E learning Experiences Assignment 3 Final Review
For this assignment, we had to choose an e-learning course and complete four hours of it, blogging our expectations, thoughts and experiences whilst we complete it. I chose to complete a BBC language course on German, which is an online course. Throughout high school I studied Japanese and absolutely loved it and have previously considered going to face-to-face classes to learn the basics of another language however never got around to it. I had never thought of doing it online (and for free!) before E-learning Experiences. The BBC website offered a variety of different subjects and I narrowed it down to German and Spanish, finally choosing German due to interest in the language, history and culture. The reason I chose the BBC website to complete the course through was simply because it was recommended as a good one in the module activity guide. I did not even consider searching for other language options, however maybe I should have in order to see what was available before making my choice.
The main aim for this course, as stated on the BBC website is to provide “an introduction to German language and culture, designed for use in social and work contexts.” It also continued to list further objectives for each module which went into more detail, these are listed under 25th October in my blog. My main expectation for this course was to be able to speak and understand basic German by the completion of the modules. I also expected it to be interesting and be able to engage the learner by providing a range of activities to help the learning process.
The first hour was the most interesting, because the experience was new and the easiest. At first I felt stupid talking to the computer, however I got over this. I made a few comments after the first hour, making reference to the easy to follow structure of the course and large amount of learner interaction. However I did note that the repetitive nature of the course was getting rather annoying.
The next time I continued with the course I knew what to expect. I was not surprised to find that I barely remembered anything from the previous hour as I have the memory of a goldfish and it had been about a week. I therefore used the brief review from the module completed earlier. I found this helped. My thoughts from this hour and a half of learning were similar to that of the first hour. However I was not going as carefully though every section this time.
The next day I completed another hour of the course. By the end of this hour I was rather over the whole thing. I only had half an hour to go to complete the four hours however I really felt I could not finish it and had had enough experience to write a review.
After completing 3.5 hours of the course I am in two minds about it. It do believe that it is a good course which is effective for giving the learner a basic overview of the German language and culture. However there are various aspects of the course which could be improved. Its positives and negatives are listed below (according to the evaluation table in module 3):
Positives:
- Technology was efficient, I had no problems with speed or connection.
- Very high level of learner interactivity such as speaking, matching words, writing.
- Feedback was provided for activities such as matching words and definitions. When learning a language I would like feedback on my speaking, however this cannot be done on a computer.
- Content was open for different levels of expertise and provided activities to allow the learner to practice their new skills.
- Navigation of content was good as it had an easy to follow layout and I was able to come back to where I left off with no trouble.
- There is a section for FAQs as well as an option to send a message to the BBC.
- Meets objectives.
- Voices clear and easy understand.
- Extra learning available. For example, vocabulary lists.
Negatives:
- Repetitive with the activities- not enough variation.
- Not enough words/phrases covered in each topic
- Can not receive feedback on speaking
I believe it may have helped if I had another incentive besides interest, such as visiting the country and needing to know the language. This would have helped me to concentrate and remember the works and phrases more effectively.
This course was able to cater to every aspect of the learning styles, therefore as I have a multi-modal learning style, this course was good for me. As learning through e-learning always must have a visual component (which I scored highest in) this influences my experience as a learner through providing me with the best method of learning.
In conclusion, I believe this is a leaner friendly course. The nature of the topic provides it with complications of being 100% effective, even though, I would still recommend this course to people, however only in small doses.
