepared for the first class meeting at the end of week 1. As he looked through the course I had him describe what he was clicking on, why, and how easy it was to find what he was looking for. As a student at MSU, he is fairly familiar with D2L already so it was pretty simple for him to figure out.
- Welcome Message/professor contact info.
- Syllabus
- Course Schedule
- Discussion Post 1
- Project 1.1
- Slides for 1.1
- Grades
He was able to find everything within a matter of a few minutes. The only aspect that was somewhat difficult was finding the discussion post because he has never used that feature of D2L before. This made me realize that I should add directions on my course schedule on how to navigate to the discussions. Overall, by conducting this review I feel satisfied that the course is fairly clear and straight forward to navigate. Because the course is a hybrid format, I will be able to walk them through any difficulties and answer questions as a group during the first class session. If for some reason the course didn’t meet the first week, I could always create a screencast to show students how they should navigate their way through the course and find everything they need. Another way to better gauge the usability would be to conduct another review with an individual that has never used D2L before, which is something I would consider before I teach this course in the future.