Quality of Content:
- Does the software present valid (correct) concepts, models, and skills?
The website presents accurate character synopsis, word definitions, and plot summaries. The material is scaffolded well with the generalized explanations first, followed by word definitions and discussion questions.
- Does the software present educationally significant concepts, models, and skills for the discipline?
The website and guides are mainly resources. They don’t do much in the way of teaching concepts, modeling behavior or demonstrating skills. The instructor is given some ideas for how to use the guides, but how to use them is ultimately left to the instructor’s discretion.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool:
- What stage(s) in the learning process/cycle could the materials be used at?
The guides could be used at any stage in the learning process. They could be used to introduce vocabulary or for a pre-writing/speaking/listening/reading activity. They could also be used to practice listening or for discussion questions after having listened. The use of the materials would depend on the teacher’s objectives.
- What is(are) the learning objective(s)? What should students be able to do after successfully learning with the materials?
The stated learning objectives are for students to become familiar with American culture, practice their listening skills, and improve their vocabulary.
- What are the characteristics of the target learner(s)
The target learner enjoys watching movies, is interested in improving their English listening skills, and wants to improve their vocabulary. The target learner’s level of English will depend on the movie, but, with subtitles, these lessons would be best suited to an Intermediate or above level student.
- Does the interactive/media-rich presentation of material improve faculty and students' abilities to teach and learn the materials?
I’m not sure which aspect this addresses. The website itself is not particularly helpful or engaging. The guides, however, are highly interactive and the use of movies is media-rich. It helps learning and teaching because watching and discussing movies are generally enjoyable for both students and teachers. In addition, the use of context is incredibly helpful in learning new vocabulary.
- Can the use of the software be readily integrated into current curriculum and pedagogy within the discipline?
To be honest, this would be difficult to work into the curriculum at our school unless it is used as a warmer for a specific topic. We already have specific listenings for our listening classes. I would most likely recommend this to students who wanted to do self-study. This could easily be worked into a less strict curriculum however as it easily meets learning needs.
- Can the software be used in a variety of ways to achieve teaching and learning goals?
The movie guides can easily be used in variety of ways. I’ve already touched upon this above.
- Are the teaching-learning goals easy to identify?
The main goals of the website seem to be to improve student listening and vocabulary although it is very clear that the materials can be easily adapted to meet other learning goals such as discussion or introduction to American culture.
- Can good learning assignments for using the software application be written easily?
I think good learning assignments could be written very easily. If it were to use this, I would post the relevant section of the guide along with a clip of the movie and comprehension or discussion questions on Moodle and leave it as homework. Conversely, this could be watched in the class with the same general arrangement.
Ease of Use:
- Are the labels, buttons, menus, text, and general layout of the computer interface consistent and visually distinct?
The general layout of the computer interface is consistent. It’s not particularly engaging, but it’s simple to use.
- Does the user get trapped in the material?
The user would be hard pressed to get trapped in the website. There are only about eight pages, and there are buttons to access each of the pages at the top of the website and links at the bottom.
- Can the user get lost easily in the material?
Some of the text is very dense although most of it is anecdotes which makes it more accessible. My main complaint would be that the text is very small and therefore hard to read.
- Does the module provide feedback about the system status and the user's responses?
No. The module is not designed to give feedback. It only gives information and prompts discussion.
- Does the module provide appropriate flexibility in its use?
The guides provide as much flexibility as possible in that the teacher can choose how to use them. Alone, the guides are little more than dense resources. The teacher ought to tailor them to fit the needs of a lesson or class.
- Does the learning material require a lot of documentation, technical support, and/or instruction for most students to successfully use the software?
The learning materials could easily be used by a student with little or no instruction. However, the student would have to be quite self-motivated and capable of deciding what material from the guides is most useful to them. I would suggest instead having the teacher choose the most appropriate part of the guides to give to students.
- Does the material present information in ways that are familiar for students?
The way of presenting information (a plot synopsis, description of characters, vocabulary list with definitions and example sentences, and discussion questions) ought to be familiar to most students.
- Does the material present information in ways that would be attractive to students?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.