CALL WEBSITE EVALUATION..huhuhu..

this is the submission of second assignment in CALL. i hope my honest and transparent evaluation will be useful for the development of integrating ICT IN CLASSROOM.

the website's address - http://www.englishmaze.com/main/home.html

1)this particular website is targetting both students and teachers who want to explore the English Language deeper. it is useful not only for students but to teachers as well. this is because, this website provides various type of exercises to enhance student's understanding and activities for teachers to explore and integrate them into their teaching classroom. One unique thing about this website is, there is no exact requirement of what proficiency level one needs to acquire to be able to utilize all the activities as it provides activity that vary in the level of difficulty. having to say that, it does not restrict and limit its contain to intermidiate level of students but due to the varierities and options given, even low proficiency students are able to engage in the activity.

2) for this particular language web, users are expected to first, choose their proficiency level. it is advisable for the users to start off with beginner level first before junp to the higher level. this will be very useful to first time users who do not know on which level they are in. next, they are expected to choose topic that interest them the most. this particular program provides all kind of topics that will cater to everyone's need. the next thing users need to do is to try out all the activies provided within the selected topic. users are expected to learn and explore the language on their own so it is entirely up to them, on what activities will they want to do.

3) in order to operate and utilize this application, users are expected to know basic internet skill. As long as users know how to log in to the web, nothing needs to be worried. This application is very simple and user friendly, as users need to only read and follow the pop in instruction and within second, they can explore the whole web.

4) Honestly, this application did reminds me of my lower form learning activities. The only difference is that, i did not use computer at that time. My English teaher at that time loved to give us work in pieces, and it is our job to either fill in the blank, seperate the big chunk of words or even translate them in our mother tongue. Beside that, this application provides various opportunities for users to learn on how to speak and listen in English and one of the activity that really bring back memory is to listen to BBC recording. I can still recall the time where my teacher carried a huge radio to class every Monday and we had to listen to the recording and figure out what is it all about. As computer was not a privilage at that time, my poor teacher had to record all the recording by her own and even worst, she had to carry a huge radio all the way from staffroom to class.

5) in my opinion, this website is best used in independent study lab. This application offers individual learning so it will work best if each students is given a computer and he or she will be able to explore the web on his or her own pace. This will help to maximize the learning opportunity as each student has different level of proficiency and asking them to share the same activit will somehow limit their creativity. Teaher does not need to assist the students as instructions given are clear and understandable.

6) This application is paralel to contructivism learning theory as users or students are actively engage in all the actvity which offer full use of the language. In this application, students need to use all the knowledges or inputs that they have learnt or newly learnt to complete all the task. This is very much similar to what constructivism theory claimed- students are active participants in a task in which they “construct” new knowledge based on experience in order to incorporate new ideas into their already-established schema of knowledge. The other learning theory that underlie in this application is the sociocultural theory. This theory states that learning is a part of a desired community and learning that communities rule of behaviour and all the actvities in this application are very much related to society. Every activity is based on one issue which they can relate to their daily life.

7) This application is very much related to Vygostky's constructivist theory as it gives ample opportunity to students to use their newly acquired language together with their existing knowledge. Through all the activies in this applicatio, the understanding of certain topics will be greatly enhanced. Other than that, this application is also parallel to Gradner's Multiple Intelligence as it provides all kind of activities that cater for every level of students, be it low proficiency to high proficiency. Each activity has different type of difficulty, so students will have the privillage to choose any level of difficulty that they think suit them.

8) In relation to my evaluation, computer can be considered as a replacement of teacher. The traditional teacher-students method is no longer relevance as the duty of correcting the students has been taken over by the application. With this application, students will be able to do independant learning without having to depend on the teacher anymore. Everything can be done individually, so obviously teacher is not required if they were to use this application.

9) I dont know whether the use of computer in school has been widely utilized but for me, i would not hesitate to use this application in my future work. I dont see the disadvantage of using this application to my future students, so most probably i will integrate this application soon. Plus, i can save a lot of time and reduce workloads. At least, the burden and the hassle of producing test papers as well as marking them will be lessen. Plus, I will be able to promote independent learning to my students which I think will help them more than spoon feeding style.

10) The only suggestion that I have for this application is to improve its graphical aspect. I dont really like the color sheme of the web as it seems dull and unattaractive. It is important to make the page look nice and colorful as it will attract student's eyes. As for the recommendation, I
hope teachers all over the nation will consider introducing this application to their students.