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This product, created for MIT500-Instructional Design: Theory and Research, is a Web-based, self-instructional module designed to allow novice Internet users to easily obtain and use an Internet email account.  I applied Richard Mayer's SOI model of designing instruction for constructivist learning to combine on-screen directions with an actual performance environment (Mayer, 1999). I used the Dick & Carey Instructional Systems Design model to guide the project from front end analysis to summative evaluation (Dick & Carey, 1996). 

Development of this project required conducting analyses of the learners, context and tasks, designing a micro level learning module, developing the product, conducting formative evaluation, delivering the product and conducting summative evaluation. The graphics in the introduction and user instructions were found on Web clip art sites. The actual learning module depended on the actual interface of the Yahoo! email Web site. I created a Web page employing two frames, one for instructions and one to hold the Yahoo! Web page. With this method, I could keep the instructions on the screen to guide the learner through the steps of obtaining a Yahoo! email account. This kept the instructions in close proximity to the performance, as the instructions progressed in sequence with the sign-up process. 

This module was developed to be available to teachers in my school via the school Web page.  I chose this project to approach a real problem in the school where I teach, where the administration was promoting the use of email to replace paper memos and disruptive intercom announcements. At the same time, many staff members were apprehensive about using the Web and still not comfortable with computers. The module was designed to ease this apprehension by guiding the learner through the process of obtaining an Internet email account using the actual Yahoo! Web page where new email accounts are registered. Thus, when the module was finished, the user would have a personal email account, with no need to transfer the learning to a different setting. Until recent changes in the school Web server the module was available to teacher by a link on the school site, which I design and maintain.

Looking back on this module, I realize that, although I count it a success, basing a learning module on a Web site hosted on a server over which I have no control can produce a short-lived learning object. When I revisited this project about a year after its completion, I found that Yahoo! had coded its home page to not allow it to be placed in frames, which was the basis of the arrangement of my module. The result was that the user could not see the instructions. I remedied this problem when I realized that Yahoo!'s own mail pages used frames, which meant that I could use them too. I rewrote the module to open a frames page a little deeper inside the site, which allowed the module to work as well as before.

I chose to include this artifact in my portfolio to demonstrate my ability to creatively approach a learning problem, to properly sequence instruction to mediate the learning process, to develop Web-based instruction, and to design and develop a self-instructional module following an accepted ISD model.

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