emilychen
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Evaluation of CALL websites
After you've learned many criteria and guidelines for evaluating general websites and those for language learning specific websites, now I'd like you to come up with your own evaluation criteria for CALL programs and use those criteria to evaluate your chosen CALL website.
When you choose a CALL website, make sure that website is desigened for a language learning purpose and provide language learning activities in addition to language learning materials. That is, your chosen website needs to offer features in both presentation and interaction (I'd certainly like you to choose a good CALL website to present!!!). You can use "Merlot" http://www.merlot.org/Home.po to help you find a good CALL website.
In your evaluation, some general principles in design, accuracy, relevancy, and easy of use are still VERY important, but I'd like you to put more emphasis on potential effectiveness as a language teaching-learning tool . Therfore, you can choose one or two lessons (i.e. specific examples) provided by your chosen CALL website and examine its potential effectiveness in language learning and teaching.
Also, list some basic information about your chosen CALL website, such as who the target audience is for this website, what level of language this website is designed to offer, and what language skills this website focuses on.
I'll give each group 8-10 minutes for your oral presentation next Monday. Please manage your time well.
Last edited by emilychen, 10/18/2004, 1:32 pm
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10/18/2004, 1:24 pm
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Joanne50
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 Re: Evaluation of CALL websites
Evaluation of CALL website (From Group 5)
Group members: Louise, Christian, Sam, Janet, and Joanne
We chose Dora's English Web to do our evaluation.
1.Basic information
This website is designed by a group of teachers from an elementary or junior high school. It designed not only for teachers and students to learn, but for people who want to improve their English ability. The major audience of Dora’s English learning website is the elementary and junior high school students and teachers. Students can learn a lot of abundant resources from this website; teachers can obtain a lot of plentiful supplementary from this website; and for the people who want to improve their English ability could get into the website to get what they want to learn from and what they want to search for learning English. In the website, it offers the intermediate level of language which is focuses on listening, reading and writing skills. However, it doesn't offer relevant exercises, games or test to practice learners' speaking skill.
2.Quality of content
There are quite abundant resources and information for teachers and students to obtain. First of all, we talk about its main function on top of front-page. We can see there is “a sentence of the day” in the front-page, and the sentence is changed daily by daily. It offered “the online practice” for elementary school students in grade five and six. And each practice has its own topic that all of them are related to elementary school’s contents. Next we can see that it offered “the online dictionaries” for us to click. Its supplementary materials offered teacher to make a handout for students. The “Activities” section had recorded the class activities held in elementary school. It could offer pre-teachers become experience to teach. And “Others” also provided a large number of links for us to search. It had been divided into three sections, that is, the links of tests, games, textbooks, and teaching materials.
Secondly, we look down its navigation bar. It also provided bunches of materials for students and teacher such as "Festival," "Campus English," "Children picture books," "Games," Stories," "Tongue Twister," etc. We all think the materials that Dora’s English web offered are great and useful for CALL class. It has its pros and cons that is why we chose it as our web evaluating.
3.The criteria
We use the criteria such as “Design,” “Accuracy,” and “Authority” to evaluate the Dora’s English Learning Website:
a.Design
Pro1: The user interface is easy to understand and it is also easy to navigate through the program. It is clear what point the learner has reached. For example, there are no ambiguous icons that cause confusion because when you move your mouse on the different items such as on-line practice, on-line dictionaries, supplementary, students’ works, activities and others, the system will give you their Chinese translation right away. Therefore, it is obvious for you to decide which item you want.
Pro2: There are a lot of learning English resources. For example, the website contains interactive activities and tests for learners to practice and if the learners don’t understand the words, phrases, sentences, and grammar, they can still check the dictionaries it offers or send e-mail to the designer. Another example is that it has abundant links such as on-line dictionaries, and others, which contain games, tests and textbooks, bookstores, realia.
Pro3: Each learning English resource page has pictures on it. Pictures can help learners get more familiar with the contents and understand them more quickly. To take “Supplementary” item as an example, when you click “others” on this page such as Body Parts and Parts of a Plant, it gives function that if your mouse move to the word, it will tell you its Chinese Meaning and it also shows you the picture to help you think.
Con1: The designer does not directly show the website’s name so the learners will have no idea about what this website’s purpose is.
Con2: Because of its enormous amount of learning English resources, the web page space is too small. Take the left hand side of the web page as an example, the items the system offers are too much, when you click the subject of each item lists, the last item will disappear and you can’t find it until you recover to the original form. Therefore, the designer should think a way to reconstruct the items to make it more clear and concise.
b.Accuracy
Pro1: The level of language that the program offers clearly indicated. To take on-line practice as an example, it will tell you each test belongs to what level. Therefore, learners will know whether this test is suitable for them or not.
Pro2: The program includes pictures and they are relevant and an aid to understanding. To take “Festivals” as an example, when learners click the under subject “Halloween,” there will be pictures which are about Halloween, so learners can easily understand what Halloween is about.
Pro3: The program includes sound recordings, and they are of an adequate standard. There is a good mix of male and female voices. To take “Tongue Twister1” as an example, there are several sentences, and next to each of them, there is a sign, , if learners click the sign, native speakers will pronounce the sentence for them. Furthermore, the background color of each sentence shows male or female voice. Speakers will first say slowly and then quickly. It is easy for learners to speak after them and recognize the sound.
c.Authority
Dora’s English web is designed by a group of teachers from an elementary or junior high school so we think the website’s authority is reliable. Besides that, the item “Activities” contain a lot of pictures that record the school’s activities and it can also prove the designers are all teachers.
4.Quality of information and relevancy
There are many resources provided in this website including the content of elementary school textbooks, and other relevant language learning information. The designer of this website presents these information in various ways to evoke learners' and teachers' interests. These abundant content are not difficult for learners. It's easy to understand and do the practice, games, or activities. Most information is given many explanations in Chinese. In addition, the designer provides a lot of links from other language learning website. The content of these links give advanced and specific information for students and teachers.
5.Easy of use
Through the clear design, users can easily find what they want in this website. In the user interface of the home page, there are a lot of items clearly classified and given Chinese translation. Therefore, users can easily choose what information they want. However, in the navigation bar, there are several detailed items under each listed items. The last listed item is "home." If you click many of the items, the navigation bar will be extended. Sometimes it's not convenient to click "home" to go back to the first page. We have to click those listed items again to make the detailed item be hidden, and then we could see the item "home."
6.Potential effectiveness as a language teaching-learning tool
(1)This word game provides the ease of getting started, and the learners can easily start to play by clicking the “Arrow” icon shown on the screen. The following is the word game provided by this website:
What should a firefighter wear
(2)The user interface is easy to understand, there’s no ambiguous icons that causes confusion. On the main page, each item in the table of content is clear. Learners can know what a specific item is about by clinking the item. For example, if you see “story” on the left column, you know it’s about English story. So there won’t be any confusion.
(3)This is a “Cloze” exercise
Cloze exercise
The feedback that the website give is that if you answer the correct word for each blank, on the top of the page, it says “Well done” and also give you the score you get. If you give the wrong answer for one or two blank, the computer will tell you: “Some of your answers are incorrect. Incorrect answers have been left in place for you to change.” And also tell you how much scores you get on the top of the web page.
(4)The website’s exercises part let learners to correct their grammatical errors. The exercises develop learner’s grammatical ability and also increase their vocabulary amount in their brain.
(5)Learners can quit the exercises that are beyond their ability. For example:
sentence rearrange exercise
This exercise is to rearrange the sentence and put them in order. If the learners feel the question is difficult, they can click “Next question.”
(6)We take the word game as example:
What should a firefighter wear
While playing the game, move the mouse on each item, and then the computer will pronounce the word and show you the word of the item. This helps learners learn the vocabulary by looking the picture, word as well as the sound. Learners can absorb the vocabularies quickly.
(7)Again, the word game uses the technology of animation. It is effective for learners since the animation represent a real life situation. This allows learners to put themselves in the game and feel like they are in that situation. It is relevant and aid to understand the theme of this word game is “Firefighter,” so the settings of the game have fire truck and the equipments for firefighters.
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10/24/2004, 11:01 am
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Joanne50
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 Re: Evaluation of CALL websites
Evaluation of CALL website (From Group 5)
Group members: Louise, Christian, Sam, Janet, and Joanne
7.Interaction and presentation
In this website, there’s a link which provides interaction feature. Click the link:
storytelling
This link is about storytelling, and it is very children-friendly. The feature in this program is that it has visual and auditory modalities that allow the learners not only listen to the text but also read the words on the screen. In the visual part, the pictures on this web page presents the life situation that leave learners a deep impression. Learners can quickly learn the lesson with the combination of images and sounds.
The presentation in the website acquires that the input must be comprehensible. Dora’s English website meet this acquirement. For example: click on the on-line exercise. In the exercise of rearrange sentences, the question:
Q-2: Is the brown ruler under the box?
Yes, it's on the box.
Yes, it is in the pencil case.
Yes, it is.
Each word in the sentence, for instance, box, pencil case and ruler are words that are the learners, for elementary students, familiar with. So, each word chosen by the authors are comprehensible to the learners who are studying in elementary school.
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10/24/2004, 6:26 pm
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Kathywang
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 Group 2 (10,12,14,16,56)
Emily's Pronunciation Class
http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/Pron/
【Design】
1.The site provides links to main or previous pages.
2.Dark text on a light background. The contract color between the background and the text make good readability. It is easy for learners to read, and doesn’t cause confusion. Also, the author used different colors and different sizes of font to indicate the importance of the text, or to tell the reader what’s the main idea in the text they are reading. That is a good way to catch learners’ attention!
3.All pages include a link back to the home page. The site provides link to its home page both on the header and footer in all pages. It’s impossible that you can get lost in this website.
4.Learner makes progress by mentally processing the language he is learning.
5.The user interface is easy to understand.
6.The feedback is intrinsic. Ex: Sorry, try again! / Correct! Your score is: 100%
7.Sound recordings are clearly and relevant.
8.It has consistent header, footer, and background. It makes learners clearly know they are still in Emily’s Pronunciation Class.
9.The table of content on the header or footer is to help students locate the text. They can always clearly know what other parts of text they can click to learn are.
【Quality of content】
1.The content is integrated with many activities. For example, it gives learners many listening exercises to help them distinguish two sounds in a complete sentence. It also gives some interesting tongue twisters to help learning pronunciation. But the disadvantage is the learners cannot listen to these tongue twisters on line.
2.It addresses sounds in a practical way using the pairs approach. Using the pairs approach is an effective way of teaching sounds to ESL students since they can see how the sounds in word pronunciation varies to bring about meaning in context.
3.When it comes to word stress part, it gives some rules, patterns, and examples to teach. These rules, patterns, and examples are classified clearly and in detail. For example, it explains characteristics of stressed and unstressed syllables first, and then it explains the rules by using suffixes to predict stress and using parts of speech to predict stress in great detail. It also provides some listening exercises in this part.
4.When it comes to sentence rhythm part, it gives the definition, patterns, and some practices as well. In this part, it gives lots of listening examples. Learners can not only read rules and patterns on the screen but also listen to examples from the speakers.
5.It provides real voice in each pronouncing part.
【Potential effectiveness as a teaching-learning tool】
The lessons in Emily’s Pronunciation Class website provided are hoped to help learners have a better communication with good English pronunciation.
There are four areas for learners to work on: vowels, consonants, word stress, and sentence rhythm. In each of them, learners will see the guideline in the beginning and the contents on the following.
Furthermore, learners can listen to the program of each area and repeat after it.
This kind of communicative activity is human-machine. Learners learn pronunciation through the Internet by using computers. They read the contents and use the sound device to listen in order to learn on line. Their learning materials are expanded from books to computers. The interaction is between learners and computers. It gives learners a chance to learn in a different way.
In the website Emily’s Pronunciation Class, it’s highly student-centered and promotes student autonomy. Learners in this website can determine what they want to do by themselves without restriction. They can choose which part they would like to learn first. They are not forced to learn by a set-up sequence. They can learn the pronunciation rules of vowels, consonants, word stress, and sentence rhythm by any order they like.
When they are ready, they can click on the listening exercise to test themselves. If they are not familiar with the pronunciation rules and perform badly on the exercise, they can always review the texts again. There is no time and times limitation. They can learn at their own pace, and no one would blame them on their slow pace of learning. In addition, learners can click on Tongue Twister to practice their pronunciation. It’s of fun!!
The website also offers many other English learning websites for learners to choose from. Learners can thus pick the websites they are interested in by their own preferences to learn more about English.
Appropriate feedback could assist learners in second language learning. If the Website offers some feedback while learners are doing the quizzes, it could stimulate learners from learning English. For example, in “Emily’s Pronunciation Class,” after learning from the different pronunciation between vowels and consonants, learners could have online quizzes. In each quiz, it divided several questions. As long as learners choose the right answer, the computer will show a window, in which tell you “excellent,” and “your score is 100%” In this case, especially for the second language, this kind of positive feedback encourage learner have more self-confident to study in English. On the other hand, the feedback, like “Sorry, try again,” which shows up when you choose the wrong answer, will make learners realize their make mistakes and give them opportunities to try it again.
In English learning website, appropriate feedback is one kind of interactivity between computer and learner. If there were no feedback when learners are doing some activity on the website, the process of learning English seems to be bored and become one-way learning. It will lose the purpose of interactivity in English learning on the Website.
Last edited by Kathywang, 10/24/2004, 9:06 pm
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10/24/2004, 9:03 pm
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Christine1117
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Re: Evaluation of CALL websites
Group 4: Christine, Glenn, Gary, Randi, Raymond
Presentation
1. comprehensive input
The website has “Idioms”, “Phrasal verbs”, “Slang”, and “Quizzes”.
In “Idioms”, “Phrasal verbs” and “Slang”, they offer the meanings and examples of each idiom, phrasal verb and slang. They are very useful for English learners because each of them has their meaning and example. Students can understand each idiom, phrasal verb and slang clearly through their examples. Also, we think they are convenient for users because each of them lists in alphabetical order.
In “Quizzes”, students can quiz themselves in different categories, such as grammar, idioms, slang and words to improve their English ability.
2. compatible cognitive ability
The website mainly divides into three parts, that is, “Stuff for Teachers”, “Stuff for Students” and “Stuff for Everyone”, and each part suits its target audience. Because different users can go to different part to get information, we think the website offers a good example in compatible cognitive ability.
3. sheltering techniques
The website has “Pronunciation Power” which offers English teaching and exercise for students. It also has “Students Forums” and “Chat Central” where users can post anything and discuss with other people. We think all of these are helpful for English learners because they can improve our English ability through exercise and on line discussion.
4. facilitate focused development of English language skill
The website provides information about idiom, slang and phrasal words, and quizzes about those mentioned above.
5. use multiple modalities to support various learning styles and strategies
The parts of idioms, phrasal verbs, slang are all arranged and presented in three ways: a complete list, a alphabetical lists of meanings and examples and a random item from the collection.
Take idiom as an example:
a complete list of all idioms currently in the collection; alphabetical lists of meanings and examples; a random idiom from the collection.
6. foster understanding and appreciations of the target and native cultures
Quizzes include history (US history, world history), people, and geography (world geography, US geography).
Student Forums includes topics about culture, family, food, music, literature, for their share.
Interaction
1. Communicative:
A. The website provides us with a Chat Central. You have to register
an account and you can talk to people in the room later. It is a one to one message
talking. It is a good to practice your communicative skill.
B. The Student Forums give us many chances to reply our opinion for the topic.
2. Task-based and Problem solving:
The Help Center plays as a teacher role in the website. You can post any question
about English learning in the center. Afterwards, you would receive help from
ESL\EFL teachers and from the whole world. They will try to answer it quickly
onto this page. It helps student to solve their problem in learning
3. Student center and Student autonomy:
In this website, you can see some learning materials for students such as Phrasal Verb
and Slang. Students can choose which part they prefer to learn more. No teacher
decide today’s lesson for them.
4. Collaborative learning
The website provides a forum that can let learners ask the question, discuss a topic and share the experience with other learners. Though this forum, they can work together to solve the problems and learn from each other.
5. Affective needs of students
Once you enter the website, you can see three big columns. Stuff for teach, stuff for students, and stuff for everyone. It is clear to fine the stuff you want.
6. Appropriate feedback
The website does not provide enough feedback to the learner. Look at the quizzes. After you take the quizzes, the website just tell the answer.
Last edited by emilychen, 10/31/2004, 8:52 pm
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10/25/2004, 2:26 am
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pigdodoo
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Re: Evaluation of CALL websites
Group 7
BBC World Service.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/index.shtml
【Content】
When we get to the first page of this website, we can see that there are so many different topics of English-learning. There are news English, Business English, Watch and Listen, Grammar and Vocabulary, Communicate, and Quizzes. Each part provides certain content for us to learn.
In the News English section, we can check the latest news in the whole world or in Britain and even we can check the old news in 2003. The website also picks up some important words from the news and provides a sample sentence to make users have clearer ideas about the usage of these words.
In the Business English section, we can read lots of article that are related to Business. We can learn some work skills and get hear others’ working experiences.
In the Watch and Listen section, the website provides us so many ways of improving our English ability such as audio, video and interactive exercise. For example, it provides the pronunciation tips part for us to give tips on some common pronunciation problems for self-study learners with a lower intermediate knowledge of English.
In the Grammar and Vocabulary section, of course we can learn some words and the correct grammar. There is also an interesting section provides us some daily phrase towards different topic. I think it is very useful.
In the Communicate section, there is message board that give us a chance to meet all kinds of people from the world and we can chat with them to practice our English.
In the Quizzes section, there are so many quizzes for us to do. We can try it online and check our answers right away. There are lots of topics of quizzes provided.
There is also a section for Teachers here. It provides suggestions to teachers about articles and advice on teaching, teaching tips and lesson plans. I think it is very helpful.
This website also have FAQ section. Uses can ask any question about this website and can get the answer as soon as possible. Users can also read others’ question about this website.
However, this website may be a little difficult for the beginners since it did not divide its content into different levels. It may be only suitable for the advanced or intermediate English learners.
【Design】
Appearance and Ease of Navigation
- Several familiar elements (header, footer, logo, navigation bar, color scheme, etc.) appear on all pages.
- The site provides links to main or previous pages.
Readability and Information Location Tool
- The easiest text to read is dark text on a light background.
- A search engine or table of contents allows users to locate information quickly.
This website gives a very good interface for users because every page has header, body, footer, and navigation bar.
In the index page, the navigation bar is on the left-hand side; other language related links are on the right-hand side. In following pages, the navigation bar would not change its position, it will be always on the left-hand side, it is easy to find and use. When users click the navigation bar, the website will change into the next page, also you will see subcategories; users can find the information easily through using the navigation bar.
Moreover, another navigation bar is on the top of every page, next to logo “BBC.” This navigation bar provides life information, such as BBC news, sports and weather.
Besides that, the logo “BBC” always appears on the upper-left side of every page; it can be found easily; when you click the “BBC” loge, the page will jump to the homepage.
The color scheme does well job for this website, for instance, on the index page, the background is white, and users can see the interface clearly. The navigation bar is gray color, when users choose one of the items; it will appear deeper gray color to tell users that you can choose other subcategories. In the body part, the titles of the subcategories become green color. Every category has other subtopics, and those subtopics will show in blue color. On the right-hand side, users can find black color part; it is search engine and language versions. Users can choose their own native language and the website will change into their own native language version immediately. Under the black part is the green part, which is the related links; users can find other information here.
Generously, the website uses light color as the background; the function of deeper color is that to tell users where they are.
Beside that, there is one special function, under the header; there is “You are in….” to tell users’ location in this website; users can easily get where they are, back the previous page or go to the following page.
“LISTEN TO BBC WORLD SERVICE” is on the head part, uses can click the button and listen to each lesson easily.
【Potential Effectiveness as a Language Teaching-Learning Tool】
Is the level of language that the program offers clearly indicated?
No, the program offers the level of language is not clearly indicated, except in the “Business English” on the left navigation bar. There is a topic “Ten Days in Manchester”, and on the top of this page shows “An interactive intermediate business English course featuring Tony Marshall and May Hunter.” It let our users know this is an intermediate business English course.
Is it clear showing that what the learner will gain in this site?
Yes, in the FAQ part, the site tells the learner that it is intended to help the learner improve their Learning of the English language. Throughout the site the learner will find short courses, quizzes, grammar, vocabulary, audio and idea that will help the learner to improve their English.
Is there any function that the site provides the learner to offer feedback if he/she gets some problems?
Yes. In the home page of BBC, there is an item, COMMUNICATE on the right hand side. In it, there are Message boards and Email discussion group, and the learners can offer feedback if they gets some problems.
If the learner gets something wrong or right on the quizzes without understanding, can he/she seek an explanation?
Yes, the learner can seek an explanation if they have some question about the quiz. Such as, on the quiznet, you can see the site provide multiple choice quizzes to test the learner’s English, and there are many different topics that can be taken. Choosing whatever you want to take, and then start the quiz. After checking the answer, you can see not only the answer, but also the explanation about that question no matter you did correct or wrong answer.
Can the learner seek help, e.g. on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, cultural content?
Yes. On the navigation bar, on the right hand side, learners can see the items, Watch and Listen, and Grammar and Vocabulary. In them, learners can find some common questions about grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.
If the program includes pictures, are they (a) relevant, (b) an aid to understanding?
Yes. Take Business English for example. The pictures here are relevant to the content and can help learners have a brief idea about the content.
If the program includes sound recordings, are they of an adequate standard?
No. This program does not include the sound recordings, so the learners cannot record their voice.
If the program includes video sequences, are they of an adequate standard? Are they (a) relevant, (b) an aid to understanding?
No. Take Business English for example. The content has video to watch, but in the video there is just a person speaking. We do not think it can help learners’ understanding about the content.
Does the program provide appropriate feedback?
Yes. Take Business English for example. After finishing listening to the context, the learners have to do a small quiz to test the understanding. In this quiz, it does not include scoring. However, the system will give the learners the appropriate feedback so that the learners can know that the answer is correct or wrong.
Does the site provide interaction or communicative activities?
Yes. Take Business English for example. After finishing listening to the context, the learners have to do a small quiz to test the understanding. In the quiz, the immediate feedback will be given. This is a human-machine interaction. The site also provides human to human interaction. In Communication section, the site provides Message boards and Email discussion group. The learners can talk to each other through the machine.
Does the program foster understanding and appreciations of the target and native cultures?
Yes. Take Business English for example. Not only can the learners learn English, but also can learn some business materials.
Last edited by pigdodoo, 11/1/2004, 9:09 am
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10/25/2004, 6:53 am
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CharlotteShih
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Re: Evaluation of CALL websites
Group 8
(Http://www.englishfree.com.tw/tw/teaching/)
The Website we evaluated is created by Inventec.
The main functions on the navigation bar are making sentences, learning English by animations, English lessons, on-line dictionary, games, and collections of new words.
We are going to evaluate the website by the design and 12 criteria on the unit 4.
The design of the website:
1.Obviously, the navigation bar is on the top of the first page, and you have only to click on it to surf the page you want.
2.There is one page without the navigation bar, which would cause a trouble.
3.There is a side bar on the left hand side of each page providing access to subcategories of the page. The results will show on the right column.
4.The text size is big enough and text color is much darker than the background, which is easy to read for the users.
The 12 criteria on the unit 4:
A.provide interaction, communicative activities, and real audience
This website provides a function which will ask learners to recite sentences twice after learners click on each sentence of every lesson. Meanwhile, there are five kinds of games which designed by Flash in the website. Both the function of reciting and these games provide interaction. However, it doesn’t provide communicative activities because two or more students cannot communicate with each other simultaneously by one computer. It doesn’t provide real audience, either. There is no message board to let students post questions when they cannot comprehense the course content.
B.supply comprehensible input
According to Krashen’s the input hypothesis, the input contains forms and structures beyond the learner’s current level of competence in the language (i+1), both comprehension and acquisition will occur. These courses are designed for junior high school and senior high school students. We assume that students in different age have the average competence in English among their peers. That is, they think the course contents are beyond their current level of competence. Then, they will obtain both comprehension and acquisition. Therefore, the website supplies comprehensible input.
C.support development of cognitive abilities
The course content of this website is appropriate for learners who are junior high students and senior high school students. They can choose any lesson they want to go through according to their course schedule. Except the course schedule they should follow while studying in class, junior high students can play games to cause their interests of studying English as well. For senior high students, they can learn new vocabulary out of the range of what students learn in class on the website if they think English they study in class is easy to them. They will not feel bored. That is, this website support development of cognitive abilities.
D. Utilize task-based and problem-solving activities
Ans: This website provides two ways for users to practice. One is “the grammatical practice”, which is a part of “English teaching and learning.” The other one is “the leisure space.” The previous function, “grammatical practice” can be chosen a suitable level by the users themselves. As soon as the level is decided, the screen will show the numbers of the questions in the level. Only when the users choose a correct answer and then they can continue the quiz. The best character of this function is that whenever the users answer incorrectly, a clear explanation will appear immediately, but not just give a direct answer. Thus the users can consider and really learn something but cram from the tests. If grammatical practice is too serious, users can also choose the “leisure space” where provide lots of cute games for users to practice. People can use those little games to train their English listening, spelling and comprehension. Though they are just games, the operation are the same with “the grammatical practice.” Users have to solve the first challenge and then go to the next, whenever they make a mistake, a clear explanation will jump out at once.
E. Provide sheltering techniques to support language and academic development
Ans: The link of “learning English by animation” provides three selections, learning expression, learning phonetic alphabets and learning textbook for students. The best one I think is “learning textbook” which not only provides vivid and clear animations, but very detailed explanations. Besides, when students complete a lesson, they can right away take a test, which is also an animation.
F. Are student-centered and promote student autonomy
Ans: This is the most student-centered website I’ve ever seen. This website includes spelling, pronunciation and grammar courses and all of them are comprehensible and east to use. I believe most students can utilize this website to learn English by themselves. Unable to train students their writing may be the only lack of this website.
G. facilitate focused development of English language skill
We think this website facilitate focused development of English language skill. Although it does not divide it into specific area like listening, writing, or reading, it provides the part of learning expression, learning phonetics, and learning texts. Users can choose which part they need and focus development on it.
H. use multiple modalities to support various learning styles and strategies
This website does use multiple modalities to support various learning styles and strategies. It includes modalities of sound, text, picture, flashes, and animation games. To take the part called “Learning English by animations” as an example; users can listen to it and see the animations at the same time. The animations can help users to relate the new information to visual concept, and are able to connect image to meaning. Also users can repeat playing it and imitate it if their learning strategy is repetition.
I. support collaborative learning
We do not think this website supports collaborative learning. There is no message board, blog or something like that in this web site. Therefore, users can not exchange their ideas or share information through it.
J. We think that the website meet effective needs of students.
1.The text contents are designed to meet each level of learners, not too difficult or too easy. Learners will not get frustrated or bored when using the software. Furthermore, the software uses lots of pictures and animation that are very friendly and interesting to help learners so that learners can easily understand the conversation or words and can have more interests in learning.
2. After watching the animation, there are some short tests. If users give right answers, they will have reward - a very cute picture will appear to congratulate the users. By having the reward, users can feel that their answers are recognized, accepted, and responded to appropriately, so their effective needs will be met.
K. We do not think that the software foster understanding and appreciations of the target and native cultures. Since it was English teaching software, it just focuses on teaching how to use English, but seldom talk about American culture, or Taiwanese culture. But in the section “新詞集錦”, there are many terms about culture. So, in the section, while learning the terms or phrases, learners will also learn some about American culture.
L. The software also provides appropriate feedback and assessment.
1.In the section of “learning English by animation”, if learners learn about junior high school curriculum, there is a short test about the text at the end of each animation to ensure if they understand well or not.
2. In the section of “English Teaching”, also, there are tests for learners. Click on the button “grammar training.” Learners can do tests according to their level. If they got wrong answers, they will receive right answers and explanation in the bottom.
Last edited by CharlotteShih, 11/1/2004, 10:39 am
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10/25/2004, 9:22 am
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EUGENEHUANG2004NKFUST
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Re: Evaluation of CALL websites
Reply:Group 3
We chose the Chinese Online Writing Lab to be evaluated
http://www.cc.nctu.edu.tw/~tedknoy/html/distance.htm
The Chinese Online Writing Lab is a website for writing training targetting on undergradute and graduate students. It combines various materials and provides channels for discussion. Though the channels are not that immediatelly reflecting, its categories indeed successfullly target the use to providing examples, exercises and either online or face to face toturing instructions for technical paper construction. The main designer of the COWL is Ted Knoy, who is now teaching in NCTU. We can see his personal data on the front page. He is quite an experienced English teacher in teaching Writing and has a series of books about English writing.
The criteria
1. Quality of content
This website provides multimedia language classroom. According to many demands of English in each field, this part is also divided into many sections to teach us how to improve our writing skill:
The multimedia language classroom includes:
Academic study, teaches us how to write an effective study plan if you want to study aboard.
a. Work proposal, teaching us how to write an effective work proposal.
b. Employment applications, teaching us how to write an employment application.
c. Copyediting skills, teaching us how to use word and how to write for clarity and conciseness.
d. Translation practice
e. English letter
f. Reading comprehension
Besides, each section provides following functions:
1) Exercises including voice files, picture and transcripts to improve learners’ listening ability.
2) Power-points slides including examples and illustrations make learning actively.
2. Interaction provided
Click the button enters into the services section. Choose face-to-face tutoring, and then you can see the website master Ted, who selects two places and different time to teach writing free. Before you go there, you need to write an e-mail to make an appointment.
This website also provides a place that we can write a message to share what kinds of difficulties we face to discuss with others. For instance, if someone posts a question, which he or she knows the correct answer, but he or she still doesn’t know the reason why the answer is correct. Therefore, you can post what you want to learn; maybe someone will reply feedbacks to you. It is good for language learners to interchange their ideas on the website.
3. Relevancy
If you want to search more information, you can click into on line writing guide. There is filled with variety English learning resources. Including exercises, quizzes, on line writing courses, oral presentations, and meetings…. etc. You can select whatever you want to learn to improve your ability.
Multimedia Language Classroom, there is full of variety information. No matter you want to study abroad, write you study plan, or write your resume, you can find a lot of studying resources there.
Theories applied
For theoretical explanations, we use Interactionism and Behaviourism to explain the teaching and learning approaches that the COWL uses. Through constant exercises, learners practice, imitate, accept feedback and finally acquire writing skills and through the interaction either with the programs or the real tutors, learners can reach a better level in writing training courses. ( ZPD --- Zone of Proximal Development )
Potential effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning tool
The COWL provides exercises and scoring feedback. It is a positive way to stimulate learners’ interest in learning. Not so perfectly, the function of scoring did not carry further explanation for errors that learners make. Sound recording nowadays properly reacts to learners’ operations is still a technical block. We still can not expect the second wave feedback or even multiple feedback like real tutors do.
Three Scores we gave towards the COWL
The Chinese Online Writing Lab contains various materials focusing on writing technical research paper. We think that it is a successful example for creating a User Friendly Interface and it has managed to achieve the original purpose of its design --- to provide an interactive and communicative learning environment.
The great number of exercises coming with sound files and power point slides lead writing students step-by-step. Therefore, the combination in using multimedia to design the website, we give the COWL a B+.
As the interaction and the feedback it provides, we give a B+ as well, because the scores after each exercise do not carry out further explanations for errors. But we still think the COWL indeed meets the affective needs for writing students to request.
As in terms of CMC (Computer Mediated Communication ), the COWL provides a typical model for this function, such as its online writing tutoring booked by e-mail, or the message board it provides. We give the COWL an A- in this assessment.
We would like to quote a paragraph from Shneiderman (1997) to be the ending of our presentation. And this paragraph has become the principle for we group three to do our final project.
＊ aphorism --- saying, principle
“My aphorism for teaching in electronic environments harmonizes with the authors in this volume: relate-create-donate. Students work in teams to create ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom. Word processors, databases, email, and WWW publishing tools give students remarkable powers to make constructive contributions in many domains.
If I could, I would give a grade based on the amount of societal benefit produced by students during the semester. I believe that authentic service-oriented projects are compelling for students and provide productive learning experiences that are personally satisfying and helpful in job hunting.”
Last edited by EUGENEHUANG2004NKFUST, 10/28/2004, 10:51 pm
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10/28/2004, 2:59 am
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d8753033
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Group 1
Our evaluated website is Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab, http://www.esl-lab.com/index.htm. Our presentation divided into three parts: first, four criteria to evaluate a website; second, the attributes for our evaluated website from the aspect of presentation and interaction between the computer and humans. Last, the conclusion.
Four criteria to evaluate a website
Design of the Format
As to the design, we take these four elements into account: Readability, Consistent Appearance, Ease of Navigation, and Information Location Tools. Frankly speaking, this website is not well-designed especially in color scheme. As we know, the easiest text to read is dark text on a light background, but in this website, there are problems with light purple text on a light yellow background, which is hard to read. Besides that, the backgrounds do interfere with the readability of text and distract readers’ attention. On the other hand, there is a consistent header, footer, and logo on all pages, but there is no search engine or table of contents for all pages. To make matters worse, some links are repeated. That is, different links lead to the same text, which will waste our time on click on one to another.
Design of the Content
Listening activities from this site have been organized by topic and language function. This can help learners focus on the specific topics they want to learn. The quizzes have written for high-beginner to advanced students and focus on both basic functional language and academic, critical-thinking skills. Besides that, all of the quizzes and scripts are original material, written by Randall himself, who is specialized in CALL, video technology and language teaching. He updates and maintains the site daily even though some of the changes might be transparent to visitors, which includes everything from editing pages and sound files to answer questions from visitors. So, the reliability of resource is unquestionable.
Accessibility
It provides an easy access to users. For the basics, everything you need can be easily found for free on the Internet: a browser and an audio/video player. Although they were not created for language learning purposes, they do well for delivering the content. Above all, you can use this site online all you want without paying any fee.
Purpose
The main purpose of this site is to focus on one specific area rather than try to create an "all-in-one" site that just contains snippets of other areas. It customizes materials for a specific audience, ESL learners. In addition, it is designed for self-directed study, that is, learners can choose what topic and level they want to study and then begin.
Multimedia design
This website offers many exciting opportunities for language learning and helps to integrate the learning of listening and reading skills. It refers to web based materials designed because it offers more presentation materials for independent student learning than human –machine interaction.
From presentation part of view:
Comprehension input
In the listening quizzes, text completion quizzes or script of quizzes the learners can know their scores immediately, and then they can check the wrong answer and learn from their mistake from the explanation. The learners can also be more familiar with the content, phrases and vocabularies after repeating exposure to the same material is believed to be essential to learning. Such drill and practice for imitation the sound of speakers, repeated manipulation of form all serve a function of reinforcement form the behaviorism.
Compatible cognitive ability
The learners can choose a topic for their needs according to their cognitive maturity or learning condition. Since the content is divided into different proficiency level from general survival skill to academic subjects, a pre-listening activation activity where new vocabulary/concepts are set, a comprehension quiz for which explicated feedback is provided, and post listening activities, more over, every selection's script is also available along with idiomatic expressions highlighted and explicated, which means the program offers a range of point and click activity that can help learners to work through the minimum of understanding and help learners to access their cognitive development.
Sheltering technique
The website provided an excellent quality of the audio using both the RealPlayer and the downloadable Device player. The voice mail is also a very impressive technique. The site's design is clean, clear, and renders these valuable recordings readily accessible for specific purposes.
Focused language skills
Landall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab is particularly focus on English listening
skill for ESL or EFL learners.
Multiple modalities
1.Combination of text, sound, and visuals design for the varied learning styles of language learners.
2.It includes a variety of sources, e.g., interviews, radio broadcasts, short and long conversations, and lectures. The materials are audio-related and authentic resources.
Cultures
Learners can learn at least two cultures from Japan and the States so far while doing some of the listening activities on this website. For example, students can learn traditional Japanese culture by doing the listening activity, “Japanese Public Bath” in the general listening quizzes section medium level. At the same section, learners can learn about U.S American culture from “American Slang” activity.
For interaction part of view:
In interaction, we divide our content into three parts:
Student-centered and autonomy
Communicative goal
Task-based and problem-solving
Student-centered and student autonomy
When a user practices through an article, he/she will hear the voice three times. The first time, they just listen and have a quiz and graded by system. The second time, they can see the script and some keywords to impress the article in their mind. The last time, users are required to do a cloze quiz. According to Behavioristic CALL, we know that repeated exposure to the same material is believed to be beneficial or even essential to learning. If users can listen to the same content three times and do more practice through quizzes, this can improve their listening and understanding.
Communicative
The website provides many tests; users can choose a test which is appropriate for their ability. However, the system can’t stimulate discussion, writing or critical thinking for users. It only provides some preformed articles and phonetic assistance. That is why the system can’t give elastic sentences. In fact, the system is focus on form and vocabulary rather than meaning transmission.
Task-based and problem-solving:
1. The system provides three levels, which are general listening, academic purpose and long conversation quizzes. If a user wants to choose some specific topics to learn, they can click “ESL study guides, http://www.esl-lab.com/guide.htm” and find a favorite topic to practice.
2. In problem-solving, the system doesn’t provide users a collaborative learning; however, if users have any questions, they can ask them by FAQs, http://www.esl-lab.com/guide.htm (frequently asked questions) or voice mailbox,. http://www.esl-lab.com/voice/voice.htm.
From all above our analysis, you may find out why MERLOT regards it as a high rating listening learning website. For presentation part, it provides comprehensive input, compatible cognitive ability, sheltering technique, focused language skill, multiple modalities, and understanding of different cultures. In terms of interaction part, it has met the goal of student-centered and autonomy, communicative purpose, task-based and problem-solving. You can see the spirit of a CALL from this website. So, spend some time to explore it if you have free time.
Last edited by d8753033, 10/29/2004, 1:19 pm
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10/29/2004, 1:18 pm
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Vita
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Re: Evaluation of CALL websites ~ By Group 6
Our group chose BBC English learning website to do our report for it’s a very unique and different from other English learning websites. It provides four functions English learners.
1. BBC uses multiple modalities to support various learning styles and strategies. Through visual functions, we are able to read new or to watch films from BBC and listen to the foreigners speaking native English, and also to listen to some English pop music while reading the introduction of the singer and to fill in the missing lyrics of many famous singers.
2. It also provides interaction, communicative activities. You can communicate with different people in the message board through discussing questions that you encountered. And you can also interact with the website by doing the quizzes and get lots of feedback from those teachers. All these could be done in a short time without meeting someone or have any difficulty. It is really convenient.
3. BBC utilizes task-based and problem-solving activities. We could read news articles or watch a piece of film and do the multiple choices question right after your reading, watching and listening to check whether we understand the article or the film or not and get feedback which can solve the problems.
4. The last but not least, the function is very special; we can transform the whole website into Chinese.
Generally speaking, BBC provides six basic parts for learners:
1. News English
2. Business English
3. Watch and Listen
4. Grammar and Vocabulary
5. Communicate
6. Quizzes
There are two parts in message board:
1. communicate:
English learners can ask questions or share their experience of learning English with others. You can write about anything that has to do with English and people from all over the world will reply your questions.
2. ask a question:
In this part, you can ask questions about the English language and teachers will answer your questions.
Pros> The message board is a good design because it encourages interaction, which also makes learning English more fun and also lets you have a chance to actually use your English writing skills. And the best thing is people really reply to your questions or opinion. However, there is an opining time for the message board, which means that not all of the time you can go there and post messages. This kind of design is inconvenient
1. Quiznet
English learners can choose a topic that interests them the most, and there are six questions for every topic. After answering each question you can check your answers and see the explanation they give.
Pro> For this part, “ pictures” next to the questions make the quizzes more interesting and easier. Also the explanation after checking the answers is helpful to learners who don’t understand what they did wrong.
2. Countdown Quizzes
It is similar to the “ Quiznet’ expect that there is a time limit for answering each question, which makes it more of a challenge. It also has a short explanation after checking the answers.
3. Where to nest & Football
These are both simple games where if you answer one question correct, you get to go to the next stage. “ Where to next” contains an audio report to listen to which can also improve listening skills.
Pro.> The way they designed the quizzes as games is a way to make learning more interesting.
Con.> However, the games are quite dull, so if they put more effort on the game designing part, it would make the whole game much more attractive.
4. Every week, there is a new topic recorded, you can press the ‘ listen to program” button and listen to the latest topic.
Pro.> Since the news is designed especially for English learners, the news is spoken slower and the vocabulary is easier, this can help the listeners to understand better.
Con.> There should also be a script included in the website, so listeners can check later on.
Conclusion
Con1.
We might not find articles that fit our English level, which means BBC doesn’t separate the news articles by the standard of difficulty. So it’s possible that you get to BBC and found that all the articles are too hard or too easy for you. Even there are vocabulary and grammar for you to read, you might still losing patience to read all those English words if you can’t understand most of them
Con2.
The front page of BBC English Learning website isn’t very attractive. The words are too small, and it’s quite tiring reading from the PC screen for too long. That is the thing that we don’t like when learning from websites.
Con3.
There are always too many things for people to choose and read from an English learning website. Take BBC as an example, when we first go into the front page, we were a little confused about how to use and what should choose to red. So for people who are not very good at computer, it sometimes takes a lot more time reading news from website than from newspaper. That what we don’t like when learning English through websites.
Last edited by Vita, 11/3/2004, 1:24 am
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11/3/2004, 1:23 am
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