Assignment3Part2
Nov 11th, 2007 by artha
Introduction
The purpose of this evaluation criterion is to be used to evaluate future e-learning language courses. The language e-learning courses are for personal purposes only such as personal interest or for holiday purposes. Learners are not restricted to a particular time frame and are allowed to choose their own level of difficulty. Some of the issues that will be addressed in this evaluation criterion are: achievement of outcomes, technology, materials, interactivity, feedback, activities, layout, engagement and content.
Main
Achievement of outcomes
This is a measure of how well has the e-learning course was able to facilitate and aid learners to meet their personal outcomes. This shows how well the course has been able to transfer its knowledge to the learner and from the learner to other speakers.
Technology
The evaluation on technology is based on the course’s use of technology application as an educational tool. It measures the availability of the technological appliances and its accessibility. It also measures the difficulty of the technology used, whereby courses with technologies that are difficult to use are not satisfactory as e-learning should not be about the technology, but the content of the course and should be available to learners with low computer skills.
Materials
We measure the availability of supporting materials such as grammar tips to aid language learning. Excellent courses would provide supporting materials throughout the learning duration, whilst poor course would not have any supporting materials. These supporting materials would also include technological support such as a help button and information on technological errors.
Interactivity
Evaluating on how well the course promote interactions between the learner and the learning process. By providing interactions learners would be more engaged in the learning process and therefore increase knowledge transfer and retention. The course needs to have satisfactory levels of both user -interface interaction and user- content interaction. These interactions refer to the way in which learners are able to navigate their way through the options that the course provides and to participate in the activities offered. During learning, the course’s user-interface interactions should not interfere the learner’s learning (Leacock and Nesbit, 2007).
Feedback
According to Leacock and Nesbit (2007), feedback should also be included when evaluating e-learning because the use of feedbacks would benefit learners to improve their learning. This evaluation criterion will evaluate the use of feedbacks in the e-learning course. The course need to have constructive feedbacks that would motivate and encourage better performance rather than limited feedbacks or feedbacks that simply provide the learners with the correct answer (McKendree, 1990). ActivitiesAn outstanding e-learning language course would have to provide learners with relevant activities so knowledge transfer and knowledge retention will be achieved. The activities should be achievable but should also provide students with challenges.
Layout
The layout of an outstanding e-learning language course should be organised and learners should easily know what to do and where to go. The layout should be appealing to the learner as this would increase the learner’s motivation to pursue the learning.
Engagement
According to Geissinger (1997) engagement should also be included as an important aspect of e-learning. Engagement refers to the way in which the course is able to attract and motivate the learner to pursue the e-learning course. The course can achieve this for example, through the use of audio and visual effects.ContentThe best language e-learning course should have relevant, valuable and interesting content that would help learners to learn the language. Learners should be able to understand the content provided and would be able to acquire knowledge from it; hence the content should not be too easy or too difficult and provide challenges for those learners who would like to learn more.
The development of criteria
This criterion was based on personal language e-learning experienced and the writings of Leacock and Nesbit (2007) and Geissinger (1997) who wrote articles on the evaluation of e-learning. From the personal experience and these writings, some important aspects to consider when evaluating e-learning are put together. This criterion would not be suitable for all language learners because they may have different preference and needs in terms of their view of what a good e-learning course is, for example some students may think that courses with easy activities are better as they need the motivational boost in order for them to be able to learn the language. The criteria that are included are not specifically criteria for language e-learning courses but e-learning course in general. Therefore for a more accurate evaluation criteria for language e-learning courses, research are still needed in the area of language e-learning.
Conclusion
The criterion device is to be used for evaluating e-learning language courses as a personal activity. The aspects of e-learning that are included are: achievement of outcomes, technology, materials, interactivity, feedback, activities, layout, engagement and content. Although there are referenced criteria, more research is still needed to specifically develop good language e-learning criteria.
| Poor | Good | Very Good | Excellent | |
| Achievement of outcomes | No outcomes were achieved | Some outcomes were achieved. | Most outcomes were achieved. | All outcomes were achieved. |
| Technology | Very high technological appliances need to be used throughout the whole course. Learners need to have a certain technological appliances and need have a certain skill to utilise it. Learners need to download or purchase the technological appliances. | Some form of technological appliances needed to be downloaded or purchased to accomplish some part of the course. And learners need have high skill and knowledge to utilise it. | Some form of technological appliances needed to be downloaded or purchased to accomplish some part of the course but does not require learners to have high technological skill and knowledge to be able to utilise it. | Technological appliances used are available within the course already and learners do not need to download or purchase it. It is simple and any learners (even with basic technological abilities) can utilise it. |
| Materials | There were no supporting materials that can be used to aid learning. | There were some useful and valuable supporting materials given in some parts of the course that aid with the learning. | There were useful and valuable supporting materials given in most part of the course that aid with the learning. | Useful and valuable supporting materials were given throughout the course and they aid with the learning process. |
| Interactivity | The course was not interactive at all. There were no form of interaction that can be made between the learner and the course. The course was in a “read/listen/watch only” mode. | Some parts of the course were interactive and interactivity was achieved some of the time. | Most parts of the course were interactive and interactivity was achieved most of the time. | The whole course was interactive and interactivity was achieved throughout the whole course. |
| Activities | There were no activities given in the course to help learning. | Some activities that are useful, valuable, incorporate listening, reading, writing and speaking are given in some parts of the course that aid with the learning. | Most parts of the course have useful and valuable activities that incorporate listening, reading, writing and speaking which assist with the learning. | Useful and valuable activities that incorporate listening, reading, writing and speaking which assist with the learning were given all throughout the course. a |
| Feedback | There was no constructive feedback given to the learner, only ‘correct or incorrect and/or good or bad’. | Some constructive feedbacks that are useful, valuable and aid with the learning are given in some parts of the course. | Most part of the course has constructive feedbacks that are useful, valuable and aid with the learning. | Throughout the whole course constructive feedbacks that are useful, valuable and aid with the learning are given. |
| Layout | The layout was unorganised, cluttered and was not appealing to the learner. | Some parts of the course was organised and was appealing to the learner. | Most part of the course was organised and was appealing to the learner. | All parts of the course were organised and was appealing to the learner. |
| Engagement | The course did not have any form of attractive feature that appeals to the learner and motivate her/him to pursue the course. | Some parts of the course have attractive features such as colours, pictures, audio visuals etc which motivated the learner to engage with the learning. | Most parts of the course have attractive features such as colours, pictures, audio visuals etc which motivated the learner to engage with the learning. | All parts of the course has attractive feature such as colours, pictures, audio visuals etc which motivated the learner to engage with the learning. |
| Content | The content of the course did not aid with the language learning. The content was dry and irrelevant to the expected outcomes. The content was too difficult or too easy for the learner. | Some of the content of the course did not aid with the language learning. Some of the content was dry and irrelevant to the expected outcomes. Some of the content was too difficult or too easy for the learner. | Most of the content of the course aid with the language learning. Most of the content was valuable, interesting and relevant to the course. The content was not easy or difficult. | All of the content in the course aid with the language learning. All of the content was valuable, interesting and relevant to the course. The content was not easy or difficult and the content provided learners with challenges. |
References
Geissinger, H. (1997) ‘Educational Software: Criteria for Evaluation’ Available from: http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth97/papers/Geissinger/Geissinger.html Accessed [9 Nov 2007]
Leacock, T. L., & Nesbit, J. C. (2007) ‘A Framework for Evaluating the Quality of Multimedia Learning Resources’, Educational Technology & Society, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 44-59.
McKendree, J. E. (1990) ‘Effective feedback content for tutoring complex skills’, Human Computer Interaction, Vol. 5, pp. 381–414.
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