Reflection on my project after reading classmates’ feedback

Thanks Billo, Zahran, Karen, Jennifer, Oscar, Nattythai, Jean and Molly for all your positive and constructive comments on my website. I will list the constructive feedback first and give my own oponion. Then I will list their positive feedback as well.

Billo: Your page is so full, I would think your students will get puzzled.
Zahran: You gave too many websites which may confuse the students.
Karen: Students having to do a lot of reading. If they have to read a lot, they might lose interest in the activities and not have as much fun.
Oscar: You put too much information on Hong Kong. Too much information sometimes de-motivates the students.
Molly: There is too much information for them to read.

I take their points. I put too much information on my website. Regarding 10 to 13 years old students, I am so demanding, students need much patience and pay attention to read through all the reading articles in order to complete the tasks. Students can develop their reading skills but not have fun. Some students may find the tasks beyond their abilities.

Zahran: You can put some home buttons in your activities to make it easy for students to navigate in your website.
Karen: I don't like the way the learner has to keep switching between the reading and the cloze exercise or quiz. I lose track.
Jean: When I did the cloze, I found I had to go back to the home page to open those links. Would you please consider adding hyperlinks to your instruction? That would be more convenient.

I agree with all of you. I think I need to put the links to the original text.

Zahran: I think you need to give some more clues for the crossword because I found it is difficult, perhaps you need to give some statements to make it easy for students to answer.
Karen: As a learner, I would prefer the crossword clues to all be visible not only when you click on the number. That way, I can scan the clues for something I know the answer to as a way of getting started.
Molly: I also think you should give students more hint in order to help them to finish the crossword.

They suggest a good point! I will add some crossword clues in order to reduce the difficulty of the task. I did not realize that the crossword was too hard. Only 12 animals’ name, some students may think it is not a big challenging task for them if I add clues.

Zahran: It is nice to give some animation but too many will distract students from focusing on doing activities.
Karen: I am distracted by all the animation, too many things moving. I believe it should only move, it is needs to draw attention to that spot.

I do not think I put too many graphics and animated pictures on my website. My target audience is primary school students and the moving objects could motivate them to learn.

On the other hand, I also obtained some kindly feedback from the above classmates.

Billo: Your content is fine.
Zahran: I really liked your website, it is really amazing.
Jennifer: You also have two listening practices (dialogues) for the learners. I like the mixed-up sentence exercises you designed because the photos and pictures you put on them make the learning more amusing.
Nattytha: What I love about your website is that a requirement that students need to read the texts, or listen to the dialogues about Hong Kong before doing each activity can give students more opportunities to improve their language abilities.
Oscar: Students read to write, or listen to write on your website. This seems a meaningful way of learning English.

Thanks again for all the nice and constructive suggestions. There are rooms for improvement in my website. From my point of view, WebQuest and Website projects can enhance my teaching and learning. Students may feel excited and motivated to learn a language if they think the activities and the tasks are interesting.

To start creating the above projects, I think one of the major problems was to decide the interesting tasks for students. I had to do much research on the related topic, so the tasks could be effective to the personal development of the students, and also interesting to students. Providing students with useful websites could increase efficiency. Students could focus on doing the tasks to consolidate their skills. It is hard to make a balanced approach between creativity and difficulty.

Through the WebQuest and Website projects, I learned how to use the dreamweaver to create a webpage, the flash marker to design some creative graphics and the hot potatoes to create interactive and communicative activities. It is said that learning by doing is a good way to acquire a language and skills. It is absolutely true! I have gained plenty of knowledge how to use IT tools in teaching English as a second / foreign langauge. All of these experiences are valuable and enjoyable.