It was a challenging experience. Doing it the first time, evaluating educational websites proved much more painstaking than I thought it was. It made me heave and sigh. But I learned many things that otherwise I would not had I not been given the task to do it.
The process of screening took me ages. It dawned to me that I used the wrong strategy upon realising that the deadline was just a few hours away and yet my output was still inadequate. I spent too much time exploring several websites thinking that I would find ideal websites that suit my selected criteria. Perhaps it is a mistake that an amateur website evaluator like me falls easy prey to.
I have realised how important was Session 3 of our DL class which concerned about the basic skill that ought to be mastered when finding information on the worldwide web. Evaluating websites is very challenging especially for an amateur like me. I have realised the need to harness skills necessary for this task.
I ought to learn more, practice again and again and discover how useful computers are beyond my limited exposure. The activity was an eye-opener for me. It was sobering to realise how little I understand and how enormous the challenges before me.
Maybe, I ought to "reboot my mind" (Dyck,2004) so as to make it easier to adopt computer-assisted learning strategies.
My sentiments exactly! I also started out by listing my criteria, as advised by the Susser and Robb and Dr Towndrow. I soon realised that it was almost impossible to meet the list of criteria. However, as I continued surfing, I was able to note down a few sites as I had subconsciously eliminated some points on my original list of criteria. I recalled a point that Dr Nelson shared after the class activity in week 3 - the site that meets all the criteria he set may not really be the one that is better. It all depends on our objectives and priorities. That helped me zoom in on a few sites albeit with much shorter and succinct criteria than the one I started out with.
ReplyDeleteYes, both of you are certainly right. It is impossible to satisfy all of the criteria when sourcing for resources. And if a site satisfies all the criteria, one needs to look into the site carefully to make sure that it meets the learning objectives that we set.
ReplyDeleteHi Chiayen,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience. I thought I was the only one who had a terrible experience searching for commendable websites. Maybe I should be less idealistic and look at the realistic side instead.As you have said, it all depends on our objectives and priorities...and let me add, context and target audience.
Hi Rachael,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts. Sometimes it takes experiencing the real thing to better understand the challenges that surround the tasks.