Jalen Holston| jalenh4@vt.

edu| 2/14/2021

A1.) Students will learn to budget their monthly income

 Create their own data using whole numbers

 Determine what data is useful and unnecessary
 Calculate total spending for a month
 Create tables that group their spending wants and needs
 Group and compare related spending expenditures
 Elaborate on their findings about where their money is going
 Included descriptive detail of what the student finds
 Create a final monthly budget report
 Revise for clarity
 Edit final copy for miscalculations, errors, and grammar

A2.) Given an online app supporting budgeting, an internet connection, and instruction for budgeting,
the learner will create a monthly online budget.

B1.) PocketGuard: Artem Seredyuk and Igor Kuznetsov

B2.) The website is a financial management service that helps you track your spending, gives tips on how
to create a budget, and helps lower expenses. This website aligns with my objective of creating a budget
in order to gain more financial knowledge.

B3.) The learning environment would be a computer lab setting where learners would be provided with
computer, computer software, internet, interaction with others and help from an instructor.

B4.) PocketGuard is a computer-based program that personalizes instruction. It has several different
features that gives live instruction, personalizes situations, and lets users be interactive with the learning
experiences through text, charts, pictures, and videos.

B5.) PocketGuard is organized into different features that allows users to have the choice of doing much
more than creating a budget. They explore all the in’s and out’s what their budget is truly made of. They
organized the app to allow for users to create a budget, track bills, categorize and organize expenses,
identify reoccurring charges and billing errors.

B6.) The intended users for this product are people who want to be more aware of their money.

C1.) The product I identified is called PocketGuard. The learning environment established by the product
would be categorized as Real. PocketGuard constitutes real-world situations as it involves money which
plays a part in a person’s home, school, work, and play. PocketGuard is a personal finance management
service that allows you to create a budget to lower expenses. Students can track their spending, find
hidden fees, billing errors, or any spending that wasn’t thought about. They can learn many different
ways how to secure their money for smarter and better spending life.

C2.) The context function for my software is orienting and it goes with the introduction component. The
software fits the instructional strategy because there is a need for personal engaging in the instruction
and it is established with this software. Students have their own personal goals set in mind that relate
and intertwin to the instruction that will be given.

C3.) The learning environment is classified as “Orienting” and it address enough elements to make it
effective. The instruction gains the learner’s attention because the it shows ways one can grow
financially just by adjusting their choices. The specific learners that will participate are very interested
knowing how to grow financially. The software will communicate to learners clearly the skills,
knowledge, and attitudes already needed to succeed within the new learning environment. PocketGuard
will show learners how to relate what they know about creating a budget and what they will learn about
making an organized budget. The software ultimately informs learners about the goals of being aware of
their spending, knowing what’s safe to spend, and finding better ways to save. The big picture of the
software is to create a personalized budget for the user and there are specific objectives that users have
to complete to adjust their decisions that will affect the budget itself. The rewards to the software are
users being able to start a secure savings, add more money to their pockets, and allow them to create
the lifestyle they desire financially. The software holds the users accountable by assigning roles and task
for users to complete to gain more knowledge. An instructor would have to personalize and tailor each
learners experience to maximize the effectiveness of the environment. Learners ultimately have the
same goals, but each person has a different situation or background they are from.

C4.) Attention – Concreteness: Show visual representations of any important object or set of ideas or
relationships. Variability: Shift between student-instructor interaction and student-student interface.
Inquiry: Build in problem solving activities at regular intervals.

Relevance – Experience: State explicitly how the instruction builds on the learner’s existing skills.
Present Worth: State explicitly the present intrinsic value of learning the content, as distinct from its
value as a link to future goals. Future Usefulness: State explicitly how the instruction relates to future
activities of the learner.

Confidence – Learning Requirements: Provide self-evaluation tools which are based on clearly stated
goals. Expectations: Help students set realistic goals. Self-confidence: Allow students opportunity to
become increasingly independent in learning and practicing a skill.

Satisfaction - Natural Consequences: Allow a student to use a newly acquired skill in a realistic setting as
soon as possible. Positive Outcomes: Provide informative, helpful feedback when it is immediately
useful. Scheduling: Provide frequent reinforcements when a student is learning a new task.
C5.) There are some suggestive changes I would want to make to the learning environments to make
them more effective. To make the learning more meaningful and purposeful I think learning should be
more customized to the lifestyle of each users. Having personalized learning tailored to each user will
allow them to set their own goals, allow them to express their own curiosity, and they’ll put up their
best work. I think the software should be considered for aiding the instruction of creating a budget. It
would be worth making changes to the software in order to help users complete the instruction.

D1.) The instruction design component of introduction is addressed with PocketGuard. The material
introduces instruction by assisting users in creating a personal budget and allows them to track almost
all information needed to work towards the formation of the budget. The practice and feedback
component show as. The software also consist of the assessment component as learners must match
performances and conditions indicated within the objective to make their budget correctly.

D2.) Learners have an opportunity to set personal goals for themselves and achieve them based upon
the instruction. Each budget is based solely off of the user’s personal habits, goals, and choices. The
software already gains learners attention as they are those who want to better their financial
opportunities using the software to create a budget. PocketGuard allows learners to correlate what will
be learned to what they already know by being used as a tool to control personal finances. The software
assists users in creating a budget and gives them the opportunity to make decisions based off of that
data. PocketGuard identifies incentives and rewards for leaners by showing them showing users how
much they can spend, identify spending habits, tracking bills, and allowing them to reach goals. The
intellectual skills performance type is addressed in my objective. PocketGuard breaks down the process
of creating a budget and has users apply the rules into steps before they can get to the ultimate goal.
Learners have to identify their bills, income, savings, and track their spending before they can create the
monthly budget they want. By doing this they also demonstrate an application of rule for the learners.
Learners are encouraged to recall their previously learned rules as they will continue to review and
modify their budgets each month. learners are provided with initial guidance, immediate feedback, and
they have to match performances to advance to the objective. Learners are also provided opportunities
to use the concepts they learned in the real world when they are applying their budget to their life
choices and life decisions.

D3.) The software provides immediate advisement feedback which means leaners are informed about
the effects of the specific responses they give and they also get recommendations to alter outcomes.
Learners are provided with insights to specifically what their money goes into and an overview that gives
feedback and shows how changes can be made to what was already done.

D4.) A component that was addressed and could be added to make changes to the unit is to have
review. PocketGuard allows learners to revise their work and instruction but not review it. Learners
need a chance to summarize what they learned how to do or how they personally learned it. Adding a
sense where learners can restate their objectives to show they truly learned the instruction will benefit
learners.

D5.) Changes I would make to the lesson is that there should be examples included into the lesson to
give the learner a clear-cut picture of what their budget should look like. Practice and putting user’s in
simulated situations that would test what they learned should be provided too.
D6.) There is adequate feedback that is provided within the lesson.

F.1) Overall, I am impressed with the product. PocketGuard is a simplified program that
surprised me in many ways because it could be used as a tool in so many ways. The home page is
visually reduced only showing numeral amounts, headings and animations. The program doesn’t have
any flashy images or sound effects to make it more interesting. I found the program to be fascinating
and straight to the point, because the objectives were clear from the start. The objectives brought on
are beneficial and effective.

F.2) The PocketGuard software follows many of the guidelines for effective message display.
Most guidelines for effective general message display are followed and make the introductory
instruction clear, effective, and satisfying. For instruction, the important part of the program itself is to
show learners how to create and manage a budget. I would want my students to use this program as a
tool for guidance. The text used in this program are for titles, headings, and captions. The program is
intended for college students, so there are text and text with visuals. The program does provide small
visual for representation, diagrams, and graphs to represent information to learners. There is no audio
throughout the program, but should be provided as it could be needed for assistance to learners. The
guidelines for effective use of picture aren’t met, but the use of diagrams and charts for the
representation of information make up for the issue. The diagrams and graphs are is a strength for this
program and applies to the SOL. The program would be more effective for use with the addition of
pictures to follow the principles for effective pictures and illustrations use.

F.3) This program is similar to another that I have used called Mint. When comparing the two
they can be used as the same tool, but PocketGuard allows learners to go much more in depth once
they’ve developed their budget though the software. PocketGuard allows learners to view self-reports
within their budget that shows graphs and diagrams that represent the learner’s information. The
addition of charts and diagrams to present another view of their budget is a very beneficial feature and
separates PocketGuard from others.

F.4) I think the program would be productive, effective, and useful tool for teaching the learner
to budget their monthly income. I would recommend this program to my colleagues and friends because
they can use this a tool to create or revise their budgets. This program allows users to track their
spending which can lead to lower expenses and increase the amount of money they have. PocketGuard
acts as a tool to give learners a greater control over their finances and allows them to gain more
financial knowledge than they had before.

G.) As I reflect back on the evaluation process I remember thinking I had no idea what I was
doing and had no idea about the details and how in-depth you have to be during the process. When I
was going through the decision process of choosing PocketGuard I know there was a lot to think about. I
wanted to choose a product that would met the requirements of my learners. I knew that this product
would be a good fit for my learners as they are somewhat on a beginner level in knowing about finances
and what an actual budget was. I wanted a product that would be straight to the point, clear, and easy
to use for my audience. I followed the guidelines of what was most important for my learners, what
their skills already were, and what they wanted to accomplish. The challenge I encountered during this
process of evaluation was finding the right product for my learners to use. There were other products
that were my first choice, but using the expert review template I quickly realized that those products
would be obsolete to the instruction. I had to find a product that fit the desired outcome I wanted and
one that clearly represented my performance base instructional objectives. To crack this problem, I had
to examine the product closely and find how the product aligned with my objectives. I also had to make
sure the product’s learning environment, media characteristics, instructional material fit my intended
users. My initial thoughts of evaluation were that it required just checking something to make sure it did
what it was made to do. My thoughts have changed as I realized evaluation was so much more. In
evaluation you have to critically examine a program. This requires one to analyze the information about
the program, its activities, characteristics, and the outcomes of that program. It also goes so far to make
sure the program is meant for the specifically intended learners. Overall, the purpose of evaluation is to
improve a program’s effectiveness, efficiency, and inform on program decisions. Software evaluation
relates to what I’ve learned in the ITMA program. I understand that in the ITMA program we are
learning about instruction and how to correctly give it. In software evaluation, I learned to determine if
software programs are fit for the kind of instruction I want to give or assess. It acts as a tool for me to
think more into the instruction and allows me to be more efficient and helps me consider what can and
can’t be used. I can apply software evaluation in any profession. I can help use software evaluation in my
profession a weapon in my arsenal that helps me make better programs and decisions. This will help me
improve desired outcomes I am seeking within my company. This experience influences my profession in
a positive and beneficial way. From this experience I realize how important it is to look in-depth into the
little things because they do matter. Losing the sight of one small detail or missing one mistake can lead
to major outcomes I don’t want. Software evaluation comes in as a tool to help me eliminate those
mistakes by taking me through a process that looks into the ins and outs of something. This experience
helped me to think more about how a program can fit a learner instead of making a learner fit the
program. The information from this experience has led me to think outside of the box and to look more
into the process instead of looking toward the outcome