Evaluation of educational software: theory into practice

Educational software has proliferated in virtually every academic discipline and at various levels from preschool to postgraduate studies. With the rapid development of computer technology, educational software has been greatly improved to cater for a wide range of teaching and learning experiences. This chapter discusses different ways in which educational software is evaluated. Teachers firmly hold certain views on learning and teaching which reinforce their adoption of certain evaluation criteria. As educational software reflects how teaching and learning is viewed, educational metaphors are used as an evaluative approach to examine the theory and practice of software evaluation in education and for education.