Website Evaluation Two

CALL SOFTWARE/WEBSITE EVALUATION #2

Software/Website Title: Learning English Kids by the British Council

Website URL: http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/

Grade/Age Level: Geared towards elementary students. There are links for pre-k children as well.

Language and Content:

1) What is the intended purpose of the software or website?

The purpose of Learning English Kids is just that. The website was designed to help children learn English through interactive literacy activities.

2) What is the content of the software or website and how is it presented?

The website covers a broad range of content such as letters, grammar, jobs, animals etc. One thing I noticed was that I didn’t see math skills included.

3) What external documents do the software or website include? Are they affective?

The website includes links to articles, blogs, printouts and forums. Furthermore, there is a resource page full of websites for parents, teachers, and kids.

4) In what ways is the software interesting to the target audience?

The website is VERY interactive, colorful, and fun for students. Students can set up their own account and interact with other users in the comments. They can view movies, listen to songs, play games and listen to audio books. There is also a good amount of extension writing activities students can complete on their own.

5) For what language goal(s) is this software or website useful/effective?

Children’s literature can be used to teach a variety of language goals such as vocabulary, grammar, problem solving, and critical thinking.  This website is extremely interactive. It can help students learn re-telling, summarizing, sequencing, comparing, contrasting, and other literacy skills.

6) Does this program or website offer practice? Assessment? Feedback? Of what kinds?

Learning English Kids offers formative, fun and formal assessments. The games offer practice for skills learned. There are also quizzes and tests children can take and get immediate feedback on. Students themselves can leave feedback on activities and share their results with others in the correspondence blogs.

7) Is this software or website easy to use?

The website is easy to use and navigate for children of all ages. It is fun and colorful with a search feature as well. When a student searches a topic or views particular content, there is a list of related links on the right for more information and activities.

8) What are the strengths of this software or website?

The website is easy to use, navigate and search. It offers a variety of multimodal activities that are extremely engaging for young learners. I like that students can learn through interaction with content in the form of games, read alouds, songs, and poems. Also, the external links for parents are valuable tools to help them help their children. The search feature is great as I have seen many sites without it.  

9) How can this software or website be improved?

Like my first website evaluation, this site was developed in the UK, there is somewhat of a disconnection in a couple of areas. Where we have standards, it appears they have something called “tasks”. So, while it may not transfer over directly, the content can be used by anyone and adapted easily to any classroom. Some of the audio, spelling and dialect are different but not in a negative way. If anything, it will help students see that English sounds different in other parts of the world.

I wish the site would offer more cohesive units and lesson plans instead of bits of information that are not linked. Also, I wish the activities had grade-level or language proficiency suggestions to help know what is appropriate for which students. 

Authenticity in CALL

Prior Thoughts

When I thought of authenticity in the past, I thought about meaningful, real-world tasks. Specifically, I thought of projects and units that span across subjects and long lengths of time. I thought about students in real-life situations communicating for authentic purposes like trying to ask for directions or go shopping.

As stated in the Johnston article, "a common complaint of ESL and especially EFL learners is that it is hard for them to find native speakers to interact with." I have often thought about how few "authentic" experiences I was able to have as student trying to learn a foreign language. Now that we can increase the range of interlocutors, as stated in the article, learners can interact with more people in the target language. My question when I read this is how. How do we as teachers find for example a partner class in Mexico or Germany? I think many teachers stop there because they don't have the time to research these things.


Changes/New Ideas

When thinking about authenticity, I had not considered the audience in the equation. I did not realize how much the varying audiences could affect the outcome of the task.
Also, I had not thought of CALL as being authentic for various reasons. It seemed like teachers who tried to use technology in the past just did it for the sake of using technology itself and not for learning or communicating. I've done something like a webquest but didn't feel like I got anything out of it. I've also completed one in a technology class but did not feel like it was an authentic experience because I did not have an audience to complete it.


New Thoughts

My definition of authenticity is most closely aligned with Egbert's: An authentic task is one that learners perceive they will use outside of the class in their real world or that parallels or replicates real functions beyond the classroom". What I realize now is that authenticity varies by audience. The teacher may perceive something as authentic, where the student may not.

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning

As I watched the two separate videos on the Horizon report, a couple of things stood out to me. The first was how happy I was to have some multimedia incorporated into our technology class. I have taken a number of online classes which only include the typical readings, forum postings, and assignments. This has been a frustration of mine for a long time. I’ve always hoped that as time went on, my university courses would become more multi-modal. The school I work for is now going to be using a new operating system in an attempt to offer a more multi-dimensional experience to our adult students. I am excited to see how this pans out and hope more universities will get on board. Rant over! :) 

Anyway, as I watched the videos, one thing I found extremely interesting was the tracking of the new technologies. They used the phrase “assessment using analytics”. This blew my mind a little bit. They talked about tracking participation, progress, ect and using this as formal assessment. I’ve always thought school needs to run a little more like a business than some old brick school house with a should be retired nun barking orders about memorizing times tables. This brought this thought to a whole new light. I hope that education continues to move this way to become more engaging and “real life” for future students. As of right now, it seems like funding is keeping the school system in the stone ages.

The Stockwell article was equally interesting in content. With the PDA experiment at the zoo, I was a little surprised to read that students found the use of the device to be distracting from the environment and things going on; however, when I thought about museums I have visited in the past with audio tours, I could relate. I wanted to experience the conversations and all things around me rather than to “plug in” and shut out the rest of the experience.

Under psychological issues, Stockwell refers to the fact that ‘a significant portion of young people do not have the levels of access or technology skills predicted by proponents of the digital natives idea’. On the one hand, it seems like every child from the age of 5 has some kind of tablet or mobile device, but if we look at the bigger picture of the world there are far more children who do not have access to such technology. Furthermore, they may share these devices or only have limited access. 

World Stories Website Evaluation

CALL SOFTWARE/WEBSITE EVALUATION #1

Software/Website Title: World Stories funded by a charity called KidsOut in the UK

Website URL: http://worldstories.org.uk/

Grade/Age Level: Geared towards elementary levels K-6 but children’s literature can be used in high school too

Language and Content: I found this website on a language blog called Multilingual Living.

http://www.multilingualliving.com/2014/01/21/online-resources-help-support-multilingualism-child/

1) What is the intended purpose of the software or website?

The purpose of World Stories is to help children learn about other cultures and languages through literacy and multimedia. “Our commitment is to support language skills and encourage cultural awareness whilst also aiming to inspire children to both discuss their responses and get creative”

2) What is the content of the software or website and how is it presented?

World Stories is a collection of short stories and poems from around the world. It includes traditional fairy tales, folk tales, and other new literacies. The user can either search stories by genre, language, or use the world map and click on a country. Once a story is selected, you can listen to that story told in a number of different languages while also reading along in that language or another. In order to access the parent and teacher features, you have to register (free). Once I did, the lesson plans were awesome! You can search for lessons by stories, genres, or by language features. I selected a few to review and they even included lessons on PowerPoints.

3) What external documents do the software or website include? Are they affective?

It appears the website is “under construction” as the funding has run out; therefore it is maybe a little less than comprehensive. The content that is available is however very useful and new content is still being added. There are links to lesson plans for teachers, resources for parents, and several ways to get involved in the KidsOut fundraiser. Kids are also able to submit their artwork to illustrate stories or poems they have read and be able to see it presented on the website in a section called “My World”. One of the fundraisers is called “toy box” where schools and families can donate toys to misplaced children. There are other links to fundraisers and charities for children around the world and ways kids can help other kids.

4) In what ways is the software interesting to the target audience?

The website has illustrations of the books submitted by other children. There is also a place on the site where students can have their own section called Your World. “This is your space to share your talents and ideas Please send us stories, pictures, poems and responses. We’ll display your work in our World Stories Gallery. Enter our national writing and art competitions. Win certificates and prizes.

The world map is an interactive way that makes this website useful and interesting. Students can learn about other cultures and languages they may never encounter in their everyday lives. Once they click on the stories, students can listen to them in a variety of languages. I found it useful to listen to the story in English and read it in Spanish, then change it around.

5) For what language goal(s) is this software or website useful/effective?

Children’s literature can be used to teach a variety of language goals such as vocabulary, grammar, problem solving, and critical thinking. While this website could be more interactive, it is still an authentic form of literacy instruction. It involves reading, listening and thinking during the stories and then has a plethora of lesson plans to reinforce what has been read. Here are just a few language goals this website can assist with:

• communicative tasks (retelling, summarizing, asking clarification questions)
• language structures (sequential language, past-conditional tense)
• language functions (Describe, explain, compare, contrast)

6) Does this program or website offer practice? Assessment? Feedback? Of what kinds?

On the side of each story, there is a question that says “how does this story make you feel”? Students can select an emoticon on the side to represent their reactions and see feedback from others. Besides this, there is not a great deal of practice, assessment, or feedback available on the website itself; however there are lesson plans with activities including assessment. I looked over a few of these which reinforced diagraming, character traits, story plots and other important literacy features.

7) Is this software or website easy to use?

The website is easy to use and navigate for children of all ages. Any user can click the stories and listen as well as read them. Students can navigate the pages easily and access the different features. It may be more useful for parents and teachers once registered and logged on. There are several more features to be accessed this way.

8) What are the strengths of this software or website?

The website provides a multitude of books and poetry from all over the world that can be read and listened to in many different languages. For parents, there are links to blogs and other resources to help their children succeed. For teachers, there is a data base of lesson plans and outside resources to go along with the stories presented.

9) How can this software or website be improved?

Since the software was developed in the UK, there is somewhat of a disconnect in a couple of areas. Where we have standards, it appears they have something called “tasks”. So, while it may not transfer over directly, the content can be used by anyone and adapted easily to any classroom.

Also, there is not really a “search” feature of the website. It would be nice if teachers could search specific books they want to use or are already in the curriculum. I would like to see the library of multimedia available expand to include more stories, interactive games, and activities. I think this website has a lot of potential.