Teaching Educational Software Design by engaging Students in the evaluation of a project-based Adaptive Educational System

Educational Software Design is a postgraduate course which deals with the design, implementation and evaluation of Educational Systems. A main focus of the course is the human-centred design methods for the development of Educational Software. Based on this approach at the final assignment some students were involved in the formative evaluation process of the AES “MyProject”, as a representative type of educational software, undertaking both the roles of learners and system evaluators. The purpose of the assignment project was twofold: (a) to help the students explore some of the basic concepts of the course and attain particular learning objectives, (b) to involve students in the evaluation process of a real web-based educational system developed on principles imposed by particular learning theories and provide feedback for further improvements. In this paper, the particular project and the way the students’ activity was organised, are described. The results indicate increased student participation and involvement as well as the different ways that students utilized specific functionalities of MyProject. The efficiency of the particular approach in succeeding the learning objectives posed is also discussed, as well as the derived results for the system’s further revision.