Testing is Not Just a Measure of Learning, it Can Drive Learning
Testing = Learning
In what seems likely to be an “ah ha” moment for education development, researchers at Purdue University’s Department of Psychological Sciences, explored the possibility that testing isn’t just an assessment of learning, but is a component that facilitates learning just like studying - but better.*
“Practicing retrieval (testing) produces greater gains in meaningful learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping.”
In an article published last month in Science magazine, a total of 200 students studied texts on topics from different science disciplines. One group engaged in elaborative studying by creating concept maps - diagrams that illustrate the complicated connections and relationships in the material. The second group read the texts and then practiced retrieval (unassisted recall of material). The students returned to the lab a week later for the actual assessment of long-term learning. The group that studied by practicing retrieval showed a 50% improvement in long-term retention scores above and beyond the group that studied by creating concept maps.
“Retrieval practice enhances learning by retrieval-specific mechanisms rather than by elaborative study processes.”
More people are using mobile devices to handle their everyday computer tasks. Given three minutes and my iPhone, I can check my work and personal emails, my schedule, the news, the weather, and sometimes even get in a game of Tetris. It, like so many mobile devices, is usable, engaging, efficient, informative, and scalable. This mobile convenience should carry through training and marketing solutions as well. Unfortunately, often due to certain limitations of each mobile device and their short shelf life, there is often not a credible mobile counterpart to most training applications. To bridge the gaps, here are 6 ways to extend the user experience of your web or CD-ROM based app through mobile devices.
When defining the best solution to any project, one step within the discovery process is the creation and use of personas. User personas are fictitious characters who represent unique groups of users. We use personas to understand how different groups of users will use a website and application. By focusing on how a persona interacts with a website, navigates to content and through content, understands and retains the content, we can begin to understand the different user experiences that occur. These user experiences must fulfill the goals, objectives, and needs. This step can also help determine new goals, objectives, and needs as well as limitations users may have.
Illumen is excited to once again sponsor the 
eLearning is a vague term which 
eLearning starts with a need or an idea and from there we can begin to develop goals, objectives, and strategy. Through this series, we are going to look at the process of creating an eLearning application that teaches the user how to change a bicycle or bike tire. Each part in the series will focus on a specific eLearning topic or step in the process. We will explore different technologies and different approaches to creating a simple course that does nothing more than teach our audience how to change a bike tire.
Go into any classroom and you will see students taking notes. What do we do when we need to remember things? We write them down. We all retain and gain our understanding of information differently and so we all take notes differently. So, with note taking being such an important tool in education and training, it is important that, as we move learning to the Internet, we have the tools available to allow us to take notes online.