The website is a learning site that teaches English and other

Transcription

1 Garrick Gulino Unit 4 Assignment Critique of eslgamesplus.com The website is a learning site that teaches English and other skills through games, reading materials, and videos. The following will be a critique of the informational interactive media found on To critique this website I will discuss how it successfully integrates the concepts and principles presented by Timothy Garrand in his, Writing for Multimedia and the Web, 3rd Edition. This website is a prime example if interactive multimedia because, as Garrand explains in Chapter 1, e-learning courses with exercises, examples, and student-teacher interactions are great examples of multimedia and this website seems to have these qualities. I will specifically focus on the games section of this site. Homepage: Immediately upon entering eslgamesplus.com there is the sense that the website is targeted towards a younger audience. This is due the use of vibrant colors and little animal graphics. Also, two of the game topics presented on the homepage are label 1 st to 3 rd grade and preschool to kindergarten. Not only this, but there is a link labeled Animated Kids English Lessons in the center of page. Just as in the case study of the Immersive Exhibit offered by Garrand in Chapter 24, the website owners must have been concerned that the desired content was included in the project. Because, it seems as though there is much content that can be easily digested by the target audience on this homepage. Take a look for yourself:

2 At the top of the homepage there is a main navigation pane with the options: Home, Games, Topics, Videos, PPT/Printables, and ipad/mobile. This navigation helps the site with its interpretability. As Garrand discusses in Chapter 7, students should be able to interrupt the program at any point and including standard navigation tools can help with interpretability. However, there is an issue with this site directly below the navigation pane. This is where there is what seems to be a slide show showing the user what the site has to offer. Once the user hovers the mouse over the graphic there is a little play button that shows up, which seems like it will play a video. However, this play button redirects the user to another page entirely and away from the home page. Here, the user thinks they are about interact with this graphic and play a video, when that is not the case at all. Take a look:

3 Structure: In chapter 8 Garrand describes the hierarchical branching organizational. According to him, with this structure information is organized in categories and subcategories. This allows users to click a category and then a subcategory to find the information that they want. Eslgamesplus.com is organized with hierarchical branching. One of drawbacks of hierarchical branching that Garrand discusses is that if there are too many levels of information, a branching explosion can occur. Unfortunately, this site is coming in dangerously close to a branching explosion (if it is not there already). On the homepage alone, which basically consists of the initial categories, there are at least 18 categories of games to choose from. Then, when the user chooses one of those categories the user is directed to another page that has WAY too many option all portrayed on the same page. Take a look:

4 This screen shot is only showing the top of the page the user can scroll down many, many times. Additionally, many of the links on this page redirect the user to a different site entirely, which can make for a very confusing experience. With a website structure like this is it the user is bound to get lost and not be able to make connections with the material entirely. It actually took some time to try to find a game that was offered by the site itself, but I did, and I was somewhat let down. Games: In Chapter 7 Garrand discusses the instructional principles embodied in games as outlined in an article by Professors Douglas Gentile and J. Ronald Gentile. The games on eslgamesplus.com do not see to fit these principles completely. I found a memory game offered by the site that consists of flash cards that attempt to teach people to learn English words by seeing a little picture of an action and then matching that picture with the word. There is also audio when an option is clicked on.

5 One of the principles offered by Garrand is that most games have multiple levels of difficulty, allowing a user to first master easier tasks and information and then move on to more difficult tasks. This principle is not portrayed in this game. There are no levels of difficulty in this particular game. I even refreshed the game to see if it would give me different words and it did not. Another principle that Garrand offers is that games usually offer multiple ways to solve the same problem. This principle is flatly not true of this game. There is only one way to solve

6 the game by matching the picture to the word. However, it must be said that the matches can be performed in whichever order the user chooses. On the other hand, this game might meet one of the principals offered by Garrand and that is the principle of the game experience. Garrand explicates, The nature of the game experience makes them [users] happy to continue to exercise that skill repeatedly in the game until it is absolutely mastered. I could see this being the case for this game. Matching games are fun to master. I personally played this game all the way through, even though English is my first language, just to finish it and master it. However, this may be the case with all games. It might just be human nature to want to master things. It does not mean that the game developers succeeded just because I wanted to master this game. The writer of this game does seem to have somewhat of the content expertise discussed by Garrand in Chapter 3. It seems like he or she knew what he or she was doing when it comes to writing for programs that teach different languages. This is shown by the choice of words that seem to be present in the games. The words chosen are very simple and straightforward. It is easy to see why these words are chosen for teaching children English because these are the best types of words to start with. These are the types of words I started with when learning Spanish. Conclusion: has good cause and I understand where the developers were trying to go with it. That is, to offer an all in one English learning site for kids. However, this site needs a lot of developmental work according to the principles we learned from Garrand throughout the semester. As this critique articulates there was a huge breakdown in the navigation of site. This was too the extent of a branching explosion! There was also issues with

7 the games, especially the one I focused on, and they just were not engaging the way Garrand explains how games should be engaging. Where the site succeeded somewhat was with its interpretability, as for the main navigation pane. However, it was very difficult to interpret the graphics that were directly below the main navigation pane. For the aforementioned reasons I would say this site fails the Garrand test.