Abouts
BBC's Ks2 Bitesize is an educational website from BBC network. It is for children from primary 1-3. It is a website that hosts as an archive that has information and games for 3 subjects.(English, Maths and Science.) and in each subject it is divided into different topics.In each topic, it has 4 steps to learning.First games, secondly reading,thirdly watch a video and lastly a quiz.It is systematic and it caters to the needs of different learners(kinesthetic,auditory and visual).It also can be used by teachers as a teaching material and activities for students.
Interface Design
It has a good design on the visual perspective.It has a good proximity and similarity on items that should be classify together.Like separating different items with boxes and different color and their placement. With colorful picture and words to guide students, it is useful for teachers to gain their attention and helps in independent learning for students.
The users then can click on the game to play and they can choose which one of the activities they want to do first.When they mouse over the icon, immediately, a star would appear to indicate that they can click on the icon.The arrow is also a tip for students to go through step by step.All of the icons can be click and it gives student a control of their own learning to do whatever activities is chosen.
When an activity is chosen, at the bottom of the screen, they will be icons of other activity to allow students to go to activities that they have not done.
All of the games are closely related to topic, In the game it will display the objective before u start the game. and it also can be displayed in blog or website with codes provide.It is really useful to teachers to put in their school website.
Reading
The reading material is short and simple for the student to understand.It has graphics as an example to help student understand better.The sentences has words in bold that indicate that it is a keyword or it is important. It does not squeeze all the information to 1 page but separated it into different where student can click next page or previous.It helps by not overloading their brain, hence they can understand better.
Video
The video is loadable and it is able to play without stopping for buffering.But i do not like the video beacuse it seems like it has not been updated for long and the characters are not that attractive.But it differs from user.
Quiz
The Quiz is useful for teachers to assess how well they have learn using the website and the quiz can be marked by the computer and it also provides the answer for the student.But the teacher will need to give a further explanation.The quiz also can printed out for students.The disadvantage of the quiz is that they are all mulitple choice, it may not be the best way to assess the student.
Before Marked
Marked Quiz.
Overall i think this is an excellent website.
Abouts
This is a website is from the USA. IT started out as a teacher's classroom website, and their motive for creating this website is to make learning free for everyone as long as they have internet access. Since it is a free website, they often rely on advertiser to keep the website working.I feel that it is unprofessional for an education filled with advertisements.It also has tons of information,games,3D animation learning movies and free music about many topics which includes:
They did not classify the their topics into a certain subject like example like human bio and animals can be group under science.But instead, for each topic they created a different site.
When clicked, it goes to individual site.
Interface Design
The interface is very messy with too many things squeeze in together,It has poor organization and proximity.It confuses the user of how they navigate around the website.They are many redundant information on the site, they should be remove as it can lessen the over crowding of the site.
Although the website is very messy, it has a lot of animation and colorful and realistic diagram and icons.I think this really gets the attention of the user and it makes their learning more memorable.
They also included their facebook and twitter links on their main page.I think this is a good way to spread the word about the site and it makes it easier and fast.With social website being popularly use today, i am sure it is useful for teachers to connect with student through facebook and twitter about this site. They could also update their users about what going on with the site. I think this is a great way to interact with the user knowing more about what they want and what we can offer them.
To compensate on the messy interface of the website, they included a search bar.This good cause it gives the user to search their topic instead of having to do it manually, it faster and it benefits the user.but I think that it is unprofessional and inappropriate to put advertisement on an educational website.
Reading
The reading information has too much information and the key words are not highlighted.Too much words are difficult for some learners to remember.And there is no indication of what the user has selected it is confusing for the user.
3D Animation Movies
They have lots have 3d animation videos but the problems is it is only located at the site of the main page.I think for users who glance through the website may miss the icon to click for the movies.
They have a range of videos with different topic and if a movie is selected, it will be something like this, the video will first start of with the intro of the objects then user may click start the movie to play:
Start of movie
The narrator is reading off the text on the screen.It is redundant and it distracts the user and it is a cognitive load for users which makes it difficult for them to learn.The yellow color background is too bright, it may be a discomfort for some users.
Games
The game is closely related to the topic.It is good that they have objectives on the start of the game.But there is too much information that is not directly link to the game which is not appropriate at all as it may confuse the user.
Overall i feel that this is not a good website as there are too much errors and interface problems that i have mention on the above.
The Kids National Geographic educational site is from Nation Geographic. It focus more on general information like people around the world and its wildlife , although its is not closely related to school subject, it teaches child about moral values and being responsible and care for the environment, wildlife and less fortunate people around the world..The website is being put into 8 categories, animals,games, video,stories, activities, people and places, photo and blog.
The interface is filled with colours and it has a good colour contrast and proximity.It has been organised. It does not confuse the user.It also has slides show when they display a feature i think this good as it saves space.It also a great search bar.I think the advertisement are okay as it a product of their site.The banners at the side is also good as they are promoting charity work
Animals
I feel that in an education website sufficient and relevant information is important, it has a wide range of animals and they are classify in groups.In the animal page, it also has a previous to allow user to have a short instead press back of the page.It also has a good instruction of telling users what they are able to do.
When the animals is selected it will lead to this page:
Video
There is some minor issues with the loading, i guess that the files are too big, it may not be able to satisfy users who are hasty and did not wish to wait.
After loading it would be something like this:
I like the interface, because it has many options for the user, and there is also a feedback to inform the user that the link can be clicked.There is also a control for the user and i really feel that as a user if i see some interesting videos i would like to share with my friend, with share function its easy, it was something that i was not expecting, they really think about the users needs. Short description is also provided and it is short and clear for users to understand.
Games
There is wide range of game that it is provided, but the only think i did not like about it as it must be bought for users to enjoy the full game, It's too commercial and i feel that many users would avoid playing the games as they know they could not finish the game.
An example of the game:
The game have a clear objective and it has control and menu for the user to change to suit their need.
Reading
The reading material is too long and it feels like a newspaper filled with information, it cannot sustain users attention but effort is that they put a picture that gives a clear view of what is important in the reading material
Overall i feel that this is a great website, with the color and realistic drawing picture many choices and information it definitely will encourage user to explore and learn about the world and wildlife
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