Barbara’s thoughts…

Assignment 3 Final Reflection

I chose to do the online Chinese language short course offered on the BBC.co.uk website. I found it very interesting and interactive with how the layout of the site was set out. At BBC.co.uk, they offer other language short courses and each one is distinct and traditional in their own ways. As for the Chinese one there are pictures in the background that relate to the Chinese culture.

So the course took around 2hrs, because it was just the very basics of the Chinese language, which is what I expected of a free online course, but the course was actually very interactive. You won’t need high speed internet for the site to work which is a very good characteristic of this e-learning course.

For starters, the blue underline shows the two maybe most recognisable Chinese characters, so I was able to see that it was Chinese and everything had headings and a short description in the box to let the user know the origins of the Chinese language and also a few lines on how to start the course.

The green shows the loading of the page. It load up pretty quickly while your reading the information on the side in the box, next to the picture; most of the time the loading would’ve finished and you will be able to start the course instantly.

The red circles show the easy navigation on the e-learning course; whereby the user can click on the link, let’s say Challenge and will automatically be shown the little 5 question quiz on the topic they are on.

This course has other interactive features. Like the sound only option, lets the user hear the computer speak Chinese phrases. This is a very good feature for users who aren’t sure of how to pronounce a word properly, because if a word in Chinese is pronounced wrong it would end up being an entirely different word. I found this part of the course very helpful with my understanding of the Chinese language.

In this slide, I underlined and circled the navigation. How this course was set up, it is very appealing for users to get interactive with it. As it shows pictures for visual learning, and the icons on the links show the Chinese font style, which made it a very interesting for me, it gave me the sense of role playing, because the layout made it easy to follow.

After every sub-course within the Chinese course there is a Summary/Challenge. You get asked five questions and you get tested on what u learnt earlier in the e-learning course. This method was very effective for me in learning and the interaction with the voice-over made me speak words out loud as well.

So summing up, I found the course to be interesting and very helpful. It was good that the site kept the layout constant, that there wasn’t that much loading time, good visual pictures for an easier learning experience and of course the navigation made it that much easier. But what I found most useful was the challenges that the end of each subject which will help users learn better and get the information just learnt in a span of 2-3 hrs to be remembered longer then by just reading a textbook which isn’t very interactive.

Finished! By:   Barbara Chan